I’ve ridden my bicycle for real, practical transportation since I was eight years old. I was eight years old in 1971. It was, as we say, a different time back then. It was far safer to ride a bicycle in most American towns and cities, for lots of reasons that include population, demographics and available consumer choices at the time. (Millennials, you can Google the Middle East Oil Crisis of 1972-3 to get the fuller picture. It was a wacky time.)
I continued to ride my bicycle even as my peers were getting their drivers’ licenses. (I got a learner’s permit too, but wasn’t really interested in driving and actually flunked my first driving test at seventeen. I wouldn’t try again until my mid-twenties. Another story.)
I rode my bicycle all over Gresham and, after I moved out, all over other towns and cities. It wasn’t always ideal but it was entirely doable. And safe enough, in those days, to do so without a helmet. (To be fair, only college kids with money could afford the helmets that were available at the time, so the rest of us went without.)
The freedom and ease that I felt whenever I swung a leg over the top tube and pedaled away was unlike anything else. And in some ways, it still is, even now when I can only ride shorter distance at slower speeds. (I have a helmet now. They got cheaper.)
Dan Sheehan, aka NOT A WOLF, has written an amazing and important essay about the state of travel on America’s roads today, and the state of Americans’ mental health behind the wheel.
I urge you all to read it, if for no other reason that it will help you understand what’s at stake in the future of not only the environment, but in the health of our collective psyche.
May is National Bike Month.
Pedalpalooza, Portland’s annual summer bicycle festival, begins June 1st.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, PLEASE slow down, consider combining car trips if you must drive, and SEE PEOPLE ON BICYCLES.
Travel safely.
https://dansheehan.substack.com/p/highway-to-hell
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