Keep Your Eyes On The Road

Editorial | May 20th, 2016

Start seeing motorcycles

It’s that time of year, the weather’s beautiful, and there’s nothing better than feeling the sun in your face and the wind in your hair. Needless to say--bike season and lake season is in full swing.

As motorists it is our duty to be fully alert while behind the wheel. We must realize that while in a vehicle we have a ton of components moving at an unmeasured velocity. Bikers and bicyclists don’t stand much of a chance when it comes to impact.

According to the Governor’s Highway Safety Association (GHSA)’s 2014 preliminary data, “Motorcyclist fatalities were still 26 percent higher in 2013 than 2003. The annual number of motorcyclists killed has doubled since the late 1990s.”

To what do we attribute the rising death toll? The aforementioned report mentioned helmet use, alcohol, speeding, and violations of the motorcyclist’s right of way by larger vehicles, due to lack of visibility.

Lack of visibility is one thing -- but distracted driving is a whole new animal.

Last Saturday, a man from my hometown was killed in a motorcycle accident. While on his motorcycle, he was rear-ended by a motorist on Hwy 281 North.

The street in front of Saint James Basilica was lined with motorcycles during the day of his funeral. The sun was shining and there was a gentle spring breeze in the air, and I can guarantee Dan’s peers would have rather been sharing the road with him in a different way.

Please pay attention, be safe and put down your screens.

The Best of the Best of the best

The Best of the Best is the time we ask our readers to point us at the hot spots. We choose the categories and you fill in the blanks with people and places. We are proud to say that we host the area’s longest-running media poll — meaning we’ve been comparing apples to oranges for over 20 years!

It took a lot of computing and compiling, but we finally did it. The Best of the Best nominees were announced on the back page of last week’s issue. Congratulations nominees--thank you for adding your flavor to Fargo. Not only do we see some of our old favorites, but some new names have hit the bill as well, and we can’t wait to meet you!

The survey is broken down into four parts: “People and Places,” “Arts and Entertainment,” “Food” and “Drink.” This year we have a few new categories. We have best stylist, best barber, best performance DJ, best restaurant service, best server, best food truck and best place to take someone from out of town.

Voting ends on May 26 at midnight, so be sure to vote at bob2016@hpr1.com, and remember if you don’t vote you can’t kvetch.

The awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, June 5, at the Plains Art Museum in downtown Fargo. It will be a sit-down affair with a wine and beer cash bar available.

We’d like to see all of you there: friends, friends of friends, and friends we haven’t met.

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