It’s another Monday, and the Feed

I’m not cooking beans today because we had so much left over from last week. For some reason I just didn’t feel like my usual 3 bowls last week for dinner (I actually had about half that) and nobody had more than a single bowl during the week. So, we have lots that can be put in a 210°F oven in a casserole dish with a dash of soy sauce to spark up the flavor and add a bit of liquid while the mix slowly reheats. Any dangerous microbes don’t stand a chance when I cook because I cook a just enough heat to keep the cooking process going until the food is cooked, thus also killing anything that might be living in the food before I eat it. This also preserves the flavor of my food by not over-cooking it.

Also I have to make a quick run to the local Best Buy to put more minutes on my phone. Apparently the concept of “annual activation” does not mean the same thing to Virgin Mobile as it does to me. To me it means leave my phone turned on for an entire year or until my minutes run out. But to VM it means keep plugging in monthly payment cards or we turn your phone off anyway… I will have to discuss the matter with the VM representative when I get to Best Buy.

I’m not sure if this was a bicycle or motorcycle wreck at this point. Minor Injuries Reported Following Bike Vs. Car Accident The weapon vehicle was reportedly moving at a very slow speed and the bike hit the back of the car which really confuses me as to what happened. And since the video shown with the link never showed the back of the weapon vehicle to have any impact marks (although the right side was never shown) I can only speculate. LEO have not released anything more about the wreck and the reported mode and location (cyclist hit the back of the vehicle mid-block in front of a church) makes me think that this might have been a right hook the cyclist never saw coming. You can see in the video that every space in that parking lot could be reached from the street by making a right turn. But this is just guesswork on my part.

A wreck report that has changed considerably since I first saw it last night in pre-filter. MIT scientist riding bicycle struck, killed in crash The original headline when I first saw the link was “Pedestrian struck by truck in hit-and-run crash” with the existence of a bicycle at the scene mentioned in the second paragraph. Now it’s all MIT Scientist visiting from Japan hit on a bicycle, with nothing about the actual wreck. The pictures indicate an intersection wreck, so maybe intersection protocols to avoid, and get that abysmal infrastructure fixed to prevent future wrecks. Boston streets were never intended for motor vehicle travel, I still say that motor vehicles should be forced to use pilots on foot with waving red flags front and back when driving in the old part of Boston. At the very least it would do something about the unemployment problem in MA.

Another dead cyclist in NYC, at least they aren’t using the “no criminality suspected” line (yet). Cyclist Killed By Livery Cab In Prospect Heights You would think Gothamist would have figured out by now that the driver hit the cyclist with the cab instead of apportioning all the blame to the vehicle… SWSS hit-from-behind wreck, use the protocols to avoid. There was supposedly a center bike lane in the median but I’m still trying to find out how a cyclist was supposed to get to those bike lanes other than at the beginning or end of the lanes. So bad infrastructure may have had a role to play also. More links Cyclist struck and killed near Brooklyn Museum and Fatal bicycle accident in Brooklyn The pictures from that link showed the weapon vehicle was nearly dead-center on the bike when impact occurred, which kinda places the SWSS story in jeopardy. Cyclist struck and killed by livery cab driver in Prospect Heights At least that one managed to mention the weapon vehicle had a driver. The NY Post blames the cyclist for existing Bicyclist stuck and killed after swerving in front of livery cab in Crown Heights At least in that link you get a better look at the impact site just to the left of the license plate with the skid mark from the tire lined up perfectly with the broken grill, and the tail light or rear reflector visible under the seat. Cyclist Struck, Killed By Livery Cab In Brooklyn and Bike Rider Fatally Struck by Livery Cab in Brooklyn last link Taxi Hits, Kills Bicyclist on Eastern Parkway

Salmon cyclist killed in CA. Bicyclist dies in collision with big rig in Industry There’s just not much surviving a head-on wreck with a semi. Don’t salmon to avoid, and it looks like there isn’t much bicycle infrastructure where the cyclist was hit.

