It’s even more bizarre when there is the occasional death caused by a cyclist and people begin calling for bans on cycling and go on the Internet warpath against “spandex warriors” and “Lance wannabes”. There are a handful of Americans killed by cyclists across the U.S. each year, if that. So few that many people can actually name each incident by city and approximate date. Meanwhile, there are so many car-caused deaths that people assume it’s natural and somehow OK. It’s not OK. A lot of those accidents, crashes, hit and runs and deaths are caused by reckless and negligent behavior. Anything from speeding and red light running to texting while driving, websurfing while driving, speeding into right turns on red without bothering to look for pedestrians or other traffic, pulling out of parking garages without bothering to look for oncoming traffic, and on and on and on.

I see this behavior every day. While many pedestrians and cyclists break traffic laws too, it’s not pedestrians and cyclists that are killing tens of thousands of Americans each and every year.

Also, as an editorial aside – why add “the?” The headline has it right – “Spout Run Parkway.” Not THE Spout Run Parkway. Unless the current obsession of every college and university to add the word THE to their name is now infecting the egos of area roads? Or is it the inane SoCal practice of using definite articles in front of highways? Maybe I’ll start calling myself THE speonjosh.