“Coming in hot!” While this may be a comical phrase to some, I had it yelled in my direction as a cyclist flew past me on the sidewalk while walking to class one afternoon. After being at K-State for almost three years, it has repeatedly come to my attention that we have an issue on campus concerning biking. Whether you are student or faculty, we all deal with cyclists on the road and on sidewalks on a frequent basis.
In an interview with Sgt. Brian Sheaves, a member of the K-State University police force, he even stated that biking is an issue due to cyclists and non-biking individuals (vehicles and pedestrians) not knowing what rules and laws pertain to bicycles. I believe that as a campus we should increase the knowledge and awareness of everyone on campus so that we can potentially decrease the biking issue. One way in which we can reduce the problem is by creating a course similar to alcohol.edu but pertaining to biking. Including information about when a bike is considered a vehicle, when it is a pedestrian and who has the right-of-way in situations, to name a few of the topics needing to be covered by this course.
Campus police are already working on additional ways to alleviate the issue, but their solutions are focused majorly on the cyclists themselves, rather than everyone gaining knowledge, which would hopefully be the outcome of the aforementioned course. To quote Queen, let’s “Get on our bikes and ride” safely, and aware of what we should and should not be doing.
Thank you,
Hayley Schwartz
