".........This is how I view these forums, especially this particular one. Originally, I joined up for information and personal promotion about bicycles and everything else concerning them. Now my needs and and uses of bicycles have changed dramatically just this past month of May, 2013 (I now drive exclusively due to fear of being bike-jacked where I live), I mostly visit here as I am now completely bike-less. For the first time in my adult life, this simply means that I am without a bike to my name. But I find that I spend far more reading and commenting on more and more topics that have absolutely nothing to do with bicycles. I now only post here on Politics & Religion most-i.e. 95% to 99%-of the time, Foo for oddball topics that does not have a place here, and News & Announcements for this whole Website important business. I do skip Trollheim completely on purpose. I have my limits as far as overloading my refined senses goes........"
From: http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...-P-amp-R/page3
Well, I guess it’s now official as I posted this on
Politics and Religion. I am no longer
Car Free. Before all of you shout “traitor to the cause” and “chicken!”, do read the above from my now favorite forum. The “new reality” has finally caught up to me and I must undergo changes as well. That means driving 100% of the time from now on.
As I stated before, I cannot choose the move somewhere else option due to the present economy’s new normal. I own property and do not want to sell in such an unstable, volatile market as it presently is. Plus I would have to pay either rent or a mortgage monthly and the selling price would not really cover even just this expense especially over a long period of time. Plus my experience tells me you cannot run from this sort of trouble as more and more people become marginalized then tumble down into being permanent members of the underclass for the rest of their lives. When people give up (especially younger ones), they tend get into major trouble-sooner for some, later for most.
Bicycles have seemed to move far beyond a “toy,” “exercise/sporting equipment,” or most of all, “cheap” around here. The dream of the bike actually usurp the private motor vehicles for many to all of a person’s transportation needs is now becoming a real possibility for more and more people now in this present bike “boom” period.
Time will tell if it sticks forever.
Unlike any other period of heavy bike usage, this time is far different than any other one. In the Southern California area, there has been a spike in bike thefts. I have solved that part of the problem with the selection of the bikes I did choose very successfully the past several years. The other one-Bike Jacking-not so well. With the online local news feeds coming in of some really scary incidents of the bike owner getting badly hurt just a few miles from my house. So one fine morning just a couple of days ago, I visited my car dealer and am now a proud owner of a subcompact. Becoming a car driver has given me protection via being taken seriously by the local law enforcement to not becoming such an easy target by the criminals. New CA laws downgraded bike prices and value. Making it less likely you will be taken seriously by the selfsame local law enforcement as it only a “petty” theft, not a grand one.
http://la.streetsblog.org/2011/01/05...for-bike-theft
Driving a car means not taking public transportation, being exposed to constant and worrisome targeting by the criminal elements by just innocently waiting for the next bus/train. Having the ability to lock yourself in plus moving at an very fast speed is both protective and powerful which my bikes cannot possibly deliver. I wish my bikes could have delivered that ability to be safe even late at night going through a bad neighborhood or two as I still need them and their as well. Not just for myself but my elderly mother and equally ill-health sister who needs protection as well and cannot use bicycles in any form. I hope to return to being
Car Free in the future. But not the foreseeable one. I see not only more bike theft; not just around here but all over North America. Even the even more dreaded bike jacking will gain momentum as well.
I wish all of you the best. Please enjoy your bicycles for me. I hope to rejoin your world when I can. Meanwhile, I will stay safe cooped up in an automobile
. Good-by for now and treat each other with more respect than you have been doing in recent postings.