Montana Code is thousands of pages because even constitutionalists demand regulation when their ox is gored.  For example, LC2196.01 is a bill draft prohibiting bicycles and pedestrians from traveling the 7600 miles of state highways lacking a paved shoulder.  This safety proposal demonstrates “liberty for me, but not for thee” syndrome as revealed in recent social media banter.

 Tim is a constitution supporter who testifies so regularly at the capitol they might name a closet or bathroom after him.   Unfortunately, he supported this bill draft due to safety concerns for bicyclists encountering his logging truck.  I shined the light of liberty on his logic and this prompted Clay to rally behind Tim and cite similar encounters between his livestock trailers and cyclists.  He too is missing the point, so let me put a face on the issue. 

It was a sunny, September morning and the trophy wife and I were on an intense 30-mile training ride on our tandem bicycle.  We were cranking hard on Buffalo Trail Road and with my nose wheel centered on the shoulder’s white line, I alternated glances between my rear-view mirror and the road ahead.  Traffic was rare.  Suddenly, a pick-up blasted past us from behind, missing my left elbow by inches.  With a dotted centerline, no approaching traffic and visibility of a 100 miles, the driver held his lane to purposely put us in the ditch.  Bless his heart.   

Jesus teaches us to turn the other cheek, but He also flipped the tables of the moneychangers—twice.  Because someone had just tried to kill me, I was more of a table flipper than a cheek turner, so I fired the universal “pull-over finger” at the driver.  He did.  Evidently, he was a better Christian than me and before we reached him, he turned the other cheek and zoomed out of sight.  End of story one. 

The next summer, I was in the Beartooth Run climbing up the winding Beartooth Highway.  The road is open to traffic during the race and competitors are instructed to run on the extreme right shoulder of the road.  Every run has one idiot and ours was running on the centerline and he was backing up dozens of cars.  Wearing ear-buds, he was oblivious to everyone’s reality but his and a loving car bumper boosting his backside to the shoulder would have served helpful.  This ends story two and brings me to my point.

 Traffic confrontations between cyclists, pedestrians and motorists are reduced if everyone is courteous of others.  There are jerks at both ends and always will be.  Empowering government to take freedom or rights from a minority to satisfy the whims of the majority is wrong and precisely why America is not a democracy.