Drivers should get off their high horse

Regarding a handful of letters about what bicyclists should do, should wear for safety, how they should behave on roads, licenses they should get and even what taxes they should pay, I respectfully submit the following: Get your own automotive house in order before demanding the cycling-should-do list!

That being said, let’s review the list of things drivers should and shouldn’t do. You should stop at all red lights and stop signs. You should yield to pedestrians who wish to cross the street. You shouldn’t get all liquored up and go out driving only to crash into other parked cars, vans carrying families, pedestrians, trees or large bodies of water.

You should remind yourselves that motor vehicle accidents still top most lists as the leading cause of accidental death. You should pay more attention to the road and stop applying makeup, eating, texting, reading, fiddling with the radio or reaching into the backseat. Perhaps if you were watching the road, checking your blind spots, scanning for hazards, anticipating problems and generally being a truly responsible motor vehicle operator, then those pesky, difficult-to-see cyclists would be more visible.

You should behave so that the term “road-rage” will never be applied to you. As you sit alone in traffic, you should consider car-pooling, taking the bus, a shorter commute or even riding a bike. Perhaps you should investigate the true costs of driving, such as the social costs associated with sprawl-type development, the medical costs of soaring childhood obesity rates and the cost of military spending in oil-rich regions of the world.

Finally, the Toyota Motor Corp. suggested in one of its marketing campaigns that perhaps we should all thank Prius drivers for contributing fewer CO2 emissions. I say, one more thing drivers should do is thank cyclists for simply driving less.

Geoffrey Crofoot

Everett