Bicycling is very important to the state’s tourism industry. We need safe roads, not new laws regarding their use.

Because of deep, soft-sand shoulders, narrow lanes and blind curves with 18-wheelers or pulp trucks, proposed laws may not mean safe biking. Bits of glass, drag and instability makes moving off impossible in traffic.

Proposed biking laws should be crafted by those who frequently bike Maine roads. Would we think of having non-drivers craft motor vehicle laws?

Advocacy for safe biking, through refurbishment and increase of infrastructure, is a way to go about making cycling safe.

Yes, it takes bureaucrats to oversee an infrastructure, but infrastructure is the purpose of a bureaucracy. Stewardship is the primary reason for taxes — paying for contractors, road crews and machinery.

Give cyclists paved broad shoulders; paved defunct rail lines for bike trails; special right-of-way paths across willing owners’ land. Such an increase in infrastructure would give work to Mainers and be a big boost to state tourism.

People want to bike here, but friends have been told not to come to Maine for biking because of road and rider conditions. That reduces business for restaurants and lodging.

Think about it.

Susan Dorman, Bethel