ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 9, 1997 TAG: 9704090002
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
Give cyclists a safe share of the road
THANK YOU for your editorial supporting bicycling (March 27, ``In London, the fast track is the bicycle lane'').
For four years, our daughter was state trainer for the Florida Traffic and Bicycle Safety Education program. She educated teachers and law officers on how to make sure that cyclists (children and adults) wore helmets, learned the techniques of riding safely, and obeyed all traffic rules. One of the rules is to ride single file close to the right-hand edge of the road.
Last year, on the day after Christmas, she and five others were cycling - helmeted and within 18 inches of the edge of a secondary highway - when a pickup truck swerved to the right, killing our daughter and another cyclist and injuring the other four.
Florida's bicycling community has long advocated (with some success) bicycle lanes on streets and roads, but this road didn't have one. That extra 2 or 3 feet might not have saved our daughter and her friend, but it would have given them a much better chance to survive. As it is, all cyclists ride in fear of motorists who resent having to share the road with them.
As you say, bicycles are cheaper, healthier and sometimes quicker, and do not pollute the air or take up much space.
If we want to encourage bicycling, we must provide that little extra space where cyclists can ride without fear of being run down.
FLORENCE C. RAYNAL
LEXINGTON
Technology isn't helping drivers
LOOK AT all the new cars sitting in the dealerships' spaces, mainly because no one can afford them. Prices keep rising because of all the so-called technology being added. Try to get one repaired without using a month or two of your paycheck.
Being a retired engineer from California, I saw the the smart road on the West Coast as the greatest waste of taxpayers' money ever conceived. Mainly, it's for experimental college professors like those at Virginia Tech.
In the March ``Reader's Digest,'' there was an excellent article on careless accidents and the human personality by Professor E. Scott Geller from, of all places, Tech.
No wonder the Virginia Department of Transportation doesn't have funds for bridge repairs and two-lane roads. It dumps our tax money into useless efforts. VDOT comes every winter and repairs Virginia 24 with patches, which is the major cause of accidents from ice buildup at the edge when there is no evidence of slick areas anywhere else.
There will soon be so much machine technology that we humans will completely lose our thinking ability, and our fingers will drop off from pounding or pushing a button. Try to drive through the streets in Roanoke city without having your car shocks and alignment redone.
HARRY SIMMONS
GOODVIEW
Baptists' resistance to a hierarchy
DICK J. Mayes says (March 27 letter to the editor, ``Society bends rules, God does not") that the Southern Baptist Convention believes in an inerrant, infallible (and other divisive adjectives) Bible. He also says that the SBC doesn't believe in ordaining homosexuals (or women).
The truth is that when the SBC was first organized more than 150 years ago, our leaders - who were giants of the faith - included among our tenets the belief in the priesthood of the believer, the autonomy of the local church, and the goal of unity without uniformity. This means that matters of faith and practice are decided by local churches as they feel led to carry out their witness in their local arena.
I am not defending the practices of Glade Baptist Church. However, it's evident that since the political takeover of the SBC by the fundamentalist faction, faith and practice are now to be passed down from an SBC leadership that claims hierarchial status. There isn't enough space here to adequately discuss the implications of this on Southern Baptist life. This is against our Baptist history and heritage, and the current SBC leadership knows nothing of either.
Those who know Baptist history know that we have always resisted a leadership hierarchy - no pope, no earthly kings or potentates. And now we say no modern Pharisees.
DAVID L. ADAMS
ABINGDON
Negatives from past weren't necessary
IT IS amazing that your newspaper feels it must bring people down, even when they die. I am referring to the late Judge Fred Hoback Jr, who was a kind and caring individual.
The news article (March 22, ``Ex-judge Hoback dies at 58'') about his death started off discussing his accomplishments and included complimentary statements from others. In respect to his family and friends, the article should have ended there. But you saw fit to tear him down by using negative information from the past.
Try printing positive news once in a while, and leave the garbage to the tabloids.
DONNA GILBERT
ROANOKE
LENGTH: Medium: 97 linesby CNB