Knuckles the CLown wrote:and another thing, while I am driving my gas guzzling 10 mpg truck to work I don't want to be dodging a bunch of 5-15 year stupid kids on bikes. Take school buses and multiply that that by 100 as far as inconvenience factor.

The laws dictates pedestrians and assholes in bike lanes have the right of way. You can be 100% right as a bicycle rider and pedestrian which means you will also be 100% dead eventually when you rightly have the right away and someone adult driving a car disagrees and flattens you.

For those of us who work and drive a good portion of the day during work, the last thing we want are thousands of goddman school kid retards bobbing and weaving their way in and out of traffic at 7 in the morning when it is still dark out and 3pm when were are trying to get home.

Non civilized societies that don't value human life, could give a fuck about pasting an intersection of kids driving bikes to school. Here it is unfortunately frowned upon. I believe the amount of fuel wasted stopping for bikers, human cost of dead kids, and ensuing litigation is more of a problem then millions wasted on busing kids to school.

A better solution would be to stop educating certain kids beyond 6 grade. They aren't going anywhere and the quicker they get to work the quicker they can start making money.

NOT banned. You are the greatest poster in this BBS' history. L:AWAWLALL

and another thing, while I am driving my gas guzzling 10 mpg truck to work I don't want to be dodging a bunch of 5-15 year stupid kids on bikes. Take school buses and multiply that that by 100 as far as inconvenience factor.

The laws dictates pedestrians and assholes in bike lanes have the right of way. You can be 100% right as a bicycle rider and pedestrian which means you will also be 100% dead eventually when you rightly have the right away and someone adult driving a car disagrees and flattens you.

For those of us who work and drive a good portion of the day during work, the last thing we want are thousands of goddman school kid retards bobbing and weaving their way in and out of traffic at 7 in the morning when it is still dark out and 3pm when were are trying to get home.

Non civilized societies that don't value human life, could give a fuck about pasting an intersection of kids driving bikes to school. Here it is unfortunately frowned upon. I believe the amount of fuel wasted stopping for bikers, human cost of dead kids, and ensuing litigation is more of a problem then millions wasted on busing kids to school.

A better solution would be to stop educating certain kids beyond 6 grade. They aren't going anywhere and the quicker they get to work the quicker they can start making money.

Well, yeah, there's that aspect.



THE
CELLINO AND BARNES
IN TRACK SHOES
AARDVARK

Q: Why not give away bicycles?

A: Because the first time a kid rides out in front of a car and gets hit, the parent(s) will go on national TV with a Big Mac in one hand and a bluetooth phone receiver in their ear, crying that the public school system forced little Johnny to ride a bike. Lawyers will fall over themselves to sue the shit out of the public school system, and when the trial is over Johnny's parents will own all the bicycles within a 20 mile radius of the accident.

How can we continue to be lazy Americans if we can't have our big gas guzzling cars? I thought the whole point of being an American was walking NOWHERE (I read someplace that 600 feet is farthest distance, on average, that an American will walk before choosing to drive.)
Besides, they don't let bicycles in the Drive-thru at Krispy kreme.


THE
GIVE AWAY RASCALS
TO EVERYBODY
AARDVARK

Knuckles the CLown wrote:BACK TO BEING KNUCKLES

Lot a good riding a bike did you, aren't you housebound?

I think that comparing how I am, oh, let's see, more than 35 years later is not relevant. It also isn't the point, the point was the price of fuel is not going to go down, so it would make more economic sense to have kids bicycle to school if they can, and supplying them the bicycles, vs. spending a lot of money - which keeps going up - on fuel to bus them.

And I'm not housebound, I'm wheelchair bound. It's a power wheelchair with about 10-15 miles on a full charge - I've never even gotten close to running down the capacity when the batteries were new, like these are - and if I want to go anywhere I can.

The place I live at is 100% accessible. I can go through the door in my room, the front door has a ramp, and there is a ramp reaching over the one step on the walkway. The bus stops about a block-and-a-half away. I just don't go out when it's cold.

I can go out, make anything up to 5 or 6 trips on various errands, and not even run the meter down by 30%. It takes at least 2-4 days of regular use to get down to 1/2 charge. Whereupon about 10 hours will recharge to full capacity.

It was when the batteries were bad that I had a real problem, I'd routinely use up the entire capacity on 1/2 a trip; I'd have to take the charger with me and recharge en-route. I could tell something was wrong when the chair would fill on two hours charge time. Turns out the batteries were bad and wouldn't hold a charge.

As I admitted about 18 months ago when I first got the power chair, I'm restored to about 70-80% of what I had when I could walk.

The only problem I have is one I've pointed out to others, the damn chair has a cargo capacity of a postage stamp. I fixed that by purchasing a second 42-quart wastebasket, marked 'not for trash'. That will carry the equivalent of about two shopping baskets.

I bought a replacement desktop computer a couple of months ago, it's a Dell Optiplex 740 tower style, about 1/2 as thick as my previous one. I'm using it now. I took it home by balancing it on my lap and the footrest/table on a bus, a train and another bus.

I also brought home some storage bins, the 20-gallon size that Home Depot had on sale for $3 each. I do quite a bit for someone who can't walk and really only has one hand free.

BACK TO BEING KNUCKLES

Lot a good riding a bike did you, aren't you housebound?

I have been listening to an audiobook since I got it free for subscribing: "$20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better" by Christopher Steiner.

I originally started reading it last year some time but I was too cheap to buy it. So being able to get it for free was right in my price range and I can always cancel my subscription to Audible.

So anyway, the book mentions how too many school districts have had to increase the distance kids have to travel before they are allowed to be bussed to school because the price of diesel had gotten too expensive. One district saw fuel go up 50%; one district budgets $4 million for fuel and they've used that much in 9 months.

So I thought of something. Why don't they eliminate busing altogether except for a very narrow class of kids, and just teach them all how to ride a bicycle, then give them a bicycle for use during the school year, the same way they give kids textbooks?

Kids would get exercise, the school districts could drastically reduce the cost of student transport, and we'd use less energy. Hell, I was a fat kid and when I was in San Diego going to school I had to walk a bike part way (steep hill) but coming home I coasted almost all of the trip back. Plus I had the bicycle for other uses when I made short trips.

I remember how I learned to ride a bike. My mother and I went to a second-hand store, we picked one out, and I tried balancing on it while more-or-less walking home. I think it was 5 miles. I fell down a few times while learning. By the time we got home, I more-or-less knew how to ride a bike.

Man, those were the days; you just got on and rode. No pads, no safety gear, no helmet, nothing was required except the $2 fee for the California state license sticker. It would probably be even less dangerous now the way they bundle up kids to allow them to ride.

Just restrict busing to kids who can't ride a bicycle or ones too far to commute by bike (say, more than 5 or 10 miles). Would probably cut out 90% of the cost of operating the school bus system. If you figure, a typical bike sells for $120 and the biggest expense is a kid outgrows it each year (which suits the school district, since it goes on to the next kid) if it lasts 3 years (and a bicycle is steel, it's going to last longer than that), it's costing $40 a year and has no ongoing expense (bicycles don't eat petroleum to operate; school buses do.)