To the Editor:...
Submitted to the Avalanche Journal - January 29, 2000 & Published February 4, 2000: (after a little back-and-forth during which it was cut from 262 words (completely ignoring their 250 word limit) to 251, to 249, to 237 in order to accommodate differences in word counting...)
To the Editor:
Last Friday you may have noticed a small group of Lubbock citizens riding their bikes along a few of the major roads in the Tech area. Undoubtedly some found this flagrant disregard for personal safety and automobile right-of-way to be a little surprising - probably due to the fact that many fail to realize that automobiles do not have right-of-way over bicycles, and ignorance of this is what makes biking in Lubbock a safety hazard.
According to the Texas Transportation Code (Sec. 551.103) when a bicyclist is traveling on the same roadway as a vehicle he must ride as close to the right hand curb as possible - unless this lane is (as many of the streets in Lubbock are) of "substandard width." A substandard width lane is "a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle and a motor vehicle to safely travel in the lane side by side." In essence, when we ride our bikes down the middle of a lane, we are not blocking traffic, we are traffic.
A growing group has decided that the present lack of bicycle appreciation in this city is unacceptable. We have chosen to step up to the challenge of increasing the awareness of bike rights and the laws that govern the shared use of our streets by joining in the global movement called Critical Mass. We will ride once every month and encourage everyone to join. So please be alert and visit www.angelfire.com/tx3/criticalmass for more information about what you can do.
