When Two Wheels Meet Four

That means recognizing that there are an increasing number of bicyclists who ride on the road because that is the nature of their sport or because they are riding to travel somewhere, and that drivers need to be more aware and more careful. If that involves momentarily slowing down, that is what "sharing the road" means.

In my experience as a cyclist and a driver, bicyclists routinely stay on their thin stripe of concrete to the right, and it shouldn't be too much trouble for cars to enjoy the rest of the road.

STEVE KATZ

Potomac

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As a board-certified anesthesiologist, I can attest to the fact that the blunt trauma and internal injuries that a pedestrian, inline skater or, yes, bicyclist, would sustain in an accident with an automobile, even at urban crawl speeds, will be uniformly fatal, given the mismatch in the inertial mass of the two.

Why D.C. officials and the "urban cool" haven't studied this phenomenon or found it intuitively obvious is a mystery to me ["D.C. Bike Sharing Kicks Into High Gear," Metro Aug. 13]. A photo accompanying that article, showing Ellen Jones, transportation director for the Downtown Business Improvement District, riding in traffic and dwarfed by the sheer tonnage of the vehicles around her, should scream "death wish" to any rational individual. This is why the SmartBike DC program is such a bad idea.

JAYESH DAYAL

Potomac