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How to Win an Argument
with a Car Driver
Car Free Movement
This article first appeared in the 1994 Cycle America
Wine country cycling guide

We hope that the following will serve to expand your consciousness to what could be, whether you make the bicycle a part of your lifestyle or not. The ensuing words are not meant to insult anyone.Here are some facts you can post wherever you work or play to challenge all those people who are so committed to their cars:

Riding a bike lets you become truly free. Most people place their cars' health above their own. However, proper health, whether it is for your body or for your car, requires an expenditure of resources, time and money, and continual monitoring in order to stay truly trouble-free. A car-free lifestyle (bicycles require a negligible amount of maintenance in comparison to a car) allows you to assign the greatest priority to your own personal health.

Consider the following observations about a bicycle centered lifestyle.

The Bicycle:

  • Integrates you to your environment. It does not separate you from the world by glass or metal.
  • Teaches you appreciation for the little things that really make up life. A momentum builds when you get off your bicycle and carries into your daily life when you can internalize the little enjoyments found in reasonable weather, a tail wind, a good road surface or even cool drinking water.
  • Slows time down. By enabling you to enjoy the journey, you don't find yourself endlessly rushing from one destination to another with little patience for anything in between.
  • Puts a smile on your face.
  • With no radio or other car noises to distract you, you can use your time on a bicycle to think in a meditative way
  • Allows you to see more of the world
  • Lets you hear birds sing
  • Lets you smell nature
  • Makes you an active participant in life.
  • Lets you determine how fast you want the scenery to change.
  • Saves you the time wasted looking for parking spots.
  • Makes grocery shopping easier since parking is not a problem. By shopping the European way and making a stop at the store a part of your daily routine you can buy smaller quantities and always have fresh food on hand.
  • Saves money: No expenses for gasoline, DMV, parking, maintenance, insurance, tickets.

Can be thought of as
a two-wheeled health club since it:

  • Makes you desire more wholesome foods.
  • Improves your resistance to weather extremes. When you are outside year round, your body, with its improved circulation, learns to adapt to the changing seasons. During the winter when you get out in the cold on a bicycle, your moving body generates its own heat source instead of depending on artificial heat. This often means a lower heating bill because you don't feel cold all the time. During the summer, the breeze and the perspiration you create cool you in a more healthy manner than the refrigerated air found in the home, car or office.
  • Works your heart and lungs with the proven benefits of negative ions (unlike health club bikes)
  • Strengthens your metabolism
  • Alleviates stress
  • Improves muscle tone

More things to think about:

  • Time you don't have to spend working to pay for your car can be used for time with your family, on hobbies, gardening, spiritual pursuits, and other more rewarding activities.
  • Killing small animals is almost impossible on a bike.
  • Cars destroy neighborhoods; their noise reduces property values while their freeways divide communities.
  • Cars require parking, compromising land for their use.
  • Car driving can make you feel guilty. When you see a police car, your thoughts often become: Was I going too fast? Is my registration current? Do I have my seat belt on? Am I parked OK? Did I signal my lane change? Etc. . .
  • Cars destroy the environment .
  • Car accidents are more deadly and costly.
  • Cars promote hostility since they do not allow you to release little frustrations in the same way bike riding does.
  • Car driving establishes a pattern of laziness since you are letting something else take care of your transportation needs.
  • Car driving can make you feel harried because often you want to get out from behind the wheel as soon as you can and live.
  • Car driving confuses the body, creating an unnatural push-pull. Every time you step on the gas there is an excitation of adrenaline in the body. When you step on the brakes all of this energy, never finding an expression, implodes itself back into the body.
  • Driving in traffic raises blood pressure.
  • Bikes are simple; cars are complicated.
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