Fenty uses police escort , clogs traffic on bike rides

A discussion on the MABRA listserv prompted me to respond to AAA.
I am fed up with all of the negative coverage on cycling on roads. I believe that there needs to more positive communication and education to all users of the roadways. Hopefully, AAA will change their tactics and focus on their core policies on helping all of us have a better quality of life... see my email response to:

To: landerson@aaamidatlantic.com
cc: pmaiolo@aaamidatlantic.com; jlong@aaamidatlantic.com

Lon,

I am deeply disturbed by the recent coverage of WTOP's commentary on Mayor Fenty and relating his activities to the bicycle community as whole.
As a long time AAA member, I have recently discontinued my membership because of the anti-cycling stance AAA has had against the cycling community. Not only do I and my family commute by car and travel by car, I have also tried to become more progressive on alleviating crawl and sprawl in the Washington DC area by commuting by bicycle from Chevy Chase, Maryland to Arlington, Virginia. Not only does it reduce pollution, lower the consumption of gasoline, provides one less car on the road it ,also provides for a more healthy body, thus hopefully when more individuals do this they can also help reduce the cost of health care and ultimately improve everyone's quality of life. By the way, my cycling commute time is about equal to my daily commute by car in time and sometimes less.

In my opinion, AAA should be promoting the positives of cycling and communicating to population about how both cyclists and automobile drivers should interact in a positive way on the roads, as well as promoting bike lanes/paths when looking at long term planning of new roads and revamping existing corridors for cycling commuting. Arlington County is one of these communities which in my opinion does a decent job of co-existing well and thus provides a better quality of life for all.

AAA should not be using it's name on focused attacks on individual public servants and biased reporting. In the future, I would hope that AAA understands the importance on how cyclists can assist in the common goals for AAA and your representative members.

We all need to do our parts in making the roads a safer place for both automobiles, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, and trucks and I believe that education and positive communication is one of the best ways to accomplish this. I practice this belief consistently when riding with others, communicating this at work, at home, and providing a good example when driving my car.

I look forward to some positive action the behalf of the cycling community by AAA and will hope that the anti-cycling stance will be discontinued.

Regards,