Riding a bike around gives you a very different viewpoint of the world. I’ve been riding seriously for a couple of years but I’m still surprised at stuff that I see. It occasionally reminds me of the time my wife and I spent crawling around our house on our hands and knees “baby proofing” everything. A different perspective.
I’ve been riding up and down the Parkway path the past couple of days. It’s really the first time since winter relented that I’ve ridden that path. The winter hasn’t been kind to that path (I give it a couple of years before it’s unrideable by road bikes). In any event, riding up and down the shoulder of a major road really opens your eyes to the carnage that cars leave in their wake.
Now, I say that as a car guy. I love driving with the top down on a beautiful day and I can’t imagine having to ride a bike everywhere I go. That strikes me as kinda extreme. However, the cost of the car to America is staggering – Virginia as a state doesn’t have any money to spend on new roads and cannot afford the maintenance on the ones we have. Even when the economy recovers it won’t be enough.
There is, however, another kind of cost. As I ride down the bike path there is trash everywhere. Dead animals are strewn about. One deer got hit so hard by a car that it was thrown about 20 feet onto the bike path. They usually don’t fly that far. Yards and yards of guard rail have been destroyed. One car get so out of control that it clipped the guard rail, crossed the rock-filled ditch and crushed part of the bike path. Broken car parts are everywhere. It really is just amazing how much damage is done and how much trash is strewn around. Lord knows how many people are killed or maimed each year. It’s simply carnage.
I also believe that people are, by and large, less skilled drivers than folks used to be. Cars have become something you point in the direction you want to go and push the pedal. Few people follow any rules whatsoever, even the basics like turn signals and if you are counting on cars to stop before going right on red, you’re going to die. Texting while driving should so be illegal – I was waved through an intersection on Friday by a woman who was talking on one phone and texting on a second. I’ve been passed by dump trucks whose drivers were texting. A truck that size would squish me and not even notice although the driver might hit the wrong key while he’s texting.
I find it relatively unsettling that I have no end for this observation, no call to action. No closure today. I’ll simply stop.
April 17, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Yup…too bad texting was made a secondary offense by the boys & girls of the GA in 2009. If a primary, you could have had fun stopping and turning in license plate numbers. As for the trash et. al., the County Clean Community Council is supposed to be so concerned about that and other things (gets John Jenkins going about their lack of work). I suggest you get our Neighborhood Services to call their Neighborhood Services to file a citizen’s complaint.
April 17, 2011 at 12:08 pm
The Appalachian Trail has clubs that adopt a segment of the trail and keep it maintained. Maybe that’s something your bikemanassas.org folks could do, adopt segments of the bike path. Adopt-a-Trail.
As a pedestrian, I pick up trash daily and remove or report many obstacles around the elementary school: branches, cables running across sidewalks from utility poles to houses, bent hangers, wet and rotting Pulse newspapers still in the plastic bags and broken bottles.
The good news is, the 64-gal. recycle carts w/lids the city invested in are paying off in 1) less recyclables blown about and 2) more people recycling, so they have more room in trash cans and less loose bags ripped open curbside by animals.
April 17, 2011 at 6:16 pm
Andy,
There is already state code. “Failure to pay full time and attention”. Why law enforcement does not USE that code against texters and callers, well, you’ll have to ask the law enforcement folks.
April 18, 2011 at 5:53 am
Some couple of years ago Tom Grizzard and I rode down to McCoart and back. The trip down was uneventful, but when we came back up to Manassas, we discovered a car had left the Parkway, crossed over the bike path upon which we had ridden not much before, and lay on it’s roof. There were four people inside, all wearing seat belts and none of them hurt, but all of them at least modestly surprised. The police had just arrived and the “rescue” had begun. Tom and I contemplated that while we anticipated flats on the Parkway even then, we did not, as a rule, expect to get hit by a car. But for the chance of timing, we would have been roadkill ourselves. The car was from Maryland, which gives me yet another opportunity to ask why no Marylander gets drver’s education.
April 18, 2011 at 8:46 am
The parkway and 234 have become high-speed commuter routes, but unfortunately “high-speed” has become a subjective term. Whereas the posted speedlimit may be 55 mph, folks have come to view this as a “suggestion”. Driver’s are much more distracted now, but by a lot more than mobilephones and texting. We have GPS and Bluetooth. Internet in the dash, and satelite radio. So much more for the senses and the brain to perceive and process.
I also think that as cars have become “safer”, people feel they can push the envelope. Airbags and “crumple zones”, etc. send the message that the odds of death and injury are low enough to warrant taking chances when driving.
I can remember the sound of the gravel in the wheel-wells as my Dad pulled over to administer a (well-deserved) spanking, when I committed the crime of doing things that were distracting him, like complaining there was nothing to do in the car, or teasing my sister.
I don’t think there is more trash around. I think I’ve just become more aware of it, now that I am on a bike. I do think we should leverage our “youthful offenders” or others convicted of crimes where community service or restitution is part of the sentence. When I was a kid, several of older guys from my neighborhood had to spend much of their day picking up trash, cutting grass, removing road-kill, etc.
April 19, 2011 at 7:28 am
Andy,
People assume they have the “right” to drive. There is no right to driving, it’s a privilege. Not everyone is entitled to driving, but that’s how the system has come to be. The driving test is a joke. The fact for years on years, Maryland allowed anyone, illegal or not, to obtain a MD license, by showing a MD address, is another cause, and to a certain extent VA can be blamed to for not weeding out illegals at a better rate.
As for stopping for stop signs or red lights, you are correct. Because of my job, I’m on the road a lot and I see it every day. The City could solve our debt issue in a matter of days if officers sat at any intersection and pulled over people who did not stop, signal, etc. It’s all about “me” to drivers today. It’s also an indication of society at large, as we have become more diverse and larger, rudeness and disdain for all has grown.