Editor:
Ah, why do the hateful among us see cyclists as freeloaders living free of fees, free of sales and income taxes, free of house, car and health insurance premiums, free of municipal utility bills, free of property taxes, free of ad infinitum?
Cyclists pay the taxes everybody else does. What's more, 99.9 per cent of cyclists drive vehicles and so they pay the costs of the road that cyclist-haters, in their paranoia, believe that they pay all by themselves.
And as motorists, cyclists know the rules of the road, which, by the way, most cell-phone drivers and cyclist-haters ignore with great abandon, just ask ICBC and other car insurance companies.
Cyclists on sidewalks? Well, I can understand why cyclists take to sidewalks along some routes: there are no provisions made for their safety, and too many drivers don't consider cyclists' vulnerability; rather, they insist on speeding right on by, forcing cyclists into lanes of parked cars, or into curbs, or off into ditches.
Does Delta have bike lanes? Sort of, yes, if stylized pictures of bicycles painted in white along road edges count, yes, Delta has plenty, but what protection do they give? None.
As for the so-called bike lanes provided for along the edges of wider roads, well, lines of white paint and more white pictures of bikes don't offer much protection from distracted drivers. And, more often than not, those so-called bike lanes are used for parking and walking dogs, leaving the sidewalks unused.
Hey, if you're among those who need to hate, go after harder targets than cyclists.
Greg J. Edwards
