A SKINNED KNEE or shin isn’t the worst that can happen to reckless bicyclists (Shutterstock).

Have a bit of a daredevil spirit, do you? In the mood to bring out your inner chance-taker?
Step out on a sidewalk.

This is Bicycle Safety Month, and not a minute too soon. The altogether laudable trend toward healthful exercise of the two-wheel variety has taken on an uglier tone, and you’d better look four ways now when walking, driving or just standing here around today’s bicycles.

Electric bikes started being aimed at the senior- and almost senior citizens who wanted to get exercise without taking his or her body beyond slightly out-of-shape endurance.

What with the aging nature of the baby boom generation and advances in other electric vehicles (we had three Chevy Volts) there was also a boom in e-bikes.

The most popular kind are – in sense – hybrid because you can pedal in the traditional way, or employ a throttle to zoom ahead or a combination of the two. Back in those good old days, e-bikes wouldn’t go faster than 20 miles an hour, and most of us would find ourselves passed by joggers and off-the-leash canines.

But now we have the next generation of such, which straddle the world of e-bikes and e-motorcycles, can reach 40 mph and then, look owid!

Mostly ridden by – this is my biased opinion – entitled and reckless youth – these vehicles often blast down narrow sidewalks and/or careen diagonally across city streets, leaving it to the Grace of The Almighty whether there’s a tragedy.

Aside from the blithe disregard for broken bones of some nimrods, the cities carry some blame for the problem.

Outside of snooty planned communities such as Irvine, most bike lanes are a joke. The most recent bike course addition in Garden Grove, for instance, travels along Gilbert Street north to past Orangewood and approaches Anaheim. Part of it is wide enough and relatively safe, but from Trask Avenue to Chapman Avenue it’s a narrow and twisty not-so-thrilling ride where – in many places – you are only inches from passing cars … a thin white stripe of paint the sole barrier keeping you from eternity.

Now, I recognize this is not an easily-solved dilemma. Many roads in Orange County trace their history back to our rural days and were never widened enough or straightened enough to make them truly bike-friendly.

Moving our communities to actual active transportation would – frankly – require more and better walking and biking paths (expensive!) and that may still be many years in the future.
But for now, let’s get Jaiden with his black hoodie and broccoli hairstyle off his spoke-rocket until he can learn to share the road (and sidewalk) with folks who don’t nurture a death wish.