Death By Dooring? House Speaker Howell Thinks It’s Funny

Note, that this is in the great state of Viginia, a state that I do not live, but I do have some friends warmly known as Rose and Orchid Bouquet do live there.

In a bold attempt to save some of his constiuants from death by dooring:

“Senate, J. Chapman “Chap” Petersen (D-Fairfax) has proposed banning people from opening a car door near moving traffic “until it is reasonably safe to do so.” The bill also would forbid a person from keeping the car door open “for longer than is reasonably necessary to load or unload passengers.”

Since dooring, while not the most common way of dying on a bicycle, kills several cyclists in the US, a year, and scares the shit out of hundreds of thousands of others, you’d think that this should be a serious penalty, right?

“The offense would be punishable by a fine of up to $100.”

When I think of myself getting hit by a door, because someone is too lazy to look one second to see if I’m there, and because I’m hugging the door zone as to “not delay motorists due to my hobby” you’d think that this would matter to someone, right?

“House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford), heading into his 26th General Assembly,
chuckles at such legislation.”

Dead cyclists are a laugh a minute, I guess.

It would totally be unfair to say that Howell has no concern for us:

“Despite his amusement, Howell said he sympathizes with some of his fellow lawmakers.

“Sometimes, in their own mind, they think it’s a good bill,” he said. “There are ones that might sound a little wacky, but to a lot of people, they have some merit.”’

Yes, we’re so sorry for the poor cyclist and those of us who show a little human concern for us.

I thought that the one of the “only things” that an extreme conservative felt the government should do is to protect its citizens. If spend billions going around the world to disarm, an actually unarmed tyrant who has a hypothetical, but never real nukes in order to “defend American lives” you’d think that they could protect us from the badly designed roads that the government built here.

I guess they are too cheap, lazy, and now amused to do even that.

Thanks Howell, we love you and you’re sense of humor.