Nice post! Hi! I'm John in Corpus, and it now strikes me as funny how after a few years reading these posts every so often, I only now thought to join in. The "catalyst" which now compels me to join in?... Well,... no cop has ever before, thoughout the years, ever expressed anything negative about my gas motor-assist bicycles, in fact,... they (typically) merely laughed, and asked a couple of friendly questions. Ater all these several years, I finally encountered, the other day, a "busy-body"/bored cop, way out on a country road outside of Corpus, who wanted to make a big/negative deal about the 48/49 cc "China Girl" on my mountain bike. I had pulled out of the driveway, driving, as normal, usually for me, on the shoulder, when he (Nueces County Constable) stopped ahead on the shouler, and waited for me to catch up to where he was sitting. He eventually got back in his patrol car after I pointed out that the motor is 48-49 cc, hence, under U.S. Federal law, still legally just a bicycle,... and Federal Law, in the abscence of ANY specific Texas statute, is the only concievable law that specifically could be applicable to a gas motor assist bicycle under 50cc displacement... Texas has never bothered to codify ANY specific GAS powered bicycle assist statute. As he got back into his car, he said I should have a helmet on, to which I expressed feigned dismay, bleating out,... "When did they pass THAT new statute for bicycles!?!", to which he mumbled that their isn't one, but that it's a "good idea" anyway... Whereupon,... he then drove off from whence he came... HA! "Creeping authoritarianism!" Of such little increments are suffocation of our innate freedoms inexoribly suffocated!... ALL hail "The NANNY STATE with the mailed fist!... Police officers have the LEGAL authority to enforce codified laws, NOT their own paticular pejudices,... whether pro or con,... on ANY particular issue. I know this is an extreme irritant to some "Barney Fife Types" out there,... but it is a FACT of life/law for some SUPREMELY IMPERATIVE REASONS!... An excellent analogy could be,... if I'm walking in the middle of the desert, and I suddenly pause to yank my pants down, and take a crap, am I then subject to some contrived legal/law enforcement punishment, even/ESPECIALLY(!) in the utter absence of any law stating whether it IS,... or it is NOT, legal to take a squat, and defacate right square in the middle of the desert?... In this scenario I present, there are no offended people around me in that desert to object/complain/and/or snicker, but then,... miraculously(!)... a policeman (Star Trek teletransporter fashion...) appears out of thin air,... packing an extremely itchy ticket finger,... and an (obviously "put on") "bad-hair day" attitude ,... and proceeds to try to make MY day as miserable as his (ostensibly) has been.......... I easily develop bursitis in my knees if I get rough on my knees, so pedaling extensively can leave me a bit crippled for a few days... Yeah, I've been using these 49cc bicycle motors to save on gas,... especially whenever the price starts creeping too high at the pumps, or simply taking a few spins around here, or Houston, "just for kicks" whenever I need to uplift my mood/spirit. Something about the wind in your hair that enhances that special feeling/sense of "FREEDOM"(!)... Freedom, alas,... I trully fear will surely become a very precious/scarce/extinct
thing indeed as this tired, worn out, old planet continues to fill up with yet more overcrowding (By the way, whenever is "enough" of us-humans,... ever "ENOUGH"...
,... and eventually, merely "given enough time" just the sheer complexity, and population growth numbers/mass demographics compel bureacrats everywhere to regulate/stifle the last little gasp of freedom out of the very last stubbornly human "hold outs"... Then we "humans" just evolve, as a race, into some dreadfully bland "Borg"/hive based abomination... Sigh........ I used to live aboard sailboats at free anchorages (as humans have done since even before recorded history...), and then, back in the eighties' in California, incrementally,.. they passed local ordinances to make such a lifestyle impossible/illegal, so that THESE days, if you want to live-aboard in coastal California, you have to be "very comfortable" to "very rich"... Authorities tend to have a seemingly natural/instinctive antipathy against "Gypsies", Or "Sea-Gypsies", plains indians, etc., etc., or any other overtly free/nomadic types of individuals for that matter... Excessive conformism is inherently hostile to a "free spirit"... The California seafaring/live-aboard community, very sadly, was not a cohesive/numerous/notable enough constituancy to protect its' interests/lifestyle,... hence such a completely free (in ALL aspects...) way of life,... simply is now EXTINCT, gone forever,... in California... There, sadly, are always going to be some "busybody", authoritarian-mindset people lurking around, whether it be a cop, beaurocrat, politician, clergy, schoolyard bully, etc., etc., ad nauseum,... to enthusiastically seek to shove (metaphorically speaking...) some apendage of theirs up into our anatomy... Remember that toleration of abuse,... inevitably invites only more ,... abuse...... OUR responsibility should be to seek, by virtue of banding together, as an identifiable element within our communities, to give a common voice to our interest/rights as citizens. Petitions/initiatives, etc., to extoll, and further the gas/electric motor-assist bicycle interests will be neccesary to repel the inevitable future assaults on the motor-assist bicycle choice/option. Eventually, the status quo "legal gray area" that the (gas)motor assist bicycle owners in Texas currently enjoy(tolerate?), will inevitably be supplanted/replaced by some codification of law that will be possibly even hostile, or at least indifferant to our interests... I lived for many years part time in Mexico, and I can wholly assert to you that legal "gray areas" (ambiguity) in the laws are usually NOT in the citizen favor, but merely a vehicle for corrupt/abusive authorities to bugger the citizenry. I say this,... even though, incidentally, for almost ten years now, my closest friend down in Mexico has been a cop,... but, so far in his life, he has comported himself as that "rare phenomonen",... of a trully decent fellow who does not pull that "mordita" crap (policemans' extortional abuse) on hapless citizens, or tourists... We owe it to ourselves to be pro-actively engaged,... to encourage all viable modes of transportation that ease the gas cost burden, and lessens oil imports from foriegn, often hostile nations... It should be INCESSANTLY hammered away against any detractors arguments prejudicial to gas/electric bicycles, that if EVEN a "paltry few millions" of Americans regularily hopped down to "where-ever" around town on their daily errands, instead of their damned gas-pig S.U.V.,... you could make a really significant dent in oil imports... I mean "everybody", except foriegn "petrol-tyrants" would love to see THAT developement,...right?... Regularily using a gas sipping errand hopper (of whatever mode) should be agressively presented as what it is,... a manifestation of actively "hands on" behavioral patriotism...
