By: Diane Benjamin

Bikers are their own worst enemy! Bike Blono guy Michael Gorman was quoted in the paper saying bikers don’t ride on the roads to disrupt traffic. Since he is a reader: Yes Michael bikers do disrupt traffic.

When a motorcycle is hit by a car, the driver of the car frequently says he didn’t see the cycle. Think a bike is going to be seen any better than a motorcycle?

Anyway, one instance of a bike blocking traffic I was willing to overlook. Now I have two stories. Since I’m not driving in town every day, residents have probably seen the same things many time.

A couple of weeks ago I was on Streid Drive heading south toward Ireland Grove Rd. Streid is the road Oakland turns into when it curves around the airport. Traffic was heavy in both directions, so when I got to a lady doing 10 miles an hour on her bike, I could not pass her. Since I was in no hurry, I just followed at 10 miles an hour behind her. Soon at least 10 cars were behind me all going 10 miles per hour.

The lady had ample opportunities to pull off on 2 or 3 side roads, but she was oblivious to how she was disrupting traffic. The speed limit is 40 or 45 on Streid.

Then Friday I was heading east on Ireland Grove out by BENJAMIN School. (Yep, a relative of my husband donated the land). It was sometime between 3:00 and 3:20pm. Traffic was heavy in both directions, mostly due to people picking up their kids from Cornerstone Christian Academy. Suddenly traffic is at less than 10 miles per hour. The speed limit is 40 before by Benjamin School and 55 after.

This time there were at least 5 cars ahead of me and 20 after me. All of us were blocked by – you guessed it – a guy on a bike. I didn’t see how he got there, but when traffic started moving again I passed the guy in the ditch. Hopefully he put himself there because he realized he was a menace. He was no novice rider, he was outfitted in a riding suit with an expensive looking bike.

Government makes stupid laws all the time. Allowing tiny bikes on the same roads with thousands of pounds of cars is near the top of the list. Since I found two bikers in two weeks more than willing to disrupt traffic because they have a “right” to be on the road, bikers are ruining their chances of ever being accepted as equals. The two bikers I encountered give all bikers a bad name.

Bike Blono can claim all they want that they have rights. It doesn’t matter. Some women think they have a right to kill their babies too. How is that working out?

Government didn’t have a common sense when they decided to promote biking on heavily traveled roads and then declare bikers have “rights”. Government thoughts lack common sense, biker’s need to make up for it by at least being considerate of larger and faster machines capable of squashing them.

What say you Michael?