At my church we refer to Sunday services as “ritual”, and the two coming up are ones that I will be featured in and I’m getting really excited about them. The evening service this week we are celebrating Spring, and as part of that I will be getting a really close haircut. Not quite shaving my head, but removing everything except my eyebrow (I have the one that runs from one side of my face to the other and down the bridge of my nose, during the summer I shave out the middle part so I don’t look quite so much like an extra on Star Trek or some other sci-fi program/movie). This will physically symbolize the end of winter and the onset of warm weather. The week after that I’m writing the service for April Fools’ Day based on the book of Job in the Old Testament from a funky translation I remember reading back in the 1970s, and illustrated with a playing of the Chuck Jones film “Duck Amuck” featuring Daffy Duck. Yes I’m showing a cartoon in service, that was also based on the book of Job. The purpose of the service is to illustrate the re-defined role of Satan in the Christian religion, from God’s prosecuting attorney in the Old Testament and through much of the New, to being God’s arch-enemy by the end of the New Testament. I’ll post the script to the service not this Sunday but the one coming up, the day of the service. Also the idea of the service is to Be Silly on April Fools’ Day.
Up first is a bike wreck near where I used to live back in 1971. Bicyclist struck, killed in Middletown and Middletown bicyclist struck and killed on Purgatory Road also Cyclist killed in Middletown crash This appears to be a classic Left-cross wreck, use intersection protocols to avoid a similar wreck. And for long-term readers that wonder how I could have lived in so many different towns, I was a military brat back before they learned that moving kids around constantly was bad for them. My peer group of military brats had a suicide rate and alcoholism rate that was slightly worse than combat veterans of the same era (Vietnam). I actually got psychiatric counselling from DoD because of what was learned after my Dad got out about the trauma all that moving did to us kids. Until I entered High School in 1973 I only had one time to actually attend the same school 2 grades in a row. I had one school that I attended for parts of 3 grades, non-sequentially, because that was the town we moved to when Dad had TAD between PCS, and we went through one spot where we had 3 moves before our furniture caught up with us, which was not the year that I registered in 4 different schools in 4 different school systems but only got to go to classes in 2 of them, the second and fourth. Yes, my life was screwed up as a kid. No, I would not change anything except maybe to make sure there was someone outside of my family that moved with us, like moving a small squad instead of just families so we could develop our social skills a bit better. This is one of the reasons I show asbergers symptoms in spite of not actually having any autism spectrum disorders.
A kid in SC is hit when he was distracted and failed to stop at an intersection. Bluffton boy hospitalized after bike hits van This is a lesson that 1) 6 YO boys are easily distracted, and 2) that distracted driving is dangerous even when the driver is riding a bicycle, but mainly to the “driver” of the bicycle. To avoid pay attention to the road and where you are on it, to prevent SBR that keep bicycles and drivers away from each other, except that this was in an area that even in the Netherlands would be shared with cars. The driver really should have been driving slower and paying attention because kids do these kinds of things all the time.
In the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike for 6 years running, a police chief hits a cyclist while running a red light in his unmarked cop car and doesn’t even get a ticket. Car driven by Davie police chief hits teen riding bike to school; boy not injured and Davie police chief hits teenager on bicycle while driving unmarked car The poll that accompanied the article indicated the slightly more than 80% of people think the chief should get a ticket for an at-fault wreck, even in cases where little or no harm was involved (and we all know that in cases where a cyclist is hit the difference between scared but uninjured and a trip in an ambulance is measured in single digits of mm). Anyway to avoid the cyclist was already committed to the crossing and had the green and the right-of-way, so unless he was Kreskin there would have been no way for a human cyclist to avoid this wreck. SBR might have prevented the wreck because the cyclist would not have been crossing on the street the driver was trying to turn onto, and would not have been trying to make a right on red in any case. (Worst. Law. Ever.)
An OH cyclist is hit by a turning vehicle and blamed for being in the road. Teenager injured in bicycle-car accident in Lorain Notice the they didn’t say the cyclist was in motion or in the intersection, only that she was riding in the street the car was turning onto. Intersection protocols to avoid, but if the wreck went down as I suspect it did with the driver cutting the corner rather than the cyclist running the light, intersection protocols would have been useless SBR would prevent wrecks like this as he cyclist was approaching one of the few bridges accessible to cyclists in this area when she was hit, her direction of movement indicates that she was going to cross that bridge when she came to it.
