[Vision2020] Critical Mass: Kind & Gentle Activism: Thoreau Lives On?

[Ted Moffett]

All:

The "unofficial" Critical Mass web site, given that this is not really an
"organization," but an "unorganized coincidence," as they claim:

http://www.critical-mass.org/

Some of the responses to the discussion of Critical Mass as a means to
promote biking seemed to imply that those who rode with this group were
intent on goading drivers of Hummers, Lincoln Navigators, and Ford F-350s
into a rage, begging them to run us down.

Please!

This group was a harmless bunch who just wanted to ride around town as a
group and make a gentle statement that biking should be more tolerated on
the streets of Moscow.  The rides did not "block traffic," as some have
phrased it, though some vehicles were slowed down.  I did not time the
rides, but I estimate they were less than an hour long.  The rides were
not a major impact on the flow of vehicles through Moscow streets.

Critical Mass in Moscow was not about pissing drivers off, at least not
that I saw.  We often did ride on the side of the street, but not always.
Recall the recent presentation of bike code, indicating it is legal to ride
out in the lane if you can ride at or above the speed of traffic.  A regular
Moscow cyclist just posted today that he does ride out in the lane in 25 MPH
zones, and gave good reasons why.  Most Moscow streets don't have bike lanes
anyways.  When you have 20-30 or so cyclists together riding, like in
Critical Mass, it's hard not to slow a few cars down.

It is good to promote driver tolerance for cyclists, just as well as
cyclists tolerance for drivers.  I don't like legitimizing angry responses
to cycling when cyclists happen to slow a motorist down by blaming the
cyclist for being an idiot, unless they are deliberately being a nuisance,
though of course this is exactly what critics of Critical Mass would claim.


We all know what happens between a car or truck vs. a bike in a collision...
Thanks for the enlightenment!  And don't forget your sun screen and drink
lots of fluids!  It's predicted to hit 100 F. Monday.  No joke!

If increasing bike use in the Moscow/Pullman areas is a serious proposal,
there could be many times more cyclists on the streets than now, and this
will necessitate drivers taking this into account. * *
**
*I always try to ride defensively, assuming the worst obliviousness and/or
lack of concern for cyclists in the mindset of the drivers on the streets
and roads, though this is not always possible, and trust be assumed in some
cases.  Even on the Chipman and Latah Trails, the number of people wearing
earphones blaring away, stopping them from hearing those coming from behind,
or the number of people with pets or children, or roller bladers swerving
from side to side, which is the natural motion for this sport, demands
careful attention to avoid an accident.*
**
About the effectiveness of Critical Mass, the name says it all.  A critical
mass must be reached before significant change can happen.  The group did
not have enough cyclists to make a big enough impact for them to be taken
seriously.  If 100 cyclists rode together as a group through the streets of
Moscow, this would certainly make more of an impact.

As to whether this sort of action could have the intended effect to promote
more cycling and encourage drivers awareness that cyclists have a
"legitimate" place on the streets, or is always to be viewed as a waste of
time, or worse, the web site given at the top of the page will provide
information.

Ted Moffett

PS  Is this essay below relevant?

http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html


"... when, in the mid-1950's, the United States Information Service included
as a standard book in all their libraries around the world a textbook of
American literature, which reprinted Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience,' the
late Senator Joseph McCarthy succeeded in having that book removed from the
shelves — specifically because of the Thoreau essay." - Walter Harding, in *The
Variorum Civil Disobedience*

"I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral
obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more
eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David
Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs
of a legacy of creative protest." - Martin Luther King, Jr, Autobiography,
Chapter 2<http://www.stanford.edu/group/king/publications/autobiography/chp_2.htm>
The Theory, Practice, and Influence of Thoreau's Civil
Disobedience<http://thoreau.eserver.org/theory.html>by Lawrence
Rosenwald - "The
essay is individualist, secular, anarchist, elitist and anti-democratic; but
it has influenced persons of great religious devotion, leaders of collective
campaigns, and members of resistance movements."
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