BIKE: Permission to use the roadways

[Michael Bluejay]

On Jan 2, 2004, at 2:43 PM, Michael Zakes wrote:

> Michael-
>     I don't think anything in my post says that they wouldn't have 
> been allowed to
> ride either, just more on the dynamics of having that many riders at 
> once, trying to
> stay together as a group. as has been shown with CM, Moonlight Cruise, 
> etc, large
> numbers of cyclists can ride together anytime they want to without 
> having a police
> escort. However with the JBR it allowed the group to stay together, 
> with the police
> blocking traffic at the major intersections. this eliminated the 
> problems of running
> the lights to stay together, as is often seen on these other rides.

Right, and this has nothing to do with my point.  I have never ever 
ever said it wasn't a good idea to have a police escort.  I was 
responding to the statement (by Hill, I believe) that the riders 
wouldn't have been *allowed* to ride otherwise.


> as far as being
> "allowed" to ride, no-one was out there saying that they couldn't ride 
> without
> helmets, or even lights.

No, that's exactly what was said here, and that's what I was responding 
to.


Mike Dahmus said:

> You need permission to have a parade. If you just want to ride in 
> traffic and not be cruising together with 1500 of your friends, you 
> don't. This applies whether you're riding your bike or driving your 
> car.

Okay, so it looks like you're suggesting that the criteria for whether 
you need permission is whether you know the other people involved.  
Thousands of cars (or bikes) can clog the streets just fine, but if 
they're all friends, then suddenly they need permission.

In the absence of the streets getting clogged on a daily basis then I'd 
say that *anyone* would need permission to do some special clogging.  
But being that street-clogging is a daily occurrence, saying that 
*anyone* needs special permission to do what happens every day anyway 
seems kind of silly.

That's my second post for today.  No replies for me until tomorrow.

-MBJ-



>> Again, I've never said that it wasn't a *good idea to have a police
>> escort*.  What I was commenting on was the assertion that the riders
>> *wouldn't have been ALLOWED* to ride without special permission.
>>
>> Every weekday, twice a day, way more motor vehicles than that clog up
>> both the highways and the interior city streets.  And they don't need
>> any permission to do so.
>>
>> -MBJ-
>>
>>
>> On Jan 2, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Michael Zakes wrote:
>>
>>> given:
>>>  1) the large number of riders (~1500)
>>>  2) the large percentage of those being young kids and/or
>>> inexperienced riders
>>>  3) the need to keep them organised into a group while navigating a
>>> number of busy
>>> intersections
>>>  4) the number of other users on the road at the same time
>>> it would have been next to impossible without the police escort. the
>>> two restrictions
>>> ( state law mandated head and tail lights and wearing a helmet) were
>>> fairly minimal.
>>> Michael F Zakes, prop.
>>> Waterloo Cycles
>>> 2815 Fruth
>>> Austin TX 78705
>>> 512.472.9253
>>>
>>> "I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have
>>> weapons of mass
>>> destruction to tell the world where they are."
>>>
>>> Ari Fleischer, on July 9, 2003.
>
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