When i ride my bike on key west streets I feel like the child forced to endure a chain smoking parents second hand smoke. Your vehicle’s carburetor is sucking in the public’s air supply and spewing it back out laden with toxic compounds no different than pumping raw sewage overboard your second hand exhaust is polluting the air we all breath, if the tailpipe on your car or scooter was in the front would you be driving it? Just like the growing awareness of the harmful side effects of second hand cigarette smoke  we need to stand up against the dangers of internal combustion engines  if you run your tail pipe into your car and roll up the windows you’ll be dead in a few  minutes, a pack a day habit may take 50 years to kill you,  here’s  a few of the airborne pollutants gasoline and diesel  engines are  leaving in their wake, Carbon monoxide, Black carbon, Nitrogen dioxide, Sulphur dioxide, Benzene, Formaldehyde, Polycyclic hydrocarbons, and of course  Lead!   The latest studies done on congested urban areas like Key West link these toxic emissions with  cancer, heart disease, birth defects and dementia.

Key West’s  addiction to a car based transportation system and it’s disdain for bicycles and other modes of travel needs to be  re-evaluated . The city should promoting the use  of non-polluting low-impact vehicles. Like quitting the habit its time to realize internal combustion engines are devastating to our own health and  others that share the roadway, and  not to mention the planet

rickeith