No Explosions: An Advantage of Bikes for Less-Abled Riders: Hand Cranker Bicycling is not for everyone! However, it's important to note, an organization in Berkeley, California, (BORP.org) is building hand-operated bicycles for paraplegics. The freedom these vehicles represent to an individual who's lost the use of their legs cannot be overstated. The ability to transport oneself without electricity, +/or filthy, terribly hazardous, polluting and ultra-heavy lead/acid batteries that wear out quickly and can strand, immobilize, and endanger a disabled individual, is to cherish and express the concept of personal freedom and independence. These recumbent style bicycles, like wheelchairs, should always be outfitted with tall bright triangle orange safety flags when there's any risk of collisions with other traffic. Auto- and Wheelchair-Battery Pitfall. It is important to recognize the horrible impacts of lead mining and battery manufacturing. The batteries can cause horrible burns when acid is spilled or leaks. The hydrogen gas that bubbles out of this dangerous and polluting technology is wildly hazardous and can and does explode routinely. It's a leading cause of blindness and burn injuries in the US today. Usually on a wheelchair, the charging is done indoors, and, with energy conservation driving home insulation projects to where indoor air pollution is extreme, hydrogen gas can accumulate to a dangerous degree in an enclosed space. Typically, it's the auto owner who's put a battery on a charge in a near-air tight auto garage, who ends up causing an acid explosion when the spark of disconnecting the charger ignites an accumulation of hydrogen gas. There can be a certain joy to noticing how bicycles can work to escape myriad problems of deadly technologies. See www.Borp.org; and www.Baystep.org. Bicycles can represent the ultimate expression of personal freedom as well as a near-perfect rendition of the concept of appropriate technology.
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Generally the best strategy is to always arrive to appointments, clinics, hospitals and medical offices by bicycle. Discovering how well prepared this country's health care system is for bicyclists is in itself an important lesson in health care in America. Two of my last three emergency room visits were by bicycle (which had nothing to do with my injuries. The third visit I walked in.) Bringing a high value bicycle to a hospital can in itself be an emergency since it often turns out that no one in the US has realized that bicycles have anything to do with healthy exercise. It's as though the health care system buys the premise, lock, stock, and barrel, that bicyclists should be subject to the hegemony of the MTC. (MTC in the San Francisco Bay Area stands for Metropolitan Transportation Commission, but for the purposes of this blog, and for all practical purposes in the Bay Area, it stands for Marginalize, Trivialize, and Criminalize bicycling. ) Be very careful not to startle nor bump into the patients who've won a free scooter from the government, thanks to the team of disability generating attorneys that the scooter companies keep on payroll. Supersized and morbidly obese scooter patients are now married to a combination of lead-acid batteries, government checks, and monthly payments. But the scooters are increasingly deluxe, there is even a model that comes with a built-in cigarette lighter and ash tray. But be careful, these vehicles tend to be supersized. It will annoy your doctor greatly when you bring your bike into the exam room and introduce it as your domestic partner, since it never occurred to your doctor that anyone would seriously use a bicycle for much of anything so daily and intimately, and there's nothing resembling secure parking for it anywhere near the medical office building. (This applies to almost every conceivable medical, dental, and lab office in the US today.) It will also tend to generate feelings of jealously in your doctor, since the doctor will likely recognize that your passion for bicycling is somehow replacing your doctor's role of primary healthcare giver. These feelings will be reinforced as your doctor's eyes bug out at your blood test results which reveal that somehow you are testing as though you are twenty years younger than you really are, and outclassing perhaps every other patient your age in their practice. This can be particularly true if you can manage to do most of your bicycling in car-restricted zones, and avoid filling your bloodstream with the tailpipe output Americans refuse to realize is stuffing them as they sit in cars. Even on busy streets, bicyclists are able to expose themselves to less than half the emissions those trapped in cars are subject to. I'm not clear how long it will take for health care providers to figure this equation out: The healthy, bicycling non-patient in their office has something to do with the bicycle waiting patiently in the lobby. It's perhaps never occurred to anyone in the health care office that a patient would or could arrive by bike, but with these scenes repeated over and over for years in my life, in many different offices, I can help readers understand my suggestion that in the US, "Catastrophic health care" refers to the state our country's transportation system is in, as well as accurately describing the state our health care system is in -- sort of like our country's foreign policy. Without beating around the Bush, I can assert succinctly that the meaning of the word Catastrophic is as broad as the butt of those seated in scooters in line at the local fast food joint. According to ABC news, the obesity epidemic has in part been fed by the federal policy that getting supersized will qualify you for disability payments. It is important to recognize too that being overweight is not necessarily a choice; the unfortunate genetic makeup of a tiny percentage of people is such that eating 50% of what a thin person eats will still result in those unfortunates becoming obese. I do not want to engage in the popular pastime of blaming a victim. But it is just very, very difficult to distinguish between bad habits and obese genetics. And obesity is certainly now the rule, not the exception in America, where the average American walks fewer than 300 yards on an average day. Yet the images of people deliberately overeating and under-exercising to qualify for benefits, which ABC nightly news aired earlier this year, were, shall I say, unappetizing. Whereas the incredulity of medical caregivers wondering how I've managed to pull off terrific test results and 50 years of safe bicycling, well, the sparkle in my eyes, and those looks of bewilderment in theirs, are vitamins for my life.