That touring cyclist that was hit on a busy surface street with an Interstate designation in NC has died from the injuries he sustained when the drunk driver went off the road and hit him. Bicyclist dies from injuries The wreck was dissected in detail last week, RIP cyclist. May your killer rot behind bars.
A WI teen hits a car that didn’t run the stop sign. Teenager taken to hospital after bike crashes into car Looking at the scene of the wreck there was a lot of debris in the sidewalk that made stopping or steering “sketchy”, bottom line the cyclist was going too fast for conditions and should have been in the street. SBR would have prevented the wreck as the driver would have been stopped behind the cyclepath waiting for the cyclist to cross.
More on the trial of the man who was both drunk and stoned when he hit 2 cyclists from behind in NC. Revisiting River Road: Friend of cyclists killed calls for safer lanes This article examines the conditions at the scene of the crime, which were atrocious, narrow bike lanes full of debris next to 55 MPH (or faster) cars.
Charges have been dropped and reduced in the trial of a drunk driver that was driving by braille when he killed a cyclist in CA. A year on, still waiting for justice in Tehama County Local readers to this case, get on the DA about it, murder by motor vehicle is still murder…
Assault with a deadly weapon in Ireland. DJ drove over cyclist in rage over girlfriend Apparently the girlfriend was not too bright either after having unprotected sex with at least 2 men resulting in a pregnancy from the person that assaulted the cyclist with his car. And I don’t see anything that prevents the “Low-functioning” driver from getting back behind the wheel as soon as he gets out of prison.
Infrastructure! in Va. Beach VA. New bike line opens along Shore Drive in Va. Beach Now if they can just keep the drunks from trying to drive in it and keep the debris out of it it just might be a way to get people from one side of town to the other, on a major through corridor.
More on the stinky ball of goo that is the NYPD accident investigation squad. Local Pol and Cyclist Group Want More NYPD Accountability for Fatal Traffic Crashes
Final link, the only pedestrian killed by a bicycle in the last 3 decades in the state of TX is brought up in an article on the trails system in Ft. Worth… Price: Tour de Fort Worth weather means lots of people on the Trinity Trails Riders, DON’T HIT THE PEDESTRIANS! Pedestrians pay attention, MUP are roads with no cars, not free zones to do what you want. Ride and walk to the right unless passing, and try to leave room for other trail users. And everybody remember, it was more than 20 years between pedestrian deaths by bicycle in the state of TX, it is seldom more than 2 days between deaths by motor vehicle.
And those are all the links that gave me fits today. I think I will go for a ride.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
32.928601
-96.607394
People sent me lots of links today, and the Feed
I got a lot of links that were sent via e-mail and Facebook today, about changes to the legal infrastructure that allows people to add another crime to their event and actually reduce their punishment. I’m referring of course to hit and run. In the vast majority of states in this country if you are DUI and you hit and kill someone you are leaps and bounds ahead to leave the scene. The difference in sentences between hit-and-run and DUI homicide are huge, in many states the maximum for hit-and-run is less than the minimum for DUI homicide. But our first link is an attempt to reduce the incentive to leave when you’re drunk and you hit and kill someone. End Hit and Run Loophole Yes, they are doing something about the disparity between hit-and-run and DUI manslaughter in CO by making them virtually identical in punishment and allowing additional charges to be filed in cases where DUI is suspected but can’t be proven because the driver failed to remain at the scene.
