Dear Editor,

I wake to the second morning of motorcycle Hell. Since 7:30 Saturday morning on this third weekend in August, adrenaline jockeys astride crotch rockets have been flying with impunity, reckless abandon and homicidal energy from Boulder to Nederland and beyond.

They knowingly cause people to pull off when confronted with a 500 lb. flying instrument headed straight for their windshield. Intentionally and with reckless disregard, they fly over the double-yellow line, passing motorist-after-motorist, increasing the stress and anxiety for each of us in our mountain community.

 Exasperated, I phone Boulder County Sheriff Dispatch to request more enforcement. It's not only a tired conversation between me and whichever deputy will call back, but leaves me feeling as helpless as I do frustrated.

 “One rider who we recently pulled over had reached 105 mph,” the deputy conveyed.

 As I made my morning tea, I watched a pack of six crotch rockets scream past a blue SUV across the double-yellow behind my house. It was not the first, but the 13th, moving violation offense that went unaddressed this weekend. The return of the students at the University of Colorado has only increased the population of those undertaking criminal behavior.

 “They take off their license plates or hide them under the seat,” she explained.

 After taking in my report, I wished her well and conveyed how the mountain community truly appreciates their presence.

 “I appreciate that, it means a lot to us,” she said before hanging up.

 Any morally minded person living in the mountains for more than five minutes paying attention has a similar story to share. Some may call Dispatch, while others shrug their shoulders in apathetic resignation. Colorado’s No-Chase Law makes it illegal for reasons of public safety for law enforcement to pursue those using Boulder Canyon as their own personal racecourse, but that doesn’t preclude radioing ahead or finding other means of identifying the testosterone units out on a joy ride to our community’s detriment.

 Other states and Canada use air enforcement to track down these offenders. Many officers resign themselves to the reality that manufacturers have created high-speed motorcycles meant for the race track that often fall into the unlicensed, uninsured, and largely untrained people riding them.

With the crumbling down of our society and the Trump Administration trashing the laws holding a civilized society accountable to the lives of others, I often muse: Is it an act of defiance? Is it an expression of anger or aggression?

Surely, every twist of the throttle bringing any one rider double past the 45 mph speed limit on our Canyon highway has not only the awareness of the laws he or she is breaking, the threat of life and safety to him- or herself, but to the lives of others as they sail across the double-yellow as though it never existed.

 Each time they do, every rider degrades our society, screaming out volumes of disregard not only our personal lives, but the lives of the wild ones. They also contribute to the violence we feel in our own communities on any given Tuesday.

 All of this has its own personal effect on the feeling of indifference. How does any one of us feel when a motorcyclist racing down the highway at 90 mph meets with his self-perpetuated death? As the adrenaline jockey screamed past my Subaru on the double-yellow last month while returning home with one of our disabled dogs, I felt as threatened as I did angry.

 The community is comprised of mature, responsible and thoughtful members who care about the lives and well-being of others, both human and nonhuman. These riders who knowingly, intentionally, and I suspect, joyfully violate the speed limits and double-yellow make a statement every time they scream past your car and throttle it up to 80 or 90 mph:

They care not about hurting or killing you or I, than they do themselves.

Denise Boehler

Nederland