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Although I'm a Republican who gets around mostly by car, I'm the first to agree that cycling should be encouraged, and that this Rob Anderson character is being a complete douche.
But Anderson's use of legal obstructionism to raise "environmental" objections to an activity that reduces pollution and saves energy highlights the fact we don't have an energy problem in this country so much as we have a lawsuit problem. The legal obstructionism that allows any idiot to prevent us from drilling for domestic oil or building nuclear plants of standard design - and from storing the waste in a known-safe place until it becomes economic to recycle it - is now also being used against wind, geothermal and solar installations. And yes, Anderson is using the same system in his jihad against bicycles.
My solution: unify our systems of civil and criminal law by making civil plaintiffs follow the same stiff code of legal procedure as the prosecution in criminal cases. If Rob Anderson and his ilk had to prove their cases with a "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of evidence to get a unanimous jury ruling, rather than "preponderance" of evidence to get a majority vote, junk lawsuits by Luddites would be largely filtered out without needing government to pick winners or manage arbitrary caps in damages. And within a few years, this country would be energy independent.