I had some unusual fun with my bicycle a few months back when a friend, who knows I have a car, called begging me to get his girlfriend a jump start of her Toyota. They live not too far from me, and after I agreed I realized it would be simplest to use the compact jump starter battery with built-in mini jumper cables that I have on hand because my car, gathering dust while I bike everywhere, tends to need this jump starter therapy itself. The owner's manual for this 1994 Ford vehicle breezily suggests "you must run your new Ford at least every three days or the battery may run down..." and I often let the Ford rust in peace for more likely three WEEKS at a time. Anyhow as I'm wondering if I'll need to jump my car in order to drive over and jump theirs, the logic of simply biking the half-size sealed lead acid jump starter battery over to their dead Toyota, was irresistible. It dropped handily into one of my two unusually large saddlebags/aka panniers (I believe ORTLEIB is making the best one available in the US today) and maybe the best part was the wisecracks and looks of incredulity on my friend's faces as I arrive by bicycle and ask them to open the hood. The Toyota fired up nicely from the portable power pack but my friends had only been able to close the hood of their car, not their mouths, as I bicycled into the sunset.
After bicycling (mostly Berkeley, California streets) for over 50 years, I realize I cannot overstate the extent to which using a bicycle for running one's daily errands (not for RACING nor for daytime only RECREATION as most US bike shops presume is the purpose of bikes) is a form of continuing adult education in concepts of LIVING LIGHTLY ON THE EARTH. Each ride is a daily lesson in simplicity, modesty, flexibility, trust, patience, exercise, physical and mental health, respect for nature and the natural world, respect for one's natural limits and particularly respect for the other living creatures inhabiting this planet and one's own bloodstream. Cars, SUV's, freeways and especially single occupancy vehicles (S.O.V.'s) are essentially the opposite of all these things. SOV's are all about I, me, mine; bikes are all about us, we, them. Getting along with and anticipating pedestrians, wheelchair riders, trucks, children, cats, dogs, even bugs and frogs, are what makes a safe biker who makes it home with a smile. Whereas in a car or truck, it's mostly a matter of cleaning the blood and other dead creatures off the bumper and windshield once in a while. P.S. "What one does not trouble to find within will not be discovered by transporting the body hither and yon." --Paramhansa Yogananada
Regarding SOB, er, SOV cars (that's single occupancy vehicle) in the HOV lanes, "legalized" by Assembly member Fran Pavleys' AB2628 which "took effect" in California Jan 1,2005. (The presumed intent of this bill was to spur the purchase of gazzillions of hybrid cars, by allowing single occupant hybrid cars into the HOV lane). It turns out it's still not really legal and the CHP is still presumably enforcing against it, because freeways are under federal jurisdiction, and the feds have "not yet agreed" to this idea. I hope they never do and realize that allowing the very cars that do not pollute much in gridlock to become the only single occupancy ones allowed to escape gridlock, is absurd and pathetic. We are all in this together, caring and sharing a car is on the same level as caring about and sharing this planet with its many creatures. If there is anything I understand about the Environment, it's that we are all in this together! Allowing the I, me, mine single occupant cars into the HOV lane is wrong, wrong, wrong. It is UNFAIR TO THE POLICE too to have them pulling over cars that have only one occupant only to have that occupant announce that THIS car qualifies due to its "won't pollute in gridlock" drive train! It is too great a burden on the CHP. They have it hard enough sorting out the teddy bears and German Shepherds wearing shawls. The net result will be making the HOV lane unenforceable, or at best, unenforced. Fran Pavely represents a district called HONDA or TOYOTA it seems. Curious what sort of campaign contributions might be tracked around this. Could be Fran, whose assembly district includes much of Santa Monica, was just "well intentioned" with this. This bill may have originated prior to the disclosure that the EPA fuel economy estimates on these vehicles are about 40% too optimistic. Maybe Honda and Toyota contributed to EPA folks too!! It all smells, and it's important to note that Hybrid car tailpipes STILL need a warning label that reads: Caution: This vehicle emits carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, hydrocarbons, benzene, methane, aldehydes and volatile organic compounds (VOC's). Causes noise, increased traffic congestion, respiratory disease, cancer, death and ecocide. Especially Harmful to Other Species and Children. After writing the above, on January 24 an item on TV from Oakland, California's KTVU's broadcast confirms my fears and disgusts with the obscene proposal to allow SOV's in the HOV lane. The state of Virginia somehow managed to allow HYBRID SOV's in the HOV lane much earlier last year, and the feds agreed to try the idea out there. The net result is that Virginia's HOV lanes are now as jammed and gridlocked as the rest of the freeway lanes. The feds are not impressed and it looks very much like California's AB2628 I was blogging against is dead in the water as far as the feds are concerned.
