Being new to someplace, as I am here to NC, always turns up some wonderful stuff and some wonders. One of the most .... uhhhh.... 'intriguing' phenomena here in Wilkesboro are these wildly popular, little scooter/moped thingies, affectionately referred to by many as 'liquor sickles' or 'alcopeds', nicknamed that apparently cuz no license is required to ride 'em .... so if you've lost your driving priviledges somehow, you can still get around on these units.
Not to diss anyone's mode of transpo, but I've noticed a couple of annoying things regarding these vehicles and their riders: many of them can barely make 35mph which presents a real hazard in a 45 or 55 zone with no hard shoulder to pull over onto, many don't even have mirrors so the riders have no clue of what's behind them anyway and finally the operators don't even seem to know the rules of the road. Frankly, riders like this in California or most other places, where it's dog-eat-dog on the road, would be little more than organ donors waiting to happen. There's simply not as much traffic here so they seem to survive in spite of themselves but people out here are still in a hurry, it seems . Human nature, I guess.
I give them the wave when I'm riding cuz, afterall, they look like a crotch rocket from the front at a distance to me, but they never wave back. That gets me thinking that maybe these riders don't feel like they're a part of the two-wheeled community.
Other than writing a polititian, what could be done to include these guys and/or wake 'em up to the fact that that pavement is mighty damn hard?
Not to diss anyone's mode of transpo, but I've noticed a couple of annoying things regarding these vehicles and their riders: many of them can barely make 35mph which presents a real hazard in a 45 or 55 zone with no hard shoulder to pull over onto, many don't even have mirrors so the riders have no clue of what's behind them anyway and finally the operators don't even seem to know the rules of the road. Frankly, riders like this in California or most other places, where it's dog-eat-dog on the road, would be little more than organ donors waiting to happen. There's simply not as much traffic here so they seem to survive in spite of themselves but people out here are still in a hurry, it seems . Human nature, I guess.
I give them the wave when I'm riding cuz, afterall, they look like a crotch rocket from the front at a distance to me, but they never wave back. That gets me thinking that maybe these riders don't feel like they're a part of the two-wheeled community.
Other than writing a polititian, what could be done to include these guys and/or wake 'em up to the fact that that pavement is mighty damn hard?
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