Cars' Enormous Downside

Dear Editor,
    I know that people regard cars as so "normal" that they overlook cars' enormous downside, even though it is catching up with us: global heating, air and water pollution, endless parking lots, and plenty of violent deaths and injuries. Car crashes cost $230 billion per year, and heaven knows how much cars cost us all in other ways. That's why it seems highly absurd for Bruce Todd, who drives a car for transportation, to announce that unhelmeted bicyclists are putting a big financial burden on society, because there is a small chance that they will fall on their heads and sustain a brain injury ["Bicyclists Collide in Helmet Law Debate," News, Aug. 4]. A car driver, with or without a seat belt, puts a much bigger burden on both society and the environment. The car driver can kill or severely injure half a dozen people with a moment's inattention. Whether motorists wear seat belts is immaterial; they can easily kill and injure people other than themselves. It's shameful for Todd to imply that it's more responsible and moral to drive a car while wearing a seat belt and endanger other people's lives and health than to ride a bicycle without a helmet, risk only one's own life, and refrain from polluting the air. A bicyclist who eschews the use of a motor vehicle is doing a very positive thing. And doctors consider utility bicycling healthier than driving cars.
    I do wear a helmet, gorgeously customized by myself, mostly to cool my head and help keep the sun off my face. I also ride a very stable recumbent bicycle that hasn't crashed in 10 years. Some people ride faster, less-forgiving bicycles. Some don't wear helmets. Some don't even wear sunscreen. If they're riding a bicycle instead of driving a car and treating pedestrians with respect, then more power to them, whatever they may be wearing.