The TX fund that’s supposed to take care of people injured in hit-and-run wrecks is depleted less than 5 months into the year. Injured cyclist’s family seeking donations for medical expenses

Another hit-and-run, in VT. 2 cyclists injured in Burlington hit-and-run This one appears to be caused by a driver that did not know where the edges of the vehicle extended possibly combined with under-estimating the speed of the cyclists he was passing. Other than hit-from-behind protocols there ain’t much a human cyclist can do in a wreck like this, but getting the infrastructure right would have prevented the wreck.

A MD wreck that sounds an awful lot like a hit-and-run. Carroll County Man Injured While Riding Bicycle Yeah that hitting the mailbox hard enough to knock it out of the ground doesn’t sound like a single-bike wreck. Hit-from-behind protocols to avoid and get the infrastructure right to prevent.

And those are all the links that gave me fits today.

Billed @€, Opus

Brr!, and the Feed

If I’m reading the weather crawl on the cable box right, we had a record low this morning in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell, 39°F. This is a record for 2 reasons, only one is because it was the lowest temperature recorded on this day of the month, the other being it was the latest date that had a recorded temperature lower than 40° before Summer. This is following the warmest Summer in history, which was even warmer than the year we had more 100° days than we had official days of summer if you can imagine that. We had fewer days that were incredibly hot, but we also did not have any days that could be called “cool” either. We have already hit the forecast high for today but it hasn’t reached noon yet as I type this. I would say “typical Texas weather” except that records are by definition not “typical”.

From just down the road a bit from the WoaB World HQ in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell a cyclist recovers from a stupid driver trick. Injured cyclist urges drivers to put away the phones People need to know they are guiding a projectile as deadly as a howitzer shell with the destructive force of a 200 pound bomb, which is not something to be taken lightly. If a weapon was as dangerous and deadly as a motor vehicle it would be classified as a WMD not fit for use against civilians or soldiers not in armored vehicles. Interestingly enough driving a motor vehicle deliberately into either of those groups is treated the same as attacking with a WMD… Because it is.

The mode of wreck has been released in that Seattle wreck, and surprise surprise the truck driver violated the right of way of the cyclist. Followup: Bicyclist identified as Lance David; crash brings safety concerns back into spotlight I quote the wreck report:”Preliminary investigation indicates that a 53-year-old man driving a flatbed semi-truck was attempting a right turn from westbound South Hanford Street to northbound East Marginal Way South. At the same time a 54-year-old male bicyclist was northbound on East Marginal Way South approaching South Hanford Street. For reasons that have yet to be determined, the bicyclist collided with the truck-trailer’s left side wheels in or near the intersection and went down. Fire department medics responded and after administering CPR treatment, pronounced the bicyclist dead at the scene.” The truck driver was turning right into the through street of the T intersection, which means the cyclist had the right of way. Between the documented pavement issues and the truck that pulled out in front of him the cyclist had no way of evading impact.

Another child cyclist is killed in CA. Boy, 14, Killed By School Bus While Riding Bike in Glendale From other reports I can’t link to I know the child was riding on the sidewalk against the direction of traffic for the side of the road he was on, making him essentially invisible to the bus driver. This is the result of not having SRTS instituted for every school, the cyclist was more or less forced to ride the sidewalks by adults with the mistaken beliefs that it would be safer than the road when riding in the roads is safer by a large factor (which I know is counter-intuitive). The way to prevent this wreck is infrastructure,INFRASTRUCTURE, and MORE INFRASTRUCTURE! Until there is a bicycle-friendly route to this school the school should be closed. And I’m NOT KIDDING! If there were gang wars being fought on the only ways to get to this school something would be done about it, well there are already random projectiles being fired down the street, they just have people in them.

And yet another fatal wreck in CA, this one courtesy of Ted Rogers of BikingInLA. Bicyclist struck, killed in Santee No mode of wreck given, just the vague note that the cyclist was found in the intersection by first responders. So, intersection protocols to (maybe) avoid, and get the infrastructure right to prevent.

