Originally Posted by John Forester

Bek asks why I act in this matter as I do. Simple answer: "Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles." Laws enacted by motorists to require cyclists to ride FRAP and bikeways designed by motorists to compel such riding prohibit cyclists from exercising the rights of drivers of vehicles, rights and duties given by law but partially denied by the cyclist-inferiority laws. In short, cyclists should not be treated as second-class road users but should act and be treated just like other drivers of vehicles.

Bek prefers the restrictive FRAP laws and bikeways to enforce them, just as do the motoring interests who invented them to restrict cyclists. Bek has never elucidated his motive for preferring the motorists' solution to what motorists see as their problem with bicycle traffic. Since Bek won't bring his motivation into the open, he is reduced to trying to argue that the motorists' solution to their bicycle traffic problem is actually good for cyclists. But trying to argue that anti-cyclist laws are good for cyclists presents problems similar to arguing that mouse traps are good for mice or slavery is good for slaves. The effort of arguing what is not so produces absurd arguments; in the present case, such as that two-lane roads don't have a right-hand lane and the word "or" doesn't offer a choice.

It is reasonable to ask why I persist in demonstrating the absurdity of the FRAP and bikeways arguments. When reasonable criticism is directed at unreasonable arguments, those who present the unreasonable arguments are pressed into trying arguments that become more and more unreasonable. The seven-decade American policy of cyclist-FRAP and the four-decade American policy of bikeways to enforce cyclist FRAP so suit the American automotive public that people believe this nonsense whenever it is proclaimed, which is what Bek does. I see my task as proving expressions of this belief to be based on nothing more than motorists' desires and public superstition, whenever such expressions are published.