Short rant tonight. I am tired of people pushing their babies and children into traffic before them as if their offspring had the magical ability to stop a couple tons of metal and plastic dead in its tracks. I've had two close calls recently. Last week I was riding with a friend down a four-lane road with a turning lane in the middle. We had just gone through a big intersection when, from the left side of the road, a woman riding a bicycle and balancing a baby carrier on her handlebars shot across the two lanes of on-coming traffic, swerving just in time to stay in the turn lane and not ride straight into our path. She didn't slow her bike at all, prefering to continue veering in one direction and then another to keep herself from hitting any of the cars around her. Her actions scared the shit out of us!

The second incident happened a few days later, further down the same road and closer to where I live, where there aren't as many lights at night. People frequently cross this street day or night without benefit of a crosswalk or signal light. At night it's particularly bad because people tend to be visible only by the thin silhouettes they create in the headlights of the oncoming cars. One woman carrying a baby in a blanket tried to step out of the turning lane into the lane immediately in front of me, causing me to swerve to the side.

This baby-of-steel phenomenon is one I first noticed while working in Santa Ana. There are more baby strollers in Santa Ana than cars. You can't drive one mile down one of those city streets without seeing a young mother blithely push her baby into traffic ahead of her. You know a people are breeding too much when this is the level of concern they feel towards their children.

I believe this should be a citable offense. Gods know we don't need to make these children wards of the State, but there should be a substantial fine attached to this offense as well as a mandatory 8-hour class in parenting. Yes, I know that neither of these punishments will fix the problem, but my hope is that by leveling a financial burden and an inconvenience at the offenders they will opt to take the five seconds required to protect their children.

PS: For those that don't know me well, I am not a crusader for children's rights, etc. Quite the opposite. With the exception of children whom I don't directly know, I have little use for children in general. I am equally concerned for the innocent drivers whose lives will be destroyed in an accident like this.

OK, stepping off my soapbox for awhile.

"Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children."— Sitting Bull