I am constantly amazed at the things that people will try to ban in this country.
St. Charles County Missouri wants to ban bikes on a number of highways in their county.
Now, the County Council doesn't actually have the authority to ban bikes on the roads. But they have decided that this is a matter of safety. Which the numbers clearly contradict:
- According to Missouricaraccident.com Missouri auto fatalities in the year 2006 were nearly 1100 total. Of those fatalities .06% were bike related which is down from the national average of 1.8% Now in case you were wondering, .06% if 11 is 6.6 deaths for the entire year of 2006. But this isn't for St. Charles County. This is for the ENTIRE STATE OF MISSOURI!
- By contrast, 76 Missouri pedestrians were killed in the state of Missouri in 2006.
- Smoking causes 10,300 deaths in Missouri each year.
- Missouri is also home of 12.3 firearm related deaths each year per 100,000 people which is good enough for 19th in the country. St. Charles county has a population of 353,076 which means that there are over 36 deaths per year just in St. Charles Co. alone each year from firearms.
I think you get the point.
So if there are other things out there that are more dangerous than Bicycles on a few highways then why are the residents of this county working so hard to ban bikes?
Why do they not have a time frame in place to actually build the shoulders on the road that this article claims is the reason why Stephen East's daughters were unable to stay on the road in their accident in 2003.
Stephen East, by the way, is the father of 2 teenage girls who were in an accident in 2003 when they swerved to avoid a cyclist who was in the middle of the road. His daughter's accident is one of the things that is being talked about all across the media in order to gain sympathy for the bike ban.
I just want to take a second to point out a couple of reasons that this accident would not have been prevented even if there was a ban on bikes in this county.
- First, the cyclist who was "in the middle of the road" was clearly not obeying traffic laws. If he was not following the laws that govern the rules of the road what makes anyone think that he would have been following a ban?
- The driver of the car was 16 years old. Her reaction was not the same as that as a seasoned driver. Also, the state law in Missouri has been since changed and she would not have been driving with her under aged sister in the car if this accident had happened today.
I wonder if any of his emails came from Dennis Brown who says that Cyclists have set up parties in his front yard and refused to leave and that: "They're urinating behind your bushes, they're sitting on your porch and they're playing music at 3 and 4 in the morning and," he said. "When you go to talk to them, they're not a friendly bunch."
My suspicion is that most of the emails are from people who are just angry at the fact that they are slowed down by cyclists. Who obviously are going slower than the posted 55 MPH speed limits in the areas where the ban is proposed.
Despite the fact that Patty Vinyard, executive director of the St. Louis Regional Bike Federation, says: "Their funding sources are limited. They have to ration their funding" and "This ban could go on for years or even decades."
Joe Brazil says "If it's, 'There's nothing we're going to do, we have that right,' we're going to butt heads and butt heads for a long time,"
What a way to use those limited funding sources wisely.
We would all be better served to follow the League of American Bicyclists suggestions on sharing the road. It would be much safer for both drivers and cyclists.
Further reading:
Black Hawk Co. Bike ban
Stay safe in traffic
Road Rights
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