I warned you. This one is not a happy rant. I had several options, and maybe I'll talk about some of them (tests, grading papers, apathetic students that arent' me, etc.) some other time, but this rant is devoted to something which I perceive as an annoyance and a threat to my safety and health.
There are social movements against firearms, alcohol, tobacco, etc. I think I should start another one. I believe the time has come to ban bicycles from public areas (or at least the SIUC Campus).
I'm not the only one concerned about this. Walking on campus here at SIUC you can see it in the students' eyes. Many of them are scared. We hear the gentle swish of bike tires on cement, and wonder if this is going to be the one that runs us all down. It is a new experience for me.
It is true that there were bikes at SEMO, but the hills protected us from the worst. An individual had to be hardcore to ride a bike on campus at SEMO. This means that most of them had been on bicyles before. At SIU I don't get that impression.
The campus here is extremely flat. Bicyles are very common, and many of the people on them look and ride as if they've never been on one before in their lives. They weave all over the sidewalk, looking as if they have no control. And they ride these out-of-control bikes at reckless speeds.
To make things even worse, the walkways on campus are all wrong for bikes. Perfect for walking, but wrong for bicycles. There are tons of intersections so that at almost any point one can veer off in another direction without having to walk on the grass. Bikes fly through these intersections in ways that make me wish there were stop signs or traffic lights.
On second thought, I'm not much of one for excessive government control. I think, instead, I'll just let everything build up until one of them runs over me. Then, I'll take it all out on the poor guy who didn't realize that riding a bike doesn't afford a Constitutional Right to hogging the sidewalks with reckless abandon. I'll probably feel sorry for the guy afterwards, unless it is, instead an attractive girl. Maybe then I'll act hurt and try to get her number. :-)
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