Letters, 7/24: Don’t stop with NASCAR

This is in regard to Len Hoggatt wanting to eliminate NASCAR racing to save gas (letter, July 16). Maybe we shouldn’t stop at just NASCAR, maybe we should have the government ban all sports activities.

Think of how much gas is wasted by Husker fans driving from North Platte to attend a football game, with maybe two people in a car and possibly four in a huge motor home, and all the gas wasted. Not to mention the tailgate parties where motor homes sit with the generators on and waste all that propane for grilling. The Husker fans are not alone; all the college games waste thousands of gallons of gas.

Let’s not stop there. Maybe we should eliminate NFL games, 50,000 or more people had to get to the stadium some way, you take that times maybe 10 games two to three times a week, over a million cars that probably drove 20 or more miles round trip, plus the idling time, probably 3 million gallons of gas wasted going to those games.

Or maybe baseball. Maybe not as many fans, but just as much fuel wasted going to those games. Just try and get past the Salt Dog stadium after a game on Sun Valley and see how long you have to sit while the police allow all the fans to leave instead of allowing traffic to flow on Sun Valley. 

A tremendous amount of sports are night games, and televised also. How much fuel is wasted lighting up the fields? And running the generators for the TV crews?

Eliminate NASCAR, and you take away a multi-billion-dollar industry, and eliminate several hundred thousand jobs.

So to be fair, you cannot pick on just one sport, you would have to eliminate all of them, because they are all just as guilty of wasting fuel for the entertainment of the masses.

Mitch Whiteley, Lincoln

Petition badly promoted

My family was disappointed to hear that the State Fair didn’t get enough signatures to stay in Lincoln. I feel that they were trying hard, but it was not promoted properly.

I took a petition around and gladly had people sign it. I know there are a lot of others that do not want to see the fair go but didn’t know where to go to sign it.

I am hoping that the next step to save the fair is a big success. It needs to stay here in town. It has always been here and needs to stay here. Lincoln and Omaha are a bigger population than Grand Island and the other cities in the western area.

Kristi Burklund, Lincoln

Let’s all try biking more

Thanks for the excellent article on bikes as transportation in the Sunday A.M. section on July 20!

Matt Wills and his wife are wonderful examples of how we can have fun, get exercise, avoid polluting and save money by biking — to work, to the store, to day care!

I applaud Matt and Karen Wills, Bob and Mary Torell, Matt McClure and all the others who bike to work. I urge others to consider trying it just for a couple of days.

For those who worry about danger, I point out that you can cut your risk by 80 percent by following the rules of the road — stopping at stop signs and red lights, riding on the right with traffic, yielding when entering the street or turning, using the full lane when it's too narrow to share, riding in a straight line, and being careful.

Also, more than 80 percent of the bike collisions with cars in Lincoln occur when the cyclist is riding on the sidewalk — it’s two to eight times more dangerous to ride on the sidewalk. Collisions to cyclists riding in the street are actually very rare.

Bicycles are not toys — they’re legally vehicles — and very useful ones! Get out on your bike and ride!

Bob Boyce, Lincoln