It's a nice idea to have a medium sized loaner bike around any pro-bicycling household, for guest use. Especially if that bike is modern enough to be full suspension (adding any sort of a suspension seat post to a hard tail will do). This way your guest not only gets transportation but also a lesson in bicycle evolution and freedom. Most folks think of bikes as that 50 pound steel clunker they had as a child. Educate 'em. For example (not endorsement) Specialized Hard Rock bikes (the basic bike issued to Berkeley, California Police Officers) are cheap, well designed and built well for today’s tough streets and neighborhoods! Adding $30 worth of suspension seat post to this bike makes a great lesson to any guest as to the ease and comfort of modern bikes. Retail price on this model was as low as $319.00 in 2004. Saving a rusting heavy junk bike with bad brakes to injure or turn a friend into a ghost with, is not a good idea. Allow time to inflate tires as stored bikes tend to lose air. Better yet, use bike #2 once in a while so it's not needing air every time it goes out. Medium to small bikes can be bumped up to a better size with extra-long seat posts, but it's also true bicycling is about geometry and should ideally match the biker size. Escorting incredulous friends around town is quite the hobby for me, I love it when they realize how beautiful, comfortable, easy, and quick biking can be. Scooting around jammed traffic and steamed motorists is dangerous, but quieter and probably safer than trying to keep up with fast-moving traffic. Yet with the auto industry managing to build three cars for every person being born, there’s no such thing as smooth moving traffic any more, at least not around our population of car-keyed and car crazed cities! Realization by individuals that a whole new level of Human Powered Vehicles can bring freedom, cash savings, time savings, fresh air and health to a community, - while saving tons of time and parking tickets- is a profound chunk of good news, and people smile as they realize this. Pumping a set of pedals yourself, and offering a friend the opportunity to pedal up with you, brings this good news into a person’s mind, body and soul by the DOING. Now I’ll stop peddling bicycles and start pedaling one myself.
I'm having the usual hilariously good time bicycling. What strikes me as hilarious is the people who "feel sorry" for someone they assume is poor or otherwise unable to drive, and has to resort to the "lowly" bicycle. Meanwhile I'm tearing around getting twice as much done errand wise, with half the aggravation and in half the time, as anyone with a car, all with a huge grin to the beat of my favorite SKA and Reggae tunes by handlebar mini-speakered bike stereo. Since I am functionally deaf,* this helps those around me be aware a bicyclist is approaching or nearby, and this sound I broadcast gently has helped tremendously with my safety. I swear by the versatile and ultra-durable Sony Walkman WM-GX221. The delightful tunes it pumps into the air from its tiny but powerful speakers, all driven by a "play" button and two solar-charged AA batteries, adds a huge margin of safety as folks around me hear me present or approaching. I get my chores done safely and quickly, and I get tons of fun exercise and sun and fresh air, all at the same time. This particular Walkman can also easily be turned into recording from playing, to "accidentally" but legally tape conversations with police officers who "encourage bicycling" by attempting to prohibit it or viciously restrict it. It also is not very vulnerable to theft from a bike because audio tapes are "obsolete" and you can easily sabotage the appearance of the unit to make it look worthless or dysfunctional, when in fact it works great as a compact AM/FM stereo including cassette auto-off with dual stereo speakers and recording abilities. *By pressing the :"record" button, with a record-able tape set to "pause," the built-in microphone on this unit will also feed headphones so I can use this device as an assisted listening setup.
