M15 Post-March Bike Ride

BIKES AGAINST BOMBS: one peace lover's story

The day after the bombing started, i was terrified. how could my country kill innocent people by the thousands like that? were people so blind that the reasons for the war were made up?

my friend joey was also scared but she was stern with me. "no one has power to check the government, let alone construct a sustainable world any more. look around you. workers and the environment are exploited for short term gain, with inevitable collapse around the corner. our rights are being taken away. our mental space is flooded with advertisements and propaganda while our living space is flooded with toxins. when we try to go outside we're overwhelmed by cars, which main and kill us. cars have killed more people than all wars combined. and this war has a lot to do with cars, because it's all about oil."

i respect joey's opinions although i disagree with her methods. she thinks it's justified to take direct action against cars to oppose this system as a whole. she doesn't think anything else is going to work. at least she doesn't hurt the cars.

the next morning, people came to downtown from every direction to protest the war, starting at 7 am. joey and her affinity group (those are her protest friends she trusts) got an even earlier start. joey had a device to let the air out of tires without hurting them, called a valve core remover. they come in many forms, you can find them on valve caps, or for a dollar get a tool, or even make one by whittling wood. she said legally, she might be charged with misdemeanor tampering (cvc 10852). but she didn't care, because the thought of children being killed in her name and her need to communicate outweighed the risk. besides, she was only removing a 19 cent part, and she left the part there. "just make sure it goes all the way flat so it doesn't go flat while they're driving". she put a flyer on each car. she only did suv's. she was really fast because she glued a cap with the remover on it onto a drill bit with epoxy, and then used it with a cordless screwdriver. i'm glad i wasn't there because that isn't for me.

i went downtown on my bicycle and quickly found a group of 50 other bicyclists. even though the situation was really severe, it was so good to find a group to demonstrate with. i wore a sign on my bike and on my back. we were really energized by the excitement of the day. we went from intersection to intersection, doing bicycle merry go rounds and holding our bikes in the air against the oil war. we would stay for a short time and then go to the next one before people got too impatient. everywhere we went, we'd see another group of 20-100 people on bikes doing the same thing. it's great to do high-fives as you pass one another. it was the best critical mass i've ever been on! my friend mandy missed out because she was stuck in the east bay when they closed bart to bicycles. figures 'cause they always target bicycles unfairly. can you believe they closed off all the bike lockers? sheesh. she still found a good demo in oakland. some people thought ahead and slept in sf the night before.

at one point i saw joey and her friends. they were gathering in a group of 3-5 people on the end of cars and bouncing them until they could bounce them out into the street as a barrier to car traffic. they always left space for muni and made sure not to scratch the paint, and were careful not to hurt their backs. joey said she didn't know any law they could be charged with, and that it was a poetic use of car culture against itself. i said who can tell the difference, they double park all the time anyway. they had to practice before they got really good at it.

at one point in the day my group of bikes met another group and the people at the front went up onto the freeway. half of us went up and the rest of us stayed because we were scared. a motorcycle cop tried to go up after them but was delayed because we were standing in front of the onramp. he just tried to waive them off. it turns out he couldn't do anything to them anyways, legally, because freeways are legal for bikes unless there's signs posted at the entrance and along them, specifically prohibiting bicycles. (cvc 21960b). then it's an infraction and there's a small fine. but for some reason there were no such signs all around the city.

it wouldn't matter anyways because the police had too much to do that day and a mass arrest of bikes on a freeway protesting oil war would shut down the freeway and would make really great news headlines. next time i'm going to join them and i hope we go on the bay bridge. my friend who biked the bay bridge in a protest said the charge is a $100 infraction for biking on a toll crossing. they do that unless there's a sign specifically permitting bicycles, too bad (cvc 23330b). he said if you bike the bay bridge, be careful because periodically there are expansion grates that can catch a tire. and it's a fabulous view. ciao chow.

Disclaimer: only try this on your own car. This is not legal advice. Don't break the law. Obey all commands from only one source, GW Bush.