Today is Easter Sunday. It's also the fourth full day of Passover and the eighteenth of Ramadan.
So, to be fair--and because I'm non-religious and love cats--I am posting this springtime image:
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| Image by Kilkennycat. |
All praise be to Marlee. And thanks to Max, Charlie, Candice, Charlie (Yes, there were two Charlie-cats in my life!) and Caterina for the memories.
I ask this question only somewhat rhetorically: How often have you been praised for riding your bike?
If you live in the United States, your answer probably is "not often" or "never." I suspect that is true in other places where cycling is seen as something you do only because, for whatever reasons, you can't drive a car.
But a twelve-year-old boy in Mumbai, India has become something of a Twitter celebrity for traveling with his bicycle on the city's Metro system. In the photo accompanying the now-viral Tweet, he is seen seated with his bicycle next to him on his way to school.
This young boy is a daily traveler in #MumbaiMetro, goes to attend tuition. It was a pleasant site to witness him parking his bicycle easily. He looked very comfortable with the metro services. All the best to him. @MMMOCL_Official @pedalandtring @PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/SkD7NHDHay
— rarajeev@Mumbai 2.O (@mumbai_2) April 6, 2023
I have never been to Mumbai but, from what I'm reading and hearing, it has a pretty extensive mass transit system. However, as in most cities public transportation, the longest and most difficult part of a Mumbai commute starts when a passenger disembarks from the train or bus and ends when that passenger arrives at the door of their school, workplace or home. Such scenarios are a major reason why people in outlying neighborhoods of New York, my hometown, drive.
Certainly, I believe the boy should be commended and other kids should be encouraged to do the same. But for some, and many adults, there are other obstacles to overcome if people are going to ride bikes to and from the subway or bus. For one, the trains, station and transit personnel have to be more accomodating to bicycles. For another, there has to be a reasonable assurance that their bikes--whether locked to an outdoor rack or in an indoor facitility--will be there at the end of their day of work, study, shopping or whatever. And, finally, for many, there need to be facilities where people can change clothes--or, in some situations, dress codes could be relaxed.
I am, ahem, a Midlife Cyclist. Still, I hope I live long enough that kids like the one in the photo are praised for riding their bikes to school and that getting to the store, office or other workplace by bike is the norm.
Ask newspaper writers what annoys or frustrates them most, and the answers will include headlines. My newspaper articles certainly weren't masterpieces of literature, but it drove me crazy when it was led off with something illiterate, clumsy or simply inaccurate.
So I felt for Nicole Rosenthal, a staff writer for Patch. Her otherwise-good article began with a title that, while it caught my eye--for a reason I'll mention in a moment--it set a very different tone than, I believe, Ms. Rosenthal intended.
"Aberdeen, Matawan Kids Are Violating Bicycle Laws, Police Say." Matawan is a village in the northern Monmouth County, New Jersey township of Aberdeen. Until 1977, the whole township was known as Matawan. Just one township--which, like Matawan, includes a few villages--stands between Aberdeen and Middletown Township, where I spent my high-school years and first became a dedicated cyclist. In fact, some of my early two-wheel treks outside Middletown took me through Matawan and Aberdeen.
(Snark alert) Li'l Lawbreakers! (Photo by Rachel Sokol)
Then, as now, the township's and village's streets, aside from Routes 34, 35 and 79, are lined with neat homes of people who commute to New York (the railroad station is one of the busiest in New Jersey) and their kids who are like suburban kids in other places--which is to say that if you take away their electronic devices, they're probably not so different from the kids I knew in Middletown.
According to the article, police have received "numerous" complaints about children "disregarding" the state's bicycle safety laws. Well, since most young people don't think very much about the laws are--if, indeed, they even have a vague idea of what they are--I don't think they "disregard" them. Perhaps "violate" is a better word: After all, people violate all sorts of laws and rules they don't realize they're violating.
So what sorts of laws do the youngsters of Matawan-Aberdeen violate? Well, from what the article says, some weren't wearing helmets, which the Garden State requires for riders under 17 years of age. (No such law existed when I was that age; in fact, people would look at you askance if you wore a helmet.) But the majority of complaints were about kids riding in the "middle" of roadways.
Indeed, the law in New Jersey, like its counterparts in most jurisdictions of the United States, says that cyclists have to right as far to the right as possible. (If that's an attempt to influence our politics, it didn't work with me! ;-)) So, I guess some people would define any other part of the road as "the middle." If that's the case, were the kids endangering themselves or holding up traffic--or popping wheelies, as kids have been doing for about as long as they've been riding bicycles?
(If they were riding in the "middle" of the road on Routes 34, 35 or 79, people wouldn't have been filing complaints; they would have been filling out hospital forms or making funeral arrangements!)
Anyway, I saw the headline and wondered whether that town where I rode past other kids like the one I was in Middletown--white, suburban and, if they were anything like me, rather docile even if they were capable of being smart-asses--was suddenly turning out menaces to society.