Young drivers prove every day that they have the ability to be much better and sharper at the wheel, than old drivers. Definitions of young and old aside here, it’s important to notice older drivers suffer greatly from such things as hearing loss, vision loss (especially peripheral vision), memory loss (which pedal is the brake, and which is the accelerator?), reduced response time and impaired muscle control. And a recent insurance industry study revealed, not surprisingly, that even teenage drivers make driving safely a terrific habit, and an easy chore - UNLESS they have even ONE friend or guest in the car with them, in which case they collapse from the best driver category, to the worst driver category because of what I will call FATAL DISTRACTION! The insurance industry study clearly documented a VIRTUAL DOUBLING of accident rates when a young driver has friends; in the car. The study was conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, reported in the Washington Post in February of 2005, and picked up by ABC News. With ONE friend in the vehicle with them, the teenage driver's accident rate per mile doubles. With two friends, it triples. With three friends, it quadruples. Older drivers are clearly better at staying focused on the major job of driving, and are better at shunting out inappropriate distractions, which passengers create at their own risk. Professional drivers of transit vehicles are appropriately isolated from and/or prohibited from engaging in major or even minor conversations with passengers, because of these inherent risk increasing factors which can of course be exacerbated by LARGE vehicles in HEAVY traffic, as transit operators have to cope with. A discipline of not distracting the driver is an excellent one for passengers in any vehicle at any time to develop. Younger folks are much less good at this, and the result has historically been wholesale discrimination against, and punitive insurance rates for, young drivers. A joker in the deck is young drivers are typically handed the keys to a vehicle which is a hand-me-down riddled with safety feature deficiencies and substandard mechanical performance, although the insurance industry has not likely studied this very significant handicap that a young driver starts with. Generally the auto industry has fought tooth and nail against every conceivable mandate in auto safety, from mere dual master cylinder braking systems to basic air bag technology. And the insurance industry has as a rule organized itself on the principle of insuring risk for profit, rather than reducing risk for fewer casualties and claims. Discrimination against the young is one of the insurance industry favorite pastimes, and the only genuine solution here is to restore bicycling and urban transportation systems and make them charming, attractive, and affordable alternatives to distracted drivers at the wheel of dysfunctional private cars. An elder driver in Santa Monica or Santa Barbara, California, in the summer of 2004 killed 15 people and maimed dozens at a farmer's market, in a single "accident" where he "confused the accelerator for the brake." He had great insurance rates and a "good" driving record. Bikers, pedestrians, and all others beware, elder drivers like this most often ply the streets with their funky old and dangerous cars in daylight non-commute hours, ("safe" times.) Many of them are multi-medicated and approaching blindness and deafness.
The in-your-dash plastic flower vase in the new VW Beetle is helping that impractical, dangerous and unreliable two-door car sell like hotcakes. Strange how many folks will buy a car based on cuteness rather than practicality? Cars have become a primary method of killing all life on Earth, endangering flowers and the insects that pollinate them, due to global warming and the changes to photosynthesis global warming includes. Two-door cars are particularly impractical, except for giving Grandpa a hernia trying to get in and out of the back seat. They are, however, particularly effective at "dooring" bicyclists since the two doors are usually much bigger than those on a four-door car. The placement of a flower vase in a car is not a new idea. A few luxury vehicles of the past would have them for the benefit of the well-to-do. They were mounted on a doorjamb in the rear of the car for the enjoyment of the owner who is being chauffeured. They were not placed on the dash to add to the menu of distractions drivers now have to cope with. Putting a flower vase under the driver's nose is asking for trouble. How many pedestrians will die because of drivers arranging flowers at the wheel? How many dollars will flow as a result of personal injury settlements when reflections from a bright silk flower on a windshield cause a driver to reduce a bicyclist or pedestrian to road-kill? Putting a fake plastic flower vase in a car dash is a particularly tasteless idea. It's sort of like putting a sequin on a rat's asshole. Society is rapidly descending into an Autogeddon with the auto industry building three new cars for every person born. You can beat this Car-tastrophic system. Stay healthy, trim, shrewd and smiling with a sophisticated bicycle. You may move at a tortoise-pace in a hare-spring world, but remember who won the race. Jim Doherty is a raconteur and bike radical who sometimes rides with a giant peace symbol in his bike's front wheel. He lives in the "Baja Rockridge" neighborhood of Oakland. This article originally appeared in The-Edge, Gar Smith's (of Earth Island Institute.org) online publication. Cyclonaut Jim Doherty proudly helped tow a dead SUV through the streets of San Francisco as part of the Bluewater Network's contingent in the 2003 San Francisco Pride Parade. An estimated 750,000 spectators looked on and cheered.
