Last week’s CW email lead with a feature on Petrol Pinchers by Allan Girdler, in which he runs down eight candidates in a variety of flavors and styles that are guaranteed to ease your pump pain. Along the way he wonders why anyone would drive to work instead of ride, a fine sentiment but the asphalt tropics of Florida sooner or later disabuses most of us living here of that summertime notion.

Here at opinion central, we’re wondering why, with independent and franchise dealers alike bemoaning the category sales slide while at the same time dailies around the country are running internally intiated lifestyle and business features on the sudden attractiveness of two-wheeled transport as both protest and practical necessity, there’s surprisingly little pro-active industry pr showing up on an hourly basis.

We can think of a half-dozen pitches for manufacturers or dealers that right off the top would generate the kind of public interest media’s clamoring for these days. Four-buck gas? See you in the papers.