This morning, around 3:30am, I was at home when I heard this
tremendous *BOOM* right outside my apartment. It sounded like
something had fallen off the top of the nearby hotel and landed in
the street.

Seriously, it was so loud, the walls of my apartment shook.

I ran outside, expecting to see some kind of horrible disaster.
Instead, I found that a car, driving down the street I live on, had
rear-ended a parked car right downstairs from where I live!

The damage to both cars was pretty bad. The car that was driving down
the road had extensive damage to its front-right side, but could
still operate.

The parked car was a different story. The entire rear-left side was
*TOTALLED*, with the muffler ripped loose and laying on the ground.
That car isnt going anywhere for awhile.

The driver told us as we stood gawking, that he had been talking on
the phone while driving and lost control of his car. One of my
neighbors speculated that, in fact, he had fallen asleep at the wheel
and drifted to the right until he hit the parked car. The driver
wasnt hurt. He didnt even appear shook-up.

This made me think: whether he fell asleep or lost control while
talking on the phone, it was a damn lucky thing there wasnt a
bicyclist riding down that same road alongside his car when he lost
control. It was a damn lucky thing that car was parked there, too.
Since, if it wasnt, the car could have hopped onto the sidewalk and
smashed into the side of the apartment building I live in.

A car is not just a vehicle. It can be a weapon. A weapon that can
destroy people's property and/or take human life, simply because the
driver loses control through simple carelessness.

It takes far more skill, mental alertness and physical ability to
ride a bicycle than it does to drive a car. People are given licenses
to drive cars with the bare minimum of ability and most never get any
better than the day they took their driving test for the DMV.

A careless bike rider will, eventually, get him/herself hurt. Maybe
they might hurt some one else. But, they wont total a car or run
through a wall into some one's home, and I think the number of people
killed by an out-of-control bicycle every year would be pretty small,
compared to the number of people killed every year by out-of-control
cars.

I could have bought a car a long time ago. I chose not to. I ride my
bikes whereever I need to go.

I ride my bike knowing that I'm part of the solution, not part of the
problem.

Just getting this off my chest.