What I didn’t know until recently was code for a “Door Prize” in the UK. Cyclist injured after hitting parked car in Shrewsbury The car is parked, and then the driver or passenger opens the door in front of the cyclist, but instead of correctly labeling the wreck as a dooring incident the cyclist is blamed for running into a parked car.

And those are all the links that gave me fits today, less the motorcycle wrecks of course. I’m getting way too many motorcycle wrecks in the Feed again as some news outlets don’t differentiate between bikes with motors and those without and frequently it isn’t until I click the links to other reports that I find the wreck was a motorcycle one and not a bicycle one.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

Happy Easter to my Christian readers on a Wreck-Free Sunday

I’m not going to make the jokes about Zombie Jesus or Vampire Jesus, because there are already too many of those out there, and I’m not in the mood today. I’m not even going to make the jokes about the confused rabbit laying chocolate eggs. I’m just not in a joking mood today because my face hasn’t felt this bad since the wreck. I had one of the broken teeth develop an abscess before, but it never got this bad. I can barely open my mouth and I had to pass off the service today to my stand-in. That I passed the service for Hilaria over to someone else to perform gives you an idea of how bad I’m feeling, but feeling bad wasn’t the only reason I passed it on. I can’t open my mouth enough to articulate well, and given the quarter calls I wrote for the service bad pronunciation will cause problems that I don’t want to cause. The quarter calls are based on the WWE wrestler introductions and includes 18 to 45 seconds of theme music for each element. The theme for Earth was “Mississippi Queen” by Mountain, the theme for Air was “They Call the Wind Mariah”, the theme for Fire was “Fire” from the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and the theme for Water was the chorus from “Under the Sea” from “The Little Mermaid” with wrestler-style over-the-top introductions for each element. Had I been physically able to do it it would have been really funny… >sigh<

On the physical condition of the blogger front, well you already know I can't get my mouth open far enough to speak clearly, and I'm in a lot of pain. Also physical activity makes the pain worse by making my BP go up and increasing my heart rate, so no bike riding except as needed to get me someplace I absolutely have to go. I wouldn't drive in this condition either, so don't go making it out that I have finally found something that makes cycling for transportation "worse" than driving. Another thing is not being ale to open my mouth very far mans there isn't a whole lot I can eat here. I haven't even opened the cookies I got on Friday, and I am a cookie monster. I have been looking for soft foods that don't require opening my mouth up very far, like the pancakes from this morning that I cut into little tiny bites. I think I will have some of that rice porridge I made to eat for breakfast as lunch because getting a sandwich in my mouth is an exercise in pain. And I don't do exercise…

I think it might be time to change the rear derailer cable on Blue, as shifting has been getting a little imprecise in the last couple of months. Considering that I have put more than 5K miles on the bike with hundreds of thousands of shifts over the years I think I did pretty good with this one. and they aren't that hard to replace. So next trip to the LBS will be a new rear shifter cable, and then lots of pictures to document removing and replacing the cable on an upcoming Wreck-Free Sunday Post. That means you don't get the total "impact" of what working on a bike is like for me because I do a lot of swearing under my breath when I wrench…

Now I'm starting to not feel so good again, so I'm going to wrap this up and go have a lie-down with another pain pill to try to get some rest as I had about 3 hours of awake time during the night as the pain pill I took before bed wore off and allowed me to wake back up and the next pain pill took a while to get to work.

PSA, Opus

I didn’t get green beer dumped on my head this year, and the Feed

I was at the Lower Greenville Ave. St. Patrick’s Day Parade today which required getting up before dawn to catch 2 trains and a bus and then standing for 2 hours next to a temporary railing to watch people that were already drunk by noon throw beads. IOW I had a lot of fun that was physically tiring, but worth it because of the people watching. Then came the “fun” of getting home. We had to wait for 2 trains to get away from the parade site, had to wait on another at the transfer point because the first was full, then the train we were on broke down and we had to wait for the next train (our train would run, but could not carry passengers because about half the doors would not open) and when the next train showed up there it was already nearly a full train of people and we had to wait until the train after that. So essentially we took 90 minutes to make a trip that normally takes less than 20. The standing around has aggravated my injured leg to the point that I want to just spend the rest of the day in bed, but can’t because of having this blog post to do and RPG tonight.

