Understanding the judgment of newspaper editors

More than 10 years ago there was a whiny article in the Style section of the Post about how hard it is for men to urinate when the power goes out. I mean, if you don't want to stain the wall by the toilet, sit down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Similarly, a column by Courtland Milloy maybe 15 years ago excused public urination as a rural custom brought to the city by people who migrated from the South.)

I, reading the aforementioned newspaper on the toilet (sitting down), wondered what possessed the editors to run such a worthless story. Similarly, I felt the same about some feature in the Washington Post Magazine a few years later, seemingly about vacationing in Charleston, SC, but really about the narcissism of the author and her family, who didn't spend much time in Charleston at all, but in their expensive vacation rental.

So today I wonder about the judgement of the editor of the letters to the editor. I don't have a problem with people writing exceptionally stupid letters. My problem is that the letters are printed. I thought that the editorial page had an "obligation" to ensure that the pieces published are factually correct.

1. This letter, "Why Do Bicyclists Dice With Death?," by Tom Arundel, whines that bicyclists ride on the road and expresses the shock experienced by the author when he helpfully yelled out the window at the bicyclist he encountered, to suggest that he ride on the nearby off-road trail, that the bicyclist didn't respond positively.

WTF privileges drivers so that they believe that they are empowered to scream at people on the road who aren't necessarily driving cars? (Not that they don't yell at other drivers as well.)

We bicyclists could in turn yell at all drivers, couldn't we? Bicycles predated automobiles... and roads were first built for bicyclists not cars. (Note that when I drive a car I don't yell at bicyclists.)

b. The problem by the way is that recreational (bicycle) trails are designed for recreational bicyclists, not purposeful riders who bicycle as their primary mode of transportation.

2. Today's letter by Anne Patterson of Potomac Falls, "Sharing the Road But Not the Load," asserts that automobile drivers pay for the entire cost of the road infrastructure. While numbers do vary, the number that I use is that 50% of the cost of roads are paid for not by gasoline excise fees, tolls, and registration fees, but general funds.

My source is this paper: Improving Efficiency and Equity in Transportation Finance. Other papers, including by the Texas State Department of Transportation state the percentage amount of subsidy, depending on the road, can be much higher. Recently I saw a paper (maybe cited in Washcycle) that stated that non-drivers, particularly bicyclists, actually provide a much greater subsidy to drivers than drivers provide to non-drivers, as far as road costs are concerned.

W(hy)tf is an unknowledgeable Anne Patterson privileged with a letter to the editor published in the Washington Post when she clearly "knows not of what she speaks"?
-----------
For fun check out this other paper by Martin Wachs: A Dozen Reasons for Raising Gasoline Taxes.

Since the Post only allows one letter per author per six months, I hate to waste my potential allotment on correcting clear errors of understanding that the Post editors should correct at the outset of deciding on whether or not to run a particular letter.