While it is wonderful to see novel, hi-tech vehicles capable of getting terrific mileage, these "new, improved" autos only exacerbate the problems of gridlock, population growth, car manufacturing and mining pollution, rubber, toxins, and old car disposal. Not to mention the death and dismemberment caused by streets littered and crowded with uninsured, drunk, sleepy, distracted, dizzy, tipsy, stoned, medicated, eating, drinking, smoking, cell-phoning angry, deaf, road-raged or just plain crazy drivers that continue to plague society. Studies show about one in 50 drivers today are driving drunk, but perhaps 2 out of 3 are driving with some medicine and/or another that may impair driving ability. But beware the DISTRACTED driver. Auto supply stores are now specialize in fireworks type car stereos called "kickers" or "thumpers" loud enough to "light up" a whole neighborhood. And for just $299, you can have installed a CD/DVD television screen that folds neatly out of the dashboard. With a 7"-square monitor, you're ready to watch those priceless Hee-Haw reruns while you're eating pizza, drinking a beverage, talking on the cell phone, smoking a cigarette and making a lane change. These "aftermarket" car accessories are completely illegal for manufacture in a car, for the obvious horrendous distraction they can cause a driver - but Car Stereo specialty shops are selling them like hotcakes. I'm not sure the fold-out DVD/TV screen will fold back into the dash before the paramedics come to pry dead hands off a steering wheel. If it is still dangling from the dash, cops will have a major clue what caused the accident. This TV-and/or laptop at the wheel stuff has caused a huge jump in accidents nationwide, and insurance rates are beginning to spike to reflect this. The enthusiasm for "bio-fueled" autos and the illogic of feeding food crops to cars in a world bristling with starving people evolving heinous diseases because they ARE starving, well, it boggles my mind. It's crucial to note that two-thirds of a car's pollution is produced during its manufacture. Getting 10% (20%? NOT 40%, see next paragraph) better tailpipe mileage is only reduces a fraction of the last third. If the CO2 from the new tailpipes was not colorless and environmentalists could see their own carbon output, they would faint. And hypercar buyer, what is your former car's tailpipe still doing today? Polluting by any chance? CBS NATIONAL NEWS REPORTED, MAY 28,2004, THAT THE HYPER CARS ARE HYPE-FOR-CARS OFTEN, EPA MILEAGE ESTIMATES POSTED ON ALL NEW VEHICLES ARE OPTIMISTIC BUT FOR UNKNOWN REASONS PROVE TO BE WILDLY OPTIMISTIC; CONSUMERS UNION (CU) REPORTS CITY MILEAGE ON THE HONDA CIVIC HYBRID IS JUST 26 MPG, NOT THE EPA'S STATED 48 MPG IT'S ADVERTISED WITH. AND THE DARLING OF EVERY ENVIRONMENTALIST'S CAR, THE TOYOTA PRIUS, GOT A (CU) CITY MILEAGE OF ONLY 35, AGAINST THE EPA/ADVERTISED CLAIM OF 60! Another hidden cost of cars is that (especially here in California) city planners and architects take it for granted that people want to live and work directly above, or surrounded by, their gas tanks and cars. Buildings are routinely constructed with a very weak first story, so cars can drive in, out, and around the toothpick-type legs buildings are then perched on. This design almost guarantees disastrous outcomes when the ground shakes. The Northridge, California quake cost $25 billion, most due to buildings that collapsed into garage space. How many similar complexes can you find in your community?
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By James DMake-it-home-safe MANTRA: When dealing with traffic, it's better to be patient than to become a patient; AND - A Sailboat is to a Polluting Cruise Ship what a bicycle is to a smokin' Hummer. I know bikes are beautiful but I’M not backing off until bikes are bountiful and bikers have greater strength in numbers. CategoriesArchives
February 2016
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