A CA cyclist is hit from behind and killed. Bicyclist Killed on Santa Margarita Parkway The picture of the wreck scene shows ample number of lanes to move over to pass a cyclist, why that didn’t happen is unknown at this time. I don’t see any place the cyclist could have hidden to “dart” in front of the driver in this case, so he must have been in plain sight the entire time preceding the events that cause his death. Protocols might have helped, giving cyclists a separate place to ride would definitely have prevented it but I don’t even see a place to put a cycletrack.

Still in CA a cyclist that “won” the door prize has died from his injuries. Bicyclist Killed After Colliding With Car Door In Hollywood The injured cyclist hung on to life for a week before succumbing to his injuries. The proximate cause was failure of the driver to pay attention to the road before opening the door, contributory was a door zone bike lane and mandatory sidepath laws that forced the cyclist to use it.

A GA cyclist finds her lane filled with SUV going the wrong way. State Patrol releases details in fatal crash involving cyclist The narrative in this wreck is just awful, the driver left the road to the cyclist’s right, returned to the road in front of the cyclist, then went off the road to the cyclist’s left on the side of the road the driver was supposed to be driving on and flipped the SUV. This was a wreck that no human cyclist could have avoided, and infrastructure might not have helped either (unless it was far enough off the road or protected by a stout barrier). The kind of “infrastructure” that could have prevented this wreck would be strict licensing procedures that keep idiot drivers like this from ever getting behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. What I would like to see done to this driver in the way of “Justice” is not fit to print even in this rather liberal blog. Suffice it to say that I would have much pain inflicted on her as she slowly died a long and painful death.

In TN cyclists are injured inside a gated community. Briefly: Two young bike riders injured in accident, Grand jury to hear statutory rape case, Court hearing set in Savannah killing AFAICT this was a hit-from-behind use the protocols to avoid, and fix the infrastructure to prevent. Even for the 1% that can afford to live in gated communities need biking infrastructure…

And finally, e-bikes must seem like a threatnew market to car makers, now Toyota has a prototype. E-Bike News: Toyota E-Bike, New Factories, New Designs & Tech, E-Bike Book, Tours, & More! How about that 3-wheel scooter? Not much bigger than a e-assist bike or motorcycle, it would make a significant difference in city traffic if implemented in large numbers.

And those are all the links that gave me fits today.

Billed @$0.02, Opus

Running super late, and the Feed

I had another visit to the Lab Rat Keeper today (with no breakfast until after the visit was over, blood tests again), then a massage on the way home. Most of the day was actually spent riding some kind of transit, or waiting for transit to show up. And the worst part was the massage was not very good, either. It wasn’t bad (nothing was worse after the massage), but it just didn’t fix much except for one small section, that has been bothering me lately. That’s fixed. not that with everything else still tied up in knots I can do anything with what’s no longer tied up in knots.

And all I have in the Feed are multiple links to the same story of a UT man that was hit when he crossed under the guard arms blocking a railroad crossing. Utah cyclist killed by second of two passing TRAX trains and Cyclist killed by TRAX train identified also Cyclist killed in TRAX accident near 4000 S. At this point it looks like the cyclist went under the crossing guard arms after the first train passed, which was blocking his view of the second train that hit him. I have lost track (no pun intended) of how many times I have posted here that trains are the easiest vehicles in the world to avoid getting hit by one. Just don’t be on the tracks when the train is coming. If the guard arms are down and the signal lights are flashing then there is a very strong possibility that there will be a train on that track very soon, like now. Unless you can see that the tracks are empty for a considerable distance, not just in front of you, then you don’t need to cross the track with the arms down. And by “considerable distance” I mean something on the order of a quarter to half a mile, or 15 to 30 seconds if the train is moving @60MPH. Most crossing systems will be up at that distance/time separation.

