"I prefer to walk, anyway," she says. "And the times that I don't [like to walk] are when it rains or it snows, but then it's too slippery to ride your bike."

Blatant Disregard for Rules

For the Cambridge police, the more students who follow Feldman's example and stop riding, the better. Cambridge policemen blame a large part of the city's traffic problems on the bikers. The bicyclists' blatant disregard for the laws of the road, they say, adds unnecessary problems to the already congested Harvard Square.

"It's a disaster," says Thomas E. Donahue, traffic patrolman and safety officer. "There are just so many bicycles. They're everywhere. They drive anywhere they want. They don't stop at lights, they don't follow the flow of traffic. A lot ride right down the middle of Mass. Ave."

However, Cambridge police say that while bikers cause problems for city traffic, Harvard students are not the main source of trouble. Problem bikers also include elementary school students and employed adults who commute to work, says Donahue, who runs a bicycle safety program at local elementary schools. "There are [lots of] people coming into Cambridge every day. You can't just pinpoint students at Harvard," he says.

Donahue says that 91 biking-related accidents occurred in 1987, and many of these, he says, were caused by disregard for the biking rules.

Perhaps that is why some Harvard bikers do try to follow biking rules.

Gingerich says that he obeys all of the biking laws. "After seeing CAT-scans of brain-damaged people, I always wear a helmet," he says. "I never ride in the Yard. I would never pull anyone off their bike. I think evil thoughts about them, though."

Henebry says that he follows most rules because he understands why they are made. "Too many bikers speeding always irritates me as a pedestrian," he says. But even he does not obey all the rules. "I never wear a helmet," says Henebry. "Part of the fun of riding is the wind blowing through your hair."

Employees at the Bicycle Exchange, a bicycle store in Harvard Square, say that they always encourage customers to follow traffic rules, "because motorists don't follow them," says Betsey J. Moore, head cashier at the store.

She says that they also urge bicycle riders to wear helmets, "because staying alive is better than being alive as a parapalegic."