So, it sucks to park the car on Hennepin Avenue in the winter - scaling the piles of snow hardened into ice, trying not to fall against (or under) the filthy auto, hoping that busses and SUVs will not take the car door off (or at least slow down if they do) when you get get the frozen lock unlocked ... it especially sucks getting into/out of a car parked on Hennepin when you're toting a 10-month-old, however good-natured, and all of his attendant baggage. It sucks to do this at least twice daily, which you do when you don't have any other place to put the car.
But that's not the source of my outrage for the purposes of this here post. The outrage was sparked the other day, once the baby and I were safely settled in the car (frozen, poorly designed car seats in frozen cars ... there's a topic for another post) and driving this car on Hennepin toward Calhoun Square. Shortly we came upon a woman on a bicycle.
That's not the source of my outrage, either. I'm totally pro-bicycle. I especially have to hand it to people who ride their bikes in winter - we should all be so virtuous. But I do have to mention that people who bike on icy thoroughfares like Hennepin - sans helmets - are, in a word, nuts. Or stupid. Hennepin is already narrow, and it's made narrower still with those aforementioned frozen snow piles on either side. And if the conditions are icy for cars, might they be even more so for bicycles?
But I'll hold back on the outrage there, even. As a pro-bicyclist, I believe that bicyclists own the roads, too. They can ride wherever they want, and if they want to take their lives into their own hands by not wearing a helmet and by riding on busy, icy streets, that's their business.
So where is the outrage already? OK: The outrage comes in because there was also a child riding on the bike, behind the woman (who was, let's presume, the mother of the child).
A bit more outrage comes because this mother had apparently decided to make things "safer" for the child by putting a helmet on her - but she wasn't wearing one herself. So your kid can become a motherless quadriplegic but hey, at least she might possibly retain some or even all of her mental faculties should a collision occur on icy, busy, narrowed-by-frozen-piles-of-snow Hennepin.
This idea of helmets-for-kids-but-not-their-parents is akin to another source of outrage: How politicians fall all over themselves to be pro-health insurance for children -- but not their parents. So little Susie can have her annual checkup and/or cancer treatment, but Susie's insurance-less mom? She might die because she ignores some health problem or she might go into financial ruin dealing with said health problem, because she doesn't have health insurance -- leaving Susie physically healthy (by some standards) but motherless and/or living in abject poverty.
But I digress, having delivered most but not all of the outrage. There are a couple more bits.
Bit #1: Watching as this helmet-less mom-with-child runs a red light on her bike on the aforementioned icy, busy, narrowed-by-frozen-piles-of-snow Hennepin.
Bit #2: Spotting the same mother and child, 45 minutes later, riding the other way on Hennepin -- and this time, they've taken on another pint-sized passenger. Somebody get me a Rolaids.
Oh man. This is such a familiar (except for the kids on the back) and scary experience. Like most of us, I bike (not in the winter, because I'm a wimp) and walk and run and drive. But car-brake reaction time is so much longer in the winter, and most of the bicyclists I encounter barely slow down at stop signs or stop lights. It's scary. Scary scary scary and, yes, much as I hate to say it, stupid stupid stupid. How do they do it in places like Amsterdam?
I just have to say that as a year-round biker without much money, it is tough to find or make helmets that keep your head warm. If a biker wears a helmut on top of a hat, the safety measures become completely usless, leaving the sides of your head, including your temple, exposed. So it becomes a choice between warmth and safety, assuming you have to use your bike to get to work because of the still-faulty mass transit system. And in the current weather, wearing hate becomes safer than wearing helmuts. So give the bikers some space, please, for the love of Christ.
You’re kidding me right, excusing safety for warmth? Who cares about the biker, let them make their choice, but the children do not choose to be in that much of a precarious situation. This is worse than holding a baby out the window. (Michael Jackson Tuesday, 19 November 2002.) And to say I ride a bike because our mass transit system sucks especially when you are on Hennepin Ave is a pretty obtuse argument.
Yes I am all about giving bikers space, but you can't argue that two children on a bike on Hennepin Ave in the middle of winter is a good decision.
I definatley avoid Hennepin while I'm downtown and would not recommend it as a bike route during the winter, and perhaps even year-round. You'd think it would be unwise to put a bike lane on downtown's busiest street. When I have to bike downtown, I only really go on Nicollet since busses and taxis are all that's allowed for vehicles. So, yeah, safety is definatley the most important matter, and it includes avoiding both congested streets and frostbite (and not running red lights!).
As for bringing a kid on your bike, I figured the stupidness of that decision went without saying. Or at least Ms. Caniglia's commentary already said what there needs to be said regarding it.
Sorry, last post was me.