And that’s all I had today, except for the UK links that didn’t link to anything I can use to help y’all.

Billed @$0.02, Opus

Trying to stay calm on Wreck-Free Sunday

First of all, before I get into this post I need to let everyone know I got the post on turning a Halloween costume mask into winter gear fixed. I got the right URL for each picture and loaded that URL into the post where that picture went, and Voila!, pictures in the blog post. I still can’t get the alt text to work, but that’s not as important as the pictures were.

At the moment I’m watching the Daytona 500 on the idiot box. I can’t help it, I love NASCAR. Some of those guys are family to me, and I’m a geek for technology and finding an engineering solution to a competition problem. The new car is a very small box to work inside metaphorically, and the crews are NOT allowed to “think outside the box”. I’m still trying to find out some of the changes that were made for safety in the new car. I have heard that there are new roll bars added to the cage front and back, but all I have seen so far is the front bar that goes across the top of the windshield just in front of what used to be the halo hoop under the roof. So what I can find out about the car is that the extra bars are to give more bearing area to keep the roof from collapsing into soft dirt in a roll over. This allows the roof to be lower without much chance of the roof getting into the driver’s head in a wreck.

I had planned to do a huge diatribe about how dangerous cars are with the release of the preliminary numbers from the government of the people killed by motor vehicles, but that would be redundant for this blog. We already know that motor vehicles are more deadly than guns, by about 6K per year last year. All told more than 36K people died as a result of motor vehicle crashes, while just over 30K died from getting shot. But the attention is on guns because children were killed at school by a man with a gun. Make no mistake Sandy Hook was a tragedy, but guns are not even in the top 10 of things that kill children in this country. What’s the number one killer of children in the US? car wrecks. Until recently with the introduction of infant car seats that are miniature crash cocoons that make an armored car even more armored for infants, that statistic went all the way down to birth, now car wrecks are the number two killer under the age of five. Guns are not even close at any age up to 35.

Back to the race, Danica (yes, only one name just like a real celebrity) led some laps under green to be the first women to lead green flag laps at Daytona after being on pole to be the first woman to be on the pole at Daytona. Two of the three JGR Toyotas had engine failures just a few minutes ago, one a big blow-up (Kyle Busch) and the other just a bit of smoke. And after watching the race instead of blogging, the race is now over and Jimmie Johnson has won the Daytona 500. Danica finished 8th after the fustercluck behind Jimmie sorted out, and Mrs. the Poet’s favorite driver Mark Martin finished 3rd. The driver I was cheering for was taken out in an early race wreck, sorry Smoke (Tony Stewart). It was such a good race that even Mrs. the Poet was glued to the tube watching it with me. She usually hates racing (“cars going around in a circle”), but this one was such a nail-biter that even she had to watch. My friend Mikey managed to finish 22nd (I used to hang out in Darrel Waltrip’s speed shop in Franklin TN, and bought kart parts from Bobby and talked to Mikey from time to time).

OK I don’t like cars on the roads, but I love cars on the track. AFAIK nobody has killed a cyclist on track during a NASCAR race.

PSA, Opus

Well that was fun (not), and the Feed

I just want to tell what a rip-off I got from Target when I went to exchange some clothes that were the wrong size. I first had a problem because I didn’t get a gift receipt, the second problem I had was after I finally found the same merchandise as I got in my gift I was charged for the exchange because the price had changed. The price changing was not my concern, I exchanged like for like in a different size and should have gotten a direct exchange, not charged the current price after being refunded the original price. This is a common rip-off method used by big-box retailers to extract more money from exchanges. At least I got a 10 mile ride out of the deal, riding through the maelstrom that is the pickup after school for a middle school on the bike route I took on the way. Something needs to be done about that mess.