Another one that came both in the Feed and people sending me the link in e-mail and on FB is the news that the man who allegedly killed a cyclist in the bike lane on the Rickenbacker Causeway in Miami in the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike will be getting less than half the sentence he deserves because he left the scene and destroyed the evidence he was drinking. Trial Date Set For Driver In Fatal Rickenbacker Hit & Run The max he can get is only 15 years, but he should get life for hitting 2 cyclists and killing one. More Hundreds ride in memory of cyclist killed and Memorial Ride for Cyclist Killed in Hit and Run
In CA they are sure the cyclist ran the stop sign, but the driver left the scene which makes the wreck automatically his fault. Bicyclist Seriously Injured In Hit-And-Run To avoid, if the report is accurate then don’t run stop signs, otherwise use intersection protocols. To prevent, get the infrastructure right and make hit-and-run a serious crime like hitting someone while DUI. The rumor is that DUI in the Netherlands is a permanent loss of license, which is not as serious to the driver as it would be in this country where everything is designed for the motor vehicle to the exclusion of all other modes of transportation. I don’t even want to contemplate the horrors you suffer as a ht and run driver…
Another CA hit-and-run. Two cyclists injured in Soquel hit-and-run In this case the cyclists were doing nothing wrong, the driver just failed to make a safe pass and took out two cyclists, by cutting back too fast after passing the rear cyclist. To prevent get the idiots in cars away from cyclists.
On the same theme, a cyclist’s parent wonders why the person that hit her child still wanders the streets while her child remains in a hospital. Injured cyclist’s mother criticizes lack of arrest Depending on who you pay attention to LEO either know who hit the cyclist or they think there is someone else that knows but hasn’t told them yet… Hit from behind wreck, use the appropriate protocols to avoid, and getting cyclists where they need to go without having to ride on major highways would prevent any future wrecks like this.
In PA a cyclist is hit by an errant piece of farm equipment being transferred by trailer. Bicyclist flown to hospital after being struck by farm equipment in Silver Spring Township Yikes! I can’t even contemplate what it must be like to get hit by the mower bar of a tractor, even if it isn’t powered up. There was nothing the cyclist could have done to avoid this wreck as the mower bar was extending from the side of the trailer and below the cyclist’s line of sight, but getting the infrastructure right so that a bicycle was not sharing the road with a commercial vehicle would have prevented this wreck. More UPDATE(2): Teen seriously injured in unfortunate accident with farm machinery
In NJ a cyclist is hit on another busy highway. Update: Bicyclist Hit By Car on Route 1 Has Died I tried to read the comments to find out more from locals about the wreck, but the comments would not pull up for me to be able to read them. Definitely a hit-from-behind wreck, but I can’t say how to avoid a similar wreck. I do know one thing from looking at the crime scene pictures, that this was an infrastructure-related wreck. The two highways basically acted like walls cutting across the landscape for those not in cars, and none too friendly for people in cars that are trying to get from one side of the highway to another.
Update on that hit-and-run in CA where the dead cyclist’s dog stood watch over the body until someone else found it. Santa Cruz: Bicyclist killed in hit-and-run on Highway 1 identified they now Know where the cyclist was hit, and he wasn’t in the road. So the driver had to leave the road to hit this poor guy… More CHP announces suspect vehicle in North Coast fatal hit-and-run with bicyclist
Another link to the cyclist killed riding the Natchez Trace. Doctor killed riding bike on Natchez Trace As I pointed out this is what passes for intercity bicycle infrastructure in this country, which is shared with cars and light trucks at a speed limit of 50 MPH… And death lurks around every turn…
Death and destruction in the Great White North as cyclists get hit in droves. Two killed, one critically injured following weekend crashes At least one wreck was on a straight, flat, road with no impediments to the sight lines when the cyclists were hit from behind by a driver that was not paying attention to the roads. I think you know what comes next:To avoid a similar wreck use the hit-from-behind protocols, to prevent it get the infrastructure right. but since this is in Canuckistan they actually have a decent chance of getting that infrastructure.
And to wind things up, another link sent to me by a reader, this one about legal Infrastructure! Do Passing Distance Laws Really Protect Cyclists? Do laws against murder really prevent people from getting killed? Most people say it’s unquestioned. Then why do they question if laws requiring a safe distance to pass that specify what the minimum is also not protect cyclists from passes that are too close?
And those are all the links that gave me fits today.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
→ 3 Comments
Posted in Daily Feed
Tagged anti-bike blatherings, Bike ninjas, can you top this, cycling life, cyclist killed, Dead cyclists, Don't read the comments, helpful hints, hit from behind, hit-and-run, infrastructure, miscellaneous ramblings, red light runner, signs of the apocolypse, Single Witness Suicidal Swerve/Single Witness Crossing Cyclist, Something smells, stupid cyclist, stupid drivers, updates, waste of human skin