LOL...you are quite right..I changed my ways and now i don't associate with social deviants like democrats.
Right. The real problems start in two main situations. #1. When you're in the city, where there's no shoulder (just parking spaces with meters) and side walks jammed with pedestrians. Then what do you do? Bike in rush hour traffic with drivers blaring their horns at you and swerving around you, or on the sidewalk, where you risk a different kind of collision? From what my friends who do more downtown biking tell me, you're supposed to bike in the street. Most motorists don't seem to agree. #2. When you're in areas so rural that there's no shoulder and no side walk, or those that are there are washed out. Sometimes there's not even neighborhoods to cut into to reduce traffic interference. As for those with short distances: I support my mother going to the grocery store in her mini-van. She generally needs the entire cargo area and part of the back seat just for the weekly or bi-weekly grocery run for our (combined) family of 5. You just plain old can't haul that much food on a bike. She also has a spine problem that makes biking problematic for her. I'm really one of only 3 bicyclists in my extended family, and then 2 of the others only "Train up" for my biological Dad's yearly corporate cycling event.
I can understand what you are saying in #1, I believe the bike belongs on the street, but you are taking a risk in any large city. On #2, most areas I have lived that are smaller cities, there is room for bikes. My issue is with the dorks who despite having a 3 foot wide bike path want to ride on the white line. I am not talking about washed out edges or anything. I have ridden on some and I look to see on the others because I can't understand why anyone would want to be so close to cars going 45mph!! My big van is a full sized ford, and the mirrors are rather large, so if cars are coming the other direction my mirror is inches away from idiots heads when they think the white line is pretty to follow. Maybe that is it, too much drugs, so they follow the line.....
Am I suppose to hand out a darwin award each time I stop to put another bicycle sticker on the door of my van?
I... really don't get it either. If I'm going to be driving in the road, I'm going to be driving in the road, and treating myself like a car. People will see me and go "... damn. Bike in the rode" If I'm going to be riding on the side, I'm going to be riding on the side. "Bike left side safe. Bike Right side safe. Bike middle... squish, like grape."
I am not sure about grapes, but the last one was so tangled in his bike they used the jaws of life to get him out for his coffin.
Close except mine is a convsion by Comm-Trans - the roof is high and the seating like a bus with steps at the side door. But it is a Ford full sized van like that. One other difference is all the bicycle stickers along the doors.