Also this is another Mule Day as I need to haul home the week’s food. I glued the reflective strips (in ANSI Safety Lime) from the deceased blinky vest to the back of my ALICE ruck to make me a bit more visible as I pedal to and from the store. You would think I would be visible enough as it is with something that big on my back, but all my online research shows me that drivers in the US are Not Very Bright at looking where they are going and not running into things in the road.

And the only live link I have today is from NZ about infrastructure. NZ researchers create online injured cyclist-door crash map Before you can deal with a problem you need to know what the problem is. This is a good first step as to where enforcement of anti-dooring laws should take place.

And since I have to go make like a mule today, I’ll leave it at that. And send a nasty note to my search provider about sending only a page of ads with no links for the subject I requested.

Billed @$0.02, Opus

Terminal ballistics, Wreck-Free Sunday

This is something I mention in my comments to wreck articles all the time, but for some reason I seem to have forgotten to put it up here. This is a comparison of terminal ballistics between small-arms rounds, and motor vehicles.

First, the dry statistics. according to the CDC a bullet from a small arm like a hunting rifle or a handgun is between 8 and 10% fatal with the majority right in that 9% area of the bell curve. According to the NHWSA and another researcher in the UK who came up with almost the exact same numbers, motor vehicles used against unarmored persons (pedestrians and bicyclists) are 5% fatal at speeds of 20 MPH and below, rising sharply to 50% fatal at 30 MPH, 85% fatal at an impact speed of 40 MPH, over 95% fatal at 50 MPH, and 99+% fatal at speeds of 60 MPH and over. There is always that survivor of a wreck who was hit at 60 or higher speed (like me) that keep the kill ratio under 100%, but for all intents and purposes getting hit at highway speeds is 100% fatal.

Now why that is true is interesting in a gruesome and macabre sort of way. The reason why bullets are so ineffective at killing people even when you actually hit someone with a bullet (which only happens in 1 out of 20 times a trigger is pulled during a firefight where people are actually trying to kill each other) is that bullets are small, and the human body has relatively few places where the would caused by a bullet is fatal, especially once you get away from the head. The head and heart are the only 2 places where a bullet is instantly or very quickly fatal, which is why soldiers are issued torso armor and helmets going into battle. Anywhere else and you die from bleeding to death with the larger the blood vessel compromised the faster you bleed to death. The good thing there is there are few blood vessels that will bleed out so fast that you can’t be saved with quick access to surgery and a blood transfusion. So, bullets, especially in this day and age, are very poor killing devices.

Motor vehicles, on the other hand, despite not actually being designed as killing devices are actually quite good at the job. They kill by massive blunt-force trauma over a large area of the body and sometimes by head injury. As with bullets head and heart injury are quick kills most of the time, and permanent disablers when they don’t actually kill. The difference between bullets and cars is that a bullet hits a single part of the body and creates a very small injury, where a motor vehicle hits large areas of the body and creates large internal injuries and external wounds. A bullet can only compromise a small number of blood vessels, a motor vehicle can remove entire limbs and leave several major blood vessels open to air, or rip major vessels internally causing internal bleeding. Internal bleeding can kill even faster than just dumping the blood on the ground, because the blood then interferes with blood that is still actually getting to its destination by the circulatory system and internal bleeding in the upper chest can cause the heart to stop from the pressure on the organ.

Because of the widespread nature of the injuries administered by a motor vehicle impact, even surviving the initial impact doesn’t mean you’re clear of the reaper yet. There are secondary injuries caused by broken bones piercing vital organs or blood vessels before you get to a hospital or even get in the ambulance. Broken ribs, fractured pelvis taking out major arteries or a heart or lung, or even a broken femur or humerus cutting the major blood vessels in the leg or arm when someone tries to drag a victim off the road so they don’t get hit again. Since you would die if you get hit again this is actually not as bad as it sounds, you have a better chance of surviving not being exposed to another impact.

