Bike riders do more harm than good

Bike riders do more harm than good
By C.R. Green, Albany Park
August 14, 2006
Copyright by Te Chicagio Sun Times

The proliferation of bicycles on public roads is damaging the quality of life, and it's time we all faced some realities on the subject.

First, people need their motor vehicles and aren't going to give them up. It is simply not practical to flood our streets with bicycles while it remains vital to society that people and goods get where they're going with the speed, efficiency and comparative safety that motor vehicles provide.

Second, bicycles are not going to stop global warming. What today's cars and bicycles have in common is that they are both outmoded technologies. Part of the answer to global warming is clean automotive technology -- not, as Seinfeld told Kramer, ''Just what the city needs -- more cumbersome, slow-moving vehicles,'' which in this case save less than a drop in the bucket's worth of pollution.

It is true that cycling is good exercise. So are walking, jogging, swimming, aerobics, working out at the health club and any number of sports activities that don't block traffic or expose the exerciser to broken limbs. Given the options, bicycling is one of the poorest choices possible.

Driving a motor vehicle requires maximum attention at all times. The more bikes are on the street that motorists have to defer to, the more attention is taken from everything else they have to watch for. The more cyclists take to the streets, therefore, the more accidents they are going to cause.

The amount of unnecessary stress this causes motorists, who more often than not are just trying to get to or from work or get their errands done, is unconscionable. But if motorists must put up with bicycles on the road, would it be too much to ask that cyclists take some responsibility for their own safety? Requiring cyclists who want to use the same roads as motor vehicles to carry insurance the same as motor vehicles would be a good start.

Ultimately, there is not one valid argument in favor of increased bicycle activity, and plenty of arguments against it. Please leave the bicycles at home. They are doing more harm than good.