Bicycling history

The following article is an adaptation from Dr. Walter Crankset's lecture series.

A student asked this question:

There's a bicycling advocate in Tulsa who was spouting off about the Universal Right of Speed recently. He says it's part of the motor vehicle code but it's so obscure most people find it impossible to locate. Then he went on to say that it seems to be a sort of psychological compulsion. Which is it - law or abnormal behavior?

You've stumbled into one of the true wonders of modern life. The Universal Right of Speed is a multifaceted concept that can be adapted to many different scenarios. Like a Power Bar which can be used for basic sustenance, removing loose filings from your teeth, or an emergency tire patch, the Universal Right of Speed gives motorists the unfettered ability to drive as fast as they like whenever they like. And you're absolutely correct when you say that it's an obscure part of the law. No one has been able to locate it, but everyone knows it's there.

The URS as applied to motorists states that drivers in motor vehicles have the inalienable right to drive as fast as they want whenever they want. Speed limits are merely advisory and can be ignored if there are no law enforcement vehicles in the immediate area. Drivers may operate at or above the speed limit even when the road ahead is obscured by terrain, fog, rain, snow, or smoke. Anything that forces them to slow down (other than a police car parked alongside the road) is probably illegal, immoral, and very likely unconstitutional.

Now, the abnormal behavior part of the URS refers mainly to those pesky bicyclists out there, you know, the ones who routinely disregard stop signs and traffic lights. They too think they have the right to go as fast as they want whenever they want, and that necessarily implies that stopping or even slowing down for traffic lights would cost them precious momentum. They're wrong, of course, because everyone knows that the URS only applies to motor vehicles, not a bunch of spandex-clad anarchists.....unless they're motorists too, and then.....and then...

This makes my head hurt too much.

The origins of the Universal Right of Speed can be traced to the early nineteenth century and the notably obscure Pope Vinny II, self-proclaimed Pope of All the New Jerseys. On the road to Camden, his coach overturned when the horses bolted at the sight of a rider careening downhill on a Draisienne, the forerunner of the modern bicycle. Pope Vinny was understandably upset, and in a papal address given later that week, he claimed to have found this passage in an ancient Bible from the eighth century.

"...and the Lord spaketh unto him, saying get the hell out of my way ya damn riff-raff! Do it now and nobody gets hurt."

Pope Vinny did not cite where this may be found. Scholars have been searching for it ever since without success. They were unable to question the unfortunate Pope about this point of Bible history because he tripped leaving the dais, fell on a nearby oil lamp, and set himself on fire. Historians remember him as Vinny the Flamer as a result, and it had nothing to do with his alleged ties to organized crime and that unsolved string of arsons. Nothing. Remember that.

Where was I? Oh, yes, historical antecedents to the Universal Right of Speed.

Some of those scholars believe that Pope Vinny may have been paraphrasing from an even older Latin text defining the divine right of kings. In the fifth century, Saint Bodacious de Tatas, while fleeing from an angry mob accusing him of taking certain liberties with a local widow, disguised himself as the local monarch to facilitate his escape. According to legend, he cleared the road ahead by shouting, "This is the King's Road and I'm the King! Get outta my way!" This was known as the Divine Right of Way of Kings, which was later shortened to the Divine Right of Kings. Actually, the shorter expression had the effect of broadening the supposed right of monarchs, who used it to great effect. Royals lopped off the heads of enemies and inconvenient spouses, exiled commoners for mopery and overdue library books, and jumped ahead of the line at Starbucks. This was one of the underlying causes of the French Revolution.

In a footnote, history records that Saint Bodacious was captured and returned to the village where he was given a choice between going to prison or renouncing his orders and marrying the woman in question. Late in life, he wrote that after years of reflection, he should have chosen the jail cell. "Better food," he grumbled.

There are examples in more recent history. On a wet Spring morning, Karl Marx was on his way to the British Library when he was drenched by a passing velocipede. The rider went through a curbside puddle, throwing muddy water all over the infuriated Marx. He said, "It is just another example of the rise of the proletariat - the bastards!" These young men recklessly attempted new speed records. Marx had a life-long disdain for such athletic competition, preferring more egalitarian horse-drawn buses where everyone traveled at the same speed. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs," he wrote in the Communist Manifesto, yet there's an addendum in the draft version that states, "and what I need right now is a big stick to shove in his spokes!"

Marx' antipathy toward velocipede riders was well known in London, and caused the daredevils among the young men to taunt him on his morning walks. They made a sport of silently approaching from behind, riding up onto the pavement (sidewalk to Americans), and shouting "Watch out!" in an effort to startle him. Several collisions resulted. One wag called him "Skid" Marx, and the rest soon adopted the clownish name.

Furious at this, Marx channeled his anger into a re-newed effort to complete the Communist Manifesto, hoping that by doing so, he could rid the country of the two-wheeled scourge. In a very real sense, those young men on their velocipedes were directly responsible for the rise of Bolshevism in the twentieth century. Imagine how our world would be different if Marx had found that big stick.

So, we've seen how the Universal Right of Speed is related to both the monarchists on the right and the socialists on the left. Its broad acceptance across the political spectrum is equaled by similar acceptance across the socio-economic spectrum. We'll examine that next.

Dr. Wally Crankset is the Chairman of the Neo-Universal Studies Department at the University of Northeastern Oklahoma extension campus in Broken Elbow. He is a guest lecturer in any local tavern that will have him.