Missouri Bicycle News

I realize that there is a general attitude among drivers, myself included, that we own the road. Well, we don't. This is not a city jungle with survival of the fittest the order of the day. As the largest, most dangerous thing around, we have a responsibility to look out for the smaller, more vulnerable among us, whether they are pedestrians, motorcycle riders, bike riders or the very young and very old drivers. We have the power to control their destiny with our arrogance, our speed, our superior size, our bullying attitudes, our road rage and our preoccupation with what's going on inside our vehicle.

Fog, rain, snow, dusk, dawn, the sun in our eyes or "I'm late!" can't be seen as an acceptable excuse for hitting anyone, in a car or out among us with only their skin as protection. We as drivers are supposed to take the factors that affect our visibility and attention and reduce our speed accordingly so we can still respond to the unexpected. A child being in our path is the most deadly of the unexpected we might have to deal with. Instead, we blithely speed up and down our streets as if everyone is invincible, ourselves included.

We've had five children hit by cars since school started. That's an average of one child every one and a half weeks. Most of these children were in crosswalks. This is a totally unacceptable trend.