Now we have body armor that can protect against a bullet penetrating a person to cause injury, what can be done against a motor vehicle? The answer: almost nothing. About the only thing that can protect against a motor vehicle wreck is another, larger motor vehicle or a later model of motor vehicle than the one being used against you, and even that is ineffective in about 28K wrecks a year in the US. Motor vehicles are so deadly that not even a building is sufficient protection against getting killed by one. People inside light wood-frame houses are killed in the dozens every year by motor vehicles crashing through the walls. A bicycle helmet is essentially useless against a motor vehicle wreck. As we have seen even if the head is perfectly protected the massive blunt-force trauma inflicted on the torso by most motor vehicle wrecks will still cause death or permanent injury.

So, what can be done? The only effective technique found so far is to keep motor vehicles and vulnerable users completely separate from each other so they don’t have wrecks. That means Dutch-style infrastructure for bicycles, and protected walking areas for pedestrians, and severe penalties against drivers that hit vulnerable road users. like confiscation of the motor vehicle. It won’t be cheap, and in a few years it will be moot as we run out of gas, but in the mean time we can save lives and protect potential by keeping the murder machines away from their potential victims.

PSA, Opus

Still working, and the Feed

While I’m waiting for that first cup of coffee to kick in I am just more or less typing words at random here. Verbs, nouns adjectives and adverbs thrown up in semi-random order as I wait not for inspiration but for that flow of consciousness that comes when I’m in my “writing zone”. It’s like meditating with a keyboard, the “monkey mind” shuts up and what is really important to me comes through unfiltered by the monkey. Unfortunately I have to keep at least one of those monkeys on hand to correct the typos and other mis-spellings or nobody (even me) would understand what I was trying to say. Think of that as my monkey J. Jonah Jameson (and is he even in the movie version of those stories?).

One thing that comes to mind on this day is how berserk we went over 3K people and some private property that was heavily subsidized by taxpayers were destroyed in a single act. An apt comparison would be that 5K pedestrians and cyclists are killed every year by motor vehicles, and aside from people that know the victims personally and people like me trying to stop the CARnage nobody even notices it. Almost 2 9/11 per year gets ignored, but we start wars over cheap oil for our gas-guzzlers? Excuse me, but I think I’m the sane one, can I get out of the asylum now?

Up first, the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike 8 years running gets even deadlier as people are taking pot-shots at cyclists. Man shot, killed while riding bicycle identified by Jacksonville police Can’t tell you how to avoid one like this, and as for protective gear I don’t think they make a wicking body armor. Maybe getting the infrastructure right could prevent it, but haters gonna hate, knowhatimean?

A hit-and-run in AZ. Truck hits, kills NAU student riding bike in Flagstaff Hit-from-behind use the protocols to avoid, and get the infrastructure right to prevent. When Police found the weapon vehicle the owner was examining it for damage and claiming to not know how the damage got there. Isn’t there a law against lying to LEO? As this was a hit-and-run recycle the weapon vehicle, and as the victim of this hit-and-run died allow the driver to watch the recycling from the most intimate vantage point possible, chained behind the steering wheel. One visual I’ll never forget is from Monster Garage when they destroyed a failed build in a shredder. They placed a grill-sized bottle of propane in the inside of the vehicle that erupted in a giant fireball as the shredder consumed the doomed vehicle. I think for a slight additional fee for the driver, he or she could get that service to go out in a blaze of “glory”. More information including how locals trapped the weapon vehicle in the neighborhood. NAU student cyclist killed in hit-and-run identified

A PA man hit from behind gets a ticket. Bicyclist injured, cited in accident with SUV Yep, if you’re not riding a bike covered in lights and reflectors and wearing a glow-in-the-dark clown costume when you get hit from behind in the dark, it’s your fault, not the driver that was over-driving his headlights.

A SWSS wreck in the Great White North. Boy on bike injured after being hit by car in Sydney This was Sydney NS not in Oz. Because of the poor investigation and reportage, I have no idea what actually happened in this wreck, other than I find the listed cause both rather generic and unlikely. Also “not wearing a helmet” was listed with the causes of the wreck again! Helmets do not prevent wrecks, and in some cases can actually cause them (drivers tend to not give as much room to cyclists wearing helmets).

