The best thing I can say about today’s Feed is the “stuff” is a little fresher, but it still stinks.
Up first a woman that used her vehicle to kill a stranger because she had just broken up with her boyfriend is to be released from prison after 15 years. Woman paroled after 15 years, struck and killed NH bicyclist Now I’m not going to be vindictive about this. This was a crime of passion that happened over 15 years ago, the woman will be 69 YO when she hits the streets, and she will have to report to a parole officer likely for the rest of her life. If there is an additional requirement that she never drive a motor vehicle except in a life or death situation or go back to prison, then I’m totally copacetic with the situation. But if she hits another cyclist while driving, I say hang her with a short rope.
An update from a wreck linked here earlier on the Corpus woman hit from behind by a hit-and-run driver. Prayer Ride Takes Place For 42-year-old Injured Bicyclist Having survived a similar wreck I have to say this will be a long row to hoe for the victim, as she was pretty much destroyed from the waist down. As for how to avoid, the usual advice: split your attention front and rear and be aware of any “anomalous” behavior behind you like riding on the shoulder or weaving between the shoulder and the main lane of traffic, and be ready to bail if things get hairy.
Another Boise bike wreck report, with double the “fun”. Driver cited in crash that injured Boise cyclist Yes you get 2 wrecks for the price of one in this article. The first was for a left cross into a parking lot by an unlicensed driver with no insurance. Tickets were issued. The second was for a right hook wreck later that day, no tickets issued as of the posting of the article yesterday. The driver for the second wreck claimed that he was signaling his turn, but in order to see the signal the vehicle has to be far enough in front of the bike for the blinking light to be in his field of vision. Fortunately the cyclist in the second wreck was able to dodge most of the impact and argue his case as a victim with the LEO at the scene. How to avoid, well both riders did a pretty good job of that by being ready to bail from the bike or use an escape route, and both avoided getting killed.
A NJ driver is injured in a wreck with a cyclist, a very rare happening. Bicyclist struck, killed in Vineland crash Well of course the cyclist was killed if the vehicle hit him hard enough to injure the driver. Not enough said about this wreck to determine if there was any way possible to avoid it with the cyclist acting in his own defense. I’m leaning towards “no”, because of the injuries done to the driver indicating a rather high closing velocity. There comes a point where human reaction times make detecting and avoiding a wreck impossible even for the best cyclists.
Update on the MD crash where the driver went off the road on the opposite side from his direction of travel to hit a cyclist. Bicyclist killed by car “St. Mary’s sheriff’s deputies are trying to determine why a Virginia man drove across the centerline of Route 235 last Saturday afternoon and struck an oncoming bicycle on the highway’s shoulder, killing its rider.” How about this: he was a) drunk or b) a sociopath who wanted to kill someone and the cyclist was convenient, or c) all of the above. Or he could have been d) a Northern California deputy who didn’t get enough sleep the night before, except that he was from VA instead of CA. Don’t ask why, just lock him up.
Another update on another head on wreck against cyclists, this time from CA. DUI suspect faces life behind bars This just keeps getting better and better, as the charges and the bail just keep getting higher and higher. Drunk with a record of drunk driving, driving without a license (and by extension insurance) facing one murder and 4 assault charges with a minimum sentence of 27 years going up to life in prison. Interesting also is the number of people in the group also keeps going up, as the first reports only mentioned the 3 most seriously injured cyclists, now we find that there were 8 in the group of which 5 were hit, 3 seriously injured enough to require transport to a medical facility and one of those that died.
More on the ICE-assist bike/motorcycle wreck in OR. Bike vs Motorcycle Crash Kills One Again this wreck was caused by the cyclist not waiting until he could see behind the oncoming SUV before he pulled out, with the secondary effect that the ICE-assist put him far enough into the lane that the motorcycle rider couldn’t avoid him.
An injured cyclist needed lots of blood, and other cyclists helped out. Cyclists pull together to help injured rider, blood bank Yay! us, but it would have been better to have given the blood and the cyclist not been hit to need it… It now appears the driver did not pass with the required 5 foot clearance required by CO law and may face a ticket. He hit the guy and LEO can’t decide if the driver failed to give 5 feet of room when passing? I bet if I punched one of them in the nose they wouldn’t have any problems deciding if I cleared them or not. The law is very clear and specific on this, I don’t see what the problem is. This was either a case of assault with a deadly weapon, or failure to pass with 5 feet of clearance.
Another UK story with UK levels of detail. Cyclist injured in emergency call What makes this story significant was the ambulance was on the scene at the moment of impact 
+2 points for promptness, but -1000 for having the wreck in the first place.
And finally comes a really stupid story about if it’s more dangerous to be an overweight sofa spud than to ride a bike. BIKING: BENEFICIAL OR HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH. This can’t be a serious article…
And that’s the Feed for today, y’all keep those ocular organs out and locked when you’re on the roads. Seriously I need every set of eyes reading this I can get.
Billed @$.02, Opus
