Students at Bridgewater-Raritan High School in suburban New Jersey raise $2000 for a bike rack. The school refuses.

Offended by the snub, students promptly began planning a response. Yesterday, more than 50 students rode their bikes to school, commuting in pairs and groups. After studying up on state biking laws — and carrying copies with them — the students legally tethered their bikes in conspicuous clusters around lamp posts, trees and other poles dotting the circular drive in front of the school.

It seems the school administration feels that biking to school is not safe. They may be right about that. But then lots of things aren’t safe. Taking a larger view, cars are unsafe on the macro level (?) in terms of accident fatalities and on the micro level (?) through their contribution to global warming. But in the immediate, bikes are, perhaps, a bigger risk then pulling up at the drop off curb in the cage.

I’m a cyclist and a reluctant driver. I’m really, seriously emotionally invested in the idea of riding bikes to save the world. But I don’t ride to school with my daughter because I fear for her safety in morning traffic. So, how’s this? The school is right in the particular but wrong on every other level. Could they do something to make the routes leading to the school safer? Traffic taming, bike paths, traffic lights, speed limits - there are a lot of partial solutions out there. Some combination of these would make it possible for me to feel differently about getting my daughter on her bike every morning.

And then there’s the “suburbs” factor. The way Americans have chosen to live is the biggest obstacle. And that’s not changing. We’ll drive to the mall or stay inside and watch TV. The nearest store will be too far to walk. There will be no sidewalks.

We may save ourselves if we can convert our economy to clean electric power. But it’ll still be difficult to ride a bike to school safely.