Bike lane, not bike line!

Nationally syndicated sports broadcaster Tony Kornheiser and world famous cyclist Lance Armstrong have a feud. Have you heard about it? First, Kornheiser said on his radio program that most cyclists that you encounter on the roadways attempt to cause close calls between themselves and cars and then get mad when your car gets to close to them. Armstrong replied by calling Kornheiser’s opinion ridiculous and called Kornheiser a moron and ignorant. Well guess what, this is where I draw the line. You see, up until now, in this politically correct age, all you have to do to discredit someone is to pull out the “ignorant” word. You just have to call someone ignorant and the villagers gather with the torches and pitchforks. Somehow, some way, the word ignorant has become synonymous to wrong. You can be ignorant and not be wrong. Just because I don’t know everything about global warming, I’m not necessarily wrong by looking into the scientific results more closely before I make a judgment. In Kornheiser’s case, he doesn’t need to know all about cycling to be right about the idiots that ride on the roads like drunks on their bikes and conversely, just because Lance Armstrong won a few bike races, doesn’t make him right. Look, I am all for people using their bicycles for transportation. Biking keeps you in shape, saves money and doesn’t cause global warming (?!), so I’m all for it. I am also all for the fact that cyclists have the right to ride on the road without the fear of being hit by a car. If you come up behind someone on a bicycle, you should exercise care when passing them. I live in Florida. I’m not sure what the rest of the country is like, but in Florida, on many of our larger roads, we have a specific lane for bikes. This lane is about 3 feet wide and is all the way to the right of the roadway. Nine times out of ten, you will see a bicyclist riding on the line that divides the bike lane from the car lane rather than in the middle of the lane itself. When you drive a car on a road with 2 lanes going in one direction, do you drive on the line? No! You drive in the lane. Then when you go by the rider, you end up being too close to them for comfort and they usually give you a dirty look. Look, the government paid a lot of money to put bike lanes in, USE THEM! If there is no bike lane, fine, use the road. If there is, stay off the road. Simple. Kornheiser by a TKO.