It is not possible to say anymore that something is the ‘dumbest thing I have ever seen’. Our government – especially the federal government – just keeps outdoing themself with stupidity, and there is barely a speck left in America that they don’t have their greedy fingers on.
North Roosevelt Boulevard provides a small sampling of this government overreach. There are now so many signs on the road that a driver trying to read them all would have no time left to watch the road. Of particular interest, are the multitude of signs letting us all know that bicyclists have two lanes of the highway for their own personal use.
With a perfectly good sidewalk available for casual cycling, our government instead tells them to ride in the middle of the highway, where people are traveling to work, taking kids to school, and generally trying to traverse our crowded town. Most all cyclists have the good sense to ignore the government directive, and ride on the far safer sidewalk.
I have however twice been behind cyclists riding down the middle of the lane at 20 MPH. Our Euro-tour riders wore helmets, rode bikes with rail thin tires, and had a seat hidden somewhere under the spandex butts. To say that it created a dangerous situation, is to understate the anger and tension of drivers trying desperately to get around them.
The riders were likely very nice people, and may have only been following the government’s directive to ride on the highway. However, my own thought was that they were enjoying their sense of entitlement, flaunting the fact that they had as much right to the highway as the cars and trucks, and possibly even enjoying the massive pileup of cars behind them.
While my thoughts about these two may be wrong, it is an opinion shared by almost everyone who has had the experience. A 20 MPH bicyclist on a 25 MPH street is acceptable for a place like Key West, however, riding down the middle of a 35MPH lane at 20 MPH is dangerous and just plain stupid.
