Bike Safety Veto: Kerry Healey Wants Me to Die
I received this yesterday from the bicyclist advocacy group, MassBike:
MassBike is sorry to announce that Lt. Governor Kerry Healey has vetoed the Bicycle Safety Bill, H5372 (formerly the Bicyclists’ Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, H5194). From the extremely brief veto letter…it appears that Healey completely misunderstood the intent of the bill, believing it to impose new regulation on “recreational affairs”. In reality, the bill would have strengthened the laws that protect all bicyclists from dangerous motorist behaviors such as unsafe passing and turning and “dooring”, required the police to receive training on bicycling issues, and provided for the evenhanded enforcement of the law for both motorists and bicyclists.
OH MY GOD I’m so glad that raving lunatic Kerry Healey’s career in public office is done. Wasn’t protecting public safety a cornerstone of her recent Gubernatorial bid? Why would any, rational human being in their right mind veto such a bill? It makes no sense at all.
According to the her letter, Healey’s veto is precariously rooted in basic conservative philosophy. She is afraid that the bill is “overly regulative and represents an unwarranted government intrusion.” This is because, in addition to preventing bikers from unsafe motorist behaviors, it would require us to obey the same traffic laws as cars and subject us to similar fines for violations.
The bicycle is my primary form of transportation. As such I have experienced the ill-effects of the awful driving routine of my fellow Bostonians. I would happily accept being subject to fines for running reds or stop signs in exchange for cops actually doing something about the CRAZY BASTARDS who nearly kill me every day. It seems that the same goes for the fine advocates at MassBike who lobbied so hard for this bill to pass.
Where are the angry bicyclists that Healey is trying to protect? No where. It’s probably just a vindictive move because she realizes that 99% of the Massachusetts bike commuters who would be protected by this bill voted for Deval Patrick. I’ll bet she wants to kill us off so that it’s less base for Deval four year from now. Oh but she’s such a has-been it’s not like she’ll benefit. Unless she is just looking for work after she leaves office this week. I mean, she is a criminologist…
January 5th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Jesse, I’m surprised you didn’t see this coming, what with Healey’s silent-but-aggressive push towards putting a “Should Jesse Kanson-Benanav die in a cycling accident?” question on the 2008 ballot. That thing got, like, 120,000,000 signatures. Dude, you’re lucky Healey hates gays more than bicyclists, or there may have been a vote on that shit.