by Ron Cunningham
Executive Director, Bike Florida
When you think about it, riding a bicycle is an act of revolution.
It’s not just the most efficient means of personal mobility ever invented, it is a mechanical Declaration of Independence.
Riding your bicycle you invite BP to take its deep water drilling platforms and shove them. You are flipping off Big Auto and telling Wall Street that you don’t need their petro-industrial complex, thank you very much. Your bicycle will take you “off the grid” in AutoAmerica. And the personal fitness that comes with pedaling your own body weight from place to place is the best medicine against a corporate health monopoly that grows fat and rich off a national epidemic of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and other maladies promoted by the sedate auto-lifestyle.
But no revolution comes without risk. And the pure fact is that riding a bicycle in America in general — and in Florida especially — can be a risky business indeed. Nearly every year, Florida tops the list of the most bike-and-pedestrian (walking being another act of revolution) states in AutoAmerica.