CRITICAL MASS IN HAYWARD CA!

Obey the law. Stop at Stop signs. Use hand signals. Ride single file. That's the law. By the way, when bicycle riders are required to carry liability insurance, to put a license plate on the bike, have a driver's license, THEN you might be taken seriously. You cause accidents by blowing off traffic laws and when you are at fault, you have no insurance to pay the claim.

. . .Is that your badge number?

Perhaps YOU should remember that automobiles are two-ton mobile missiles that can kill pedestrians and bicyclists upon impact. Bicycles are not and cannot.

YOU should remember that automobiles facilitated the near total destruction of our planet, because of corporate and government policies designed to create a giant corporate welfare program for big oil and the aut industry through the destruction of mass transit and the building of limited access highways which also facilitated urban sprawl. Bicycles did not.

YOU should remember that automobiles generally use fossil fuels which pollute the atmosphere with dangerous levels of CO2 and CO1 which contribute to global warming and other ills which threaten the very existence of life on Earth. Bicycles do not.

YOU should remember that greedy capitalists and their government partners engage in wars for power and profit over the fuel that runs automobiles. Even though one of these government ideologues (George Bush) rides a bicycle, it is not the bicycle that causes the detah and destruction, nor is critical mass responsible for that.

YOU should remember that the law (as well as most city and urban planning) is designed to favor the automobile, makes token gestures towards the safety of pedestrians, and treats bicycles largely as an afterthought and an annoyance (unless bicycle activists fight for bike lanes and bike friendly policies).

YOU should know that bicycle activists have to fight tooth and nail to get cities to incorporate bicycle friendly planning whereas big developers often get their auto-friendly sprawl approved without so much as a squeak unless people stand up and fight against it (outside of a few exceptions, such as Berkeley and San Francisco).

YOU should know that my life was nearly ended by truck driver as I was riding my bicycle. I was obeying ALL traffic laws and had the right of way at the time. That didn't stop me from being maimed by an 18-wheel mack truck. I am lucky to be alive and able to walk.

YOU should recall that at one time, "the law" prohibited blacks from drinking from the same fountain as whites. "The law" prohibited women and blacks from voting. "The law" made slavery legal. "The law" outlawed the right of workers to form unions. "the Law" STILL prohbits gay marriage in many instances. I can name several hundred other examples of where "the Law" is unjust.

YOU should be aware that forcing bicycles to stop at every stop sign is physically taxing to bicyclists, especially if on roads with stop signs at every intersection, and that when streets with lots of stop signs have no traffic, there is no point in stopping at every sign, because failure to do so is a victimless crime.

Shall I go on?