BIKE: Dallas Morning News cycling article

[Art]

By Kevin Blackistone

Dallas Morning News (http://www.dallasnews.com, reg.
requred)
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/columnists/kblackistone/stories/061505dnspoblackistone.d9058a9.htm


Can't let it ride anymore

It's high time the state takes up for bicyclists being
run off road

09:40 PM CDT on Tuesday, June 14, 2005

It's propped up an inch or two on a stiff, black,
plastic mat. The front wheel is nestled in the groove
of a small, gray, plastic box, while the rear wheel is
gripped in a large, black, metal vise. Neither has
touched pavement since a tuneup a year ago.

One reason my road bike only gets ridden on its
trainer these days is sheer laziness. I tired of
packing it into the car and driving to Joe Pool Lake,
or some other distant locale, for a breezy spin.

The other reason, however, is trepidation.

I don't want to end up like Tommy Thomas, who was
mashing away last May around White Rock Lake when Jane
Dolkart, angered by his presence on the park road,
deliberately rammed her car into the rear of his bike,
knocking him down and dragging him for a stretch under
her car.

He suffered bruises, abrasions and a sore shoulder.

Dolkart, an SMU law professor, was sentenced Tuesday
to five years of probation and two years of community
service for aggravated assault.

Both were lucky that was all they got.

"We're a little disappointed that with such a serious
charge the woman that was convicted is not going to do
any time in jail," Robin Stallings, director of the
Texas Bicycle Coalition, lamented to me Tuesday. "An
automobile, we all know, is a deadly weapon. If that
had been a police officer that she had done that to...
a schoolchild, what would the sentence have been?"

If Thomas hadn't been able to testify, what would it
have been?

It is high time this state and this country get
serious in dealing with motorists who negligently, or
let alone willfully, harm bicyclists. Dolkart could've
killed Thomas.

Last month, a couple thousand bicyclists sallied
quietly around White Rock as part of an annual
national event called Ride of Silence. It remembers
bicyclists like Thomas, who've been injured by
inattentive drivers or purposely-reckless ones. It
recalls bicyclists such as Gary Glickman, who was
struck by a car while pedaling around White Rock in
March 2004 and killed.

Bicyclists in Pittsburgh started dropping mangled
frames painted white, "ghostbikes," at spots around
the city where motorists have killed their brethren,
much like families of fatal car accident victims have
erected crosses along highways and at intersections.

Such unnecessary meetings of motorists and bicyclists
happen all too often, even here in Texas where there
seems to be so much wide-open road to share. The Texas
Bicycle Coalition estimates that motorists kill about
50 bicyclists in Texas every year.

And get this: At least 20 of those killed by motorists
were struck as Thomas was, riding, as they're supposed
to, in the same direction as motorized traffic.

That means the motorists simply failed to give the
bicyclists enough room when passing. Dallas bicyclist
Larry Schwartz was killed when a school bus passed too
closely and its side mirror struck him in the head.

I would scream that there ought to be a law to guard
against such carelessness, but there is one, Stallings
pointed out. It says commercial vehicles should give
cyclists at least a six-foot berth when passing them.
Common sense suggests the same. Both ought to extend
to all motorists.

Unfortunately, most motorists are probably unaware of
that law and too many often lose what common sense
they possess whenever they have to slow down for a
human-powered two-wheeler.

Anyone who has spent significant time cycling the
roads has felt threatened by what felled Thomas, if
not suffered it. I've never been hit, but I've been
run off the road and fallen over because of a car
passing too closely. I've had idiot drivers pretend as
if they were going to do to me what Dolkart did to
Thomas. I've had them throw things. Of course, I've
had them pass by and scream obscenities. And I'd say I
ride safely and cautiously.

Motorists aren't always solely to blame for these
incidents and tragedies. Bicyclists make mistakes or
ignore the rules of the road and put themselves in
harm's way, too. And the government, run now by Lance
Armstrong's fellow Texan who has taken up mountain
bicycling, allotted less than 1 percent of a $300
billion transportation bill to bicycle paths.

"Safety ... is an issue," said Rhonda Hoyt, who
co-owns Richardson Bike Mart with her husband Jim and
is recovering from a horrific run-in with a car.
"There are roads that cyclists, quite frankly, don't
belong on.

"But you've just got to keep a positive attitude.
Cycling is a marvelous sport. It's a wonderful way to
enjoy your city and see the world."

As such, its growing enthusiasts deserve a lot more
respect, and protection, than they're getting.

E-mail kblackistone


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