It’s not just the unsafe aspect of millions of cars hurling at you, it’s the outright hostility that I too have experienced.It is, sadly, the reason I no longer bike or walk to work, despite my company’s pro-green incentives.My friends do not believe the things that have happened to me while on foot or bike: cars running stoplights at 60 mph long after they’ve turned red, people working on yards pointing and interrogating me as to why I’m walking, as if it was illegal, and men following in cars to get a too-close look.My favorite has to be the man who leaned his entire upper body out of a moving car to try and grab me as he drove toward me.I’ve felt safer biking in downtown Manhattan during rush hour.Kirsten DialLos AngelesWhen I was growing up in the 1950s, every kid with a bike attended law-enforcement sponsored safety sessions at local schools. We were tested on hand/arm signals, traffic rules and ability to maneuver in traffic. Our bikes were checked for necessary equipment, including lights and warning bells. If you flunked, you tried again until your skills were at a high enough level to be licensed.Fast-forward to 2007, and bike riders are no longer learning the basics.

The ones I see on the road can’t maneuver safely around parked cars or make emergency corrections. They also appear clueless that they are required to stop at stop signs (not just traffic signals), yield the right of way to pedestrians at crosswalks and signal before turns.I’m not excusing thuggish drivers who harass or injure bike riders. But drivers of two-wheeled vehicles have a responsibility to learn the rules and develop their bicycling skills before they venture out into the “mean streets.”Bonnie SloaneLos AngelesI would be wealthy if I had a dollar for every time I have been cut off by hostile or distracted drivers and by those traveling at high speed who pass within inches.There is little question that those of us who make a conscious effort to cut our carbon footprint by using bicycles are put at risk. Perhaps most galling of all are those who idle their engines by the curb as they read, eat lunch, nap or talk on cellphones.Don MalvinCanoga ParkCycling could be a safe sport, even on the busiest of streets, if everyone involved was better informed. Jeannine Stein’s article, had you given it more prominent placement and, perhaps, had it been a little more constructive and a little less sensational, could have served all of us well.Josh HarrisBrentwood.

Those infernal Heelys.The trend started innocuously enough: A few isolated kids popped up in malls, zig-zagging around shoppers quick and nimble as fleas, in pint-sized tennis shoes with rollers hidden in the heels.They seemed almost cute at first — budding figure skaters landing triple axels in store aisles.Heelys had all the earmarks of a passing fad — poor-man roller skates that don’t go particularly fast or far — but kids found that the shoes gave them secret powers. They could walk around normally, then quietly shift their weight to the back heel and transform themselves from ordinary kids to superheroes quicker than their parents could say “Stop that!”Clearly the shoes have been on a roll. Sales topped $40 million in 2005 and $188 million in 2006, the same year Heelys Inc went public. In addition, Heelys logged nearly $50 million in sales the first quarter of this year, putting it on track to top last year’s sales.In fact, since the introduction of Heelys in late 2000, sales have been nothing short of phenomenal, creating an even more alarming development: Of the millions spent on Heelys last year in more than 70 countries, an estimated 15% of the shoes sold were for adults.Big, brittle-boned adults. Recent research suggests that kids are at an increased risk for injury in Heelys. One can only imagine what happens when an adult straps on a pair.Clearly it was time for some hard-hitting investigative reporting.At the Sport Chalet in Long Beach, sales rep Eli Ortega said it’s not unusual for adults — often mothers wanting to accompany their kids — to purchase the shoes. He rummaged around the back room and emerged with a pair of pink-trimmed Heelys roughly the size of the Queen Mary.”If you’re going to buy Heelys, you’ll need protective gear,” he added, looking me up and down skeptically.Hmmm Sunglasses?”Wrist guards It’s not that you might fall,” he said.