The Dallas Morning News gives further voice to the few thousand really active activist bikers (
link). Basically, a bunch of cyclists wrote letters in an organized campaign, then did an open records request of the correspondence sent to the governor's office... among the correspondence in the public record was some Perry supporter idiot whose son killed a biker with an SUV. He wrote a really dumb letter, which the cyclist community has used to bring this issue up all over again. Excerpt follows...
Despite overwhelming support in the House and Senate, Perry vetoed SB 488 in June. The measure would have required motorists to give cyclists and other vulnerable road users at least 3 feet when passing.
"We kind of think of him as our guy," said Robin Stallings of Texas Bicycle Coalition. "Frankly, we're still mystified."
Perry's office said that there are already laws that protect cyclists and others on the roadways.
This is a story that a tiny fraction of people probably care about, and most Republican primary voters are probably not especially fond of the thought of being at fault almost no matter what, if your car strikes a bike. Even bike riders mostly know that it will take cordoned off bike lanes with barriers and additional extra wide shoulders to make riding bikes truly safe. Passing another law that says "be nice to bikes" is not going to accomplish anything. Another excerpt...
"As a vehicular cyclist with close to twenty years of daily experience dealing with traffic in the Dallas area, I can assure you additional legislation is not the answer to this solution ...," May wrote.
"At its core, the primary result of this proposed legislation will be to convey a false sense of security to uneducated cyclists."
Seems like Rick's peeps need to get Rick in touch with some of these cyclists to tamp their concerns down... especially since he is such a well known cyclist himself... why don't they just invite a few into his office and bury the hatchet... or make a creative video about it... they really need to do something, even though it is a small segment of the population.
It's such a big deal to me (a cyclist) that I'm volunteering for Kay's campaign. Rick's veto sealed the deal for me.
ReplyDeleteThis was the last straw to prove that Governor Goodhair does not care what his constituents think. That may work in California, but this here is Texas.
ReplyDeletePeople are being unreasonable about this. It was bad legislation. I doubt anyone has actually read the bill.
ReplyDeleteWhat we need is a serious bike strategy, not a new law that basically says what the old law says.
I have ridden bikes with Rick Perry and can tell you that he is a major proponent of giving bikes the right of way, so he must have had some good reason to veto this bill. He vetoes a lot of things, since he is a "leave us alone" style Republican. I have not read the bill, but if he vetoed it, it was probably because he could foresee some unintended consequences.
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