When I worked at Apple, they sent me on a business trip, and would have paid for me to rent a car for the week, but instead I borrowed a bicycle, and bought a basket/rack at the bike shop to put my briefcase in.  I submitted a travel expense reimbursement request for the basket/rack, but Accounting denied it, even though the cost was far less than Apple would have paid for me to rent a car.  (My manager went to bat for me and I got my reimbursement.)

Say, years ago I heard about a delivery cyclist who tried to write off his meals as a business expense. It makes sense, but the IRS didn't buy it.

Sounds fair to me, as long as it's the *extra* meals incurred by his cycling.  Fuel is fuel, and it sounds like a legitimate business expense to me.

Meals are already deducted often -- granted, for entertaining -- so this wouldn't even be a new thing.

Either that or change the rules to permit him the 56 cents per mile that the IRS allows for automobile usage.  (Alas, it does explicitly say car. van, pickups or panel trucks, so the rules would have to be changed.)

Getting back to the delivery robots. here's another article on it, with a title that's full of win : The Delivery Robots Are Your Friends, Says Delivery-Robot Company

I work with an insufferable woman who brags about her electric car that she drives 2 miles to work and plugs into the outlet in the parking lot. The one that gets electricity from coal.

Also, the 'Love to Ride' site where you can track how much carbon you are keeping out of the atmosphere by riding your bike. So, I used to bike commute 12 miles round trip to work four days a week. That is 48 miles, and I so work my way towards a gold star in gamification world. I don't own a car at all and ride, walk, or take the bus. Meanwhile, a coworker lives in Buda and commutes in his F150 to Round Rock 5 days a week. On the weekend he does a 50 mile charity ride and enters that into the game. He's ahead now.  Of course I don't care about the silly game, I'm just pointing out it doesn't always make sense.

Say, years ago I heard about a delivery cyclist who tried to write off his meals as a business expense. It makes sense, but the IRS didn't buy it.

Humans are pretty inefficient at turning food into energy, and that's compounded by the meat-heavy Western diet that requires way more energy to produce than plant-based foods.

You know, we could have just paid someone, who needed the money, to ride a regular bike towing a $30 craigslist kid trailer.

Technology is NOT going to save the planet. Making better choices about resources might. Maybe.

OTOH, since so much of "bike safety" is "get the bicyclists out of the way of cars," maybe we should expect "how can we get the bicyclists out of the way of the pizza delivery robots?" to be the next burning question.