I work on Camp Pendleton, a Marine base in southern California. My commute to work is about 12 miles. For about 5 miles at the start of my commute I have to travel through a section of base called Fallbrook Naval Weapons station. This is a sub base (not submarine, but a small base in a base) of a base near long beach. They keep weapons in bunkers here, and its very desolate. Gates block access to all the bunkers from the main road.
The main road is two wide lanes with very broad shoulders for the entire length except for a small 100 foot section in the middle on one side where the shoulder becomes very small. Speed limit is heavily enforced at 45 mph.
The gate is always jam packed with cars in the morning. There are only two gate guards checking IDs (this station requires 100% I.D. check all the time).
What would normally be a 15 minute trip is a 30 minute trip with all the waiting at the gate. Plenty of gasoline is burned just waiting in line.
So I've known for years they have a sign up that says NO BICYCLE TRAFFIC. As far as I can tell there is no good reason for this. Its not a security issue, the shoulders are wide... seems pointless to me.
Today I decided to call someone about it so I called the office of the base "c.o." who turned out to be a civilian douchebag named Mr Goddard. He right away let me know he had a God complex when I asked him about the rule and whether or not we could have it reconsidered or I could get a special pass
his reply?
"NO BIKES ALLOWED, I RUN THIS PLACE AND ITS MY RULE TO MAKE AND I MADE IT"
Couldn't really argue with that so I hung up. I then decided that I wasn't gonna let that fly so I called back and asked for his name and what his position was (I didn't know who or what position he had when i first called)
At this point the guy is of course flabbergasted, you know when you are God of your little base you aren't used to people holding you accountable to your words. He started stammering and was like "wael werel arew waait before we do that what is YOUR NAME"
and I politely told him my name
He then started to tell me his name as "Monty.. i mean MR GODDARD"
Then he told me he was the acting C.O. of that base and I asked "A civilian C.O.?" and he said yes and that he was there since 2000..
From there he started to just speak and give me unsolicited information on how the bike rule was a rule that was there since before he got there in 1999 (interesting how its not his God rule anymore) and that it had been looked at three times since then.
He went on to talk about how engineers had deemed the road "unsafe" for bikes and that he wasnt going to rescind the rule and be a plaintiff in court when someone got hurt. I knew that this was bull**** and pointed out that 15 years of cycling and I have never seen a public road as safe as that one (huge shoulders, low speed limit) where cycling was deemed "unsafe".
The whole conversation consisted of him talking down to me as if I were his subject in a medieval fiefdom.
Since I wasn't going to take that, I decided to call his parent command which is Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach.
There I got in touch with the supposed X.O.. I thought things would go better until I heard the man speak. I can tell you he was not the most well spoken person I have ever heard and I knew right then the conversation was going south.
This guy went from bad to worse. He reiterated a fact I already knew which was that bikes were currently not allowed. No **** sherlock. I then asked him if we could have that rule reconsidered... he then went on to tell me that that rule is for safety and that the state of CALIFORNIA evaluated the road and told them it was not safe for bikes.
I almost laughed when he made that up.. I asked him "The state of california? They have jurisdiction over a federal installation?" He kind of ignored me and rambled on. I asked him to provide me with the name of the person or the department in California who has the jurisdiction over that road to which he replied "I dont have time for all dat"
and then he said "You are the second person to ask me this question and you are getting the second answer" "beyond that im not gonna spend anymore time on this"
what a bunch of lying douchebags. If you want to make up a rule out of thin air just to stroke your ego, go ahead.. but own up to it when someone calls you on it.
I'm debating whether I should push this issue further. I think what I really need is a newspaper to be on my side and start asking questions for a feature to expose the napoleon complex of these people.
Gas is 4 dollars a gallon for regular and every day I'm pissing it into the wind waiting in line at a gate I could be riding my bicycle through. What a load of ****.
The main road is two wide lanes with very broad shoulders for the entire length except for a small 100 foot section in the middle on one side where the shoulder becomes very small. Speed limit is heavily enforced at 45 mph.
The gate is always jam packed with cars in the morning. There are only two gate guards checking IDs (this station requires 100% I.D. check all the time).
What would normally be a 15 minute trip is a 30 minute trip with all the waiting at the gate. Plenty of gasoline is burned just waiting in line.
So I've known for years they have a sign up that says NO BICYCLE TRAFFIC. As far as I can tell there is no good reason for this. Its not a security issue, the shoulders are wide... seems pointless to me.
Today I decided to call someone about it so I called the office of the base "c.o." who turned out to be a civilian douchebag named Mr Goddard. He right away let me know he had a God complex when I asked him about the rule and whether or not we could have it reconsidered or I could get a special pass
his reply?
"NO BIKES ALLOWED, I RUN THIS PLACE AND ITS MY RULE TO MAKE AND I MADE IT"
Couldn't really argue with that so I hung up. I then decided that I wasn't gonna let that fly so I called back and asked for his name and what his position was (I didn't know who or what position he had when i first called)
At this point the guy is of course flabbergasted, you know when you are God of your little base you aren't used to people holding you accountable to your words. He started stammering and was like "wael werel arew waait before we do that what is YOUR NAME"
and I politely told him my name
He then started to tell me his name as "Monty.. i mean MR GODDARD"
Then he told me he was the acting C.O. of that base and I asked "A civilian C.O.?" and he said yes and that he was there since 2000..
From there he started to just speak and give me unsolicited information on how the bike rule was a rule that was there since before he got there in 1999 (interesting how its not his God rule anymore) and that it had been looked at three times since then.
He went on to talk about how engineers had deemed the road "unsafe" for bikes and that he wasnt going to rescind the rule and be a plaintiff in court when someone got hurt. I knew that this was bull**** and pointed out that 15 years of cycling and I have never seen a public road as safe as that one (huge shoulders, low speed limit) where cycling was deemed "unsafe".
The whole conversation consisted of him talking down to me as if I were his subject in a medieval fiefdom.
Since I wasn't going to take that, I decided to call his parent command which is Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach.
There I got in touch with the supposed X.O.. I thought things would go better until I heard the man speak. I can tell you he was not the most well spoken person I have ever heard and I knew right then the conversation was going south.
This guy went from bad to worse. He reiterated a fact I already knew which was that bikes were currently not allowed. No **** sherlock. I then asked him if we could have that rule reconsidered... he then went on to tell me that that rule is for safety and that the state of CALIFORNIA evaluated the road and told them it was not safe for bikes.
I almost laughed when he made that up.. I asked him "The state of california? They have jurisdiction over a federal installation?" He kind of ignored me and rambled on. I asked him to provide me with the name of the person or the department in California who has the jurisdiction over that road to which he replied "I dont have time for all dat"
and then he said "You are the second person to ask me this question and you are getting the second answer" "beyond that im not gonna spend anymore time on this"
what a bunch of lying douchebags. If you want to make up a rule out of thin air just to stroke your ego, go ahead.. but own up to it when someone calls you on it.
I'm debating whether I should push this issue further. I think what I really need is a newspaper to be on my side and start asking questions for a feature to expose the napoleon complex of these people.
Gas is 4 dollars a gallon for regular and every day I'm pissing it into the wind waiting in line at a gate I could be riding my bicycle through. What a load of ****.