Originally Posted by
donnamb
I know what you mean, but that's not the purpose of this community partnership. It's to get judges to stop issuing hardship licenses when the offender says they cannot possibly get to work by bike. It's also to try to reduce the number of unlicensed, uninsured drivers around here. In the end, that's really more for the safety of everyone the offender encounters, rather than the offender themselves.
My comments were not in reference to your post or the responsible manner in which you described a judge handing over a lock and some good be-seen lights and perhaps a primer on biking safely- that's fair justice, keeps the roads safer for all of us and basically offers a DUI offender a light at the end of a pretty dark tunnel that they'd be a fool not to accept. I'd much rather that than giving way to pleas of, "I'll lose my job if I can't drive!" (as if it were someone's fault other than their own) and giving them back their license.
I was responding in agreement with lil' brown bats post about "these people" posts. What is that? Are those of us who ride what we call "responsibly" becoming some new form of Puritan. Soon we'll have stockades along every bike path and roadway for cyclists who don't conform- and that I find counterproductive.
edit: probably my first ten years of bike commuting were as much due to economics ("poor"- dirt poor to be exact) than any other reason. I don't personally see that as a "less than desirable reason" to use a bike for transportation. I am no longer among "the poor" but I do not consider my biking any more noble and/or desirable than I did at that time. I might be responding to that "this particular breed" comment in the OP- I found it insulting and I think it didn't sit well.