From Oz, the comments on the rider killed last week have left a bad taste in many people’s mouths. Vale Vikki Riley – “a beautiful woman lost” … and still the trolls come out to play I was disgusted at the number of comments to the effect that roads were made for cars. Umm so what did the roads do from 2000 BCE to 1900 CE? “Don’t mind us, we’re just waiting for cars to be invented”?

Infrastructure! from NYC. Increase in Cycling Collides with Pedestrians and Traffic Laws I must point out that the article mentions the most recent person killed by a cyclist in NYC, a hit-and-run (sort of) where the victim initially walked away from the wreck but died a few hours later from a blood clot on the brain, in 2009! The most recent person to die from getting hit with a motor vehicle while walking on a sidewalk died last week, and since the last person killed by a cyclist died, more than 150 people have died from people driving motor vehicles on the sidewalks.

LifeStyle from CA as people come to the aid of the victim of the attempted murder by motor vehicle. CHRIS SMITH: Oakmonters help to lift up injured bicyclist And jjalequa16, Gigi is watching you! You had better not ever even buzz a cyclist with the comments you have left on various sites and about various cyclists’ injuries and deaths. You have demonstrated pre-meditation by your comments and there is no way you can claim it wasn’t deliberate if you even buzz a cyclist.

And that’s about all the “fun” I can stand.

Billed @$0.02, Opus

Not done yet, and the Feed

I was talking to friends last night (OK I was sending e-mails back and forth) and mentioned I was beginning to get a tiny bit discouraged and burned out about the blog and thinking about shutting it down and finding some other place to write because most of what I was writing was “canned” because bike wrecks pretty much fall into a few main categories with well-defined ways to avoid the wrecks when the physics and geometry of the situation allow it. All pretty much in one sentence like I just wrote. The only time I really get to “write” anymore is the opening paragraph where I describe my day and feelings, or talk about how Dad is doing, or tell you about getting a cat toy that the cats totally ignored, or some other thing that shows I am not a ‘bot collecting links but an actual human being with the occasional feeling beyond the requirements for maintaining life. I think I also mentioned that may have mentioned that with my brain damage the only way I can express myself in a coherent fashion was writing.

So, it was suggested that I keep the blog up and running and do more writing in it, expressing the occasional feeling by making the opening bits a little longer than before when I needed to and maybe scaling back a bit on the dead people who I couldn’t do anything about. That’s when I realized that I was doing something about all those dead and injured people when I added the comments on how to avoid or prevent the wreck. Sure it’s almost “canned” by now, but when the truth gets repeated over and over it becomes like a catechism, and you can’t get more “canned” than a catechism. It’s still the truth, but it loses something by repetition. It’s the wrecks that would have happened in places that changing the physical infrastructure is not possible where I can stay fresh, because what is needed to prevent wrecks there is a change in the psychology of driving from “I’m big and dangerous and you need to stay out of my way” to “I’m big and dangerous and I need to be careful”, from bully to cooperation and blaming the person who can do the most damage instead of blaming the victim. And I hate to say it but there in the US we are very much a “bully, and blame the victim” society when it comes to motor vehicle deaths.

I have posted this bit before, and in many different places, that in a really, really bad year people on bicycles will kill as many as 10 people in the US, with half of those being cyclists also. The last year that has published records, 2009, had the fewest number of people killed by motor vehicles in 56 years, and we celebrated that “only” 34,000 people had been killed by motor vehicles. A more normal year for bicycles would be 4 or 5 deaths, again about 50/50 split between pedestrians and cyclists. From what I have been reading this is going to be another really, really bad year because of all the single-bike wrecks in SoCal this summer. But still the ratio between motor vehicle and bicycle caused death still far outweighs the ratio of use. Bicycles kill people at a far lesser rate than our mode share would suggest because of the lesser lethality of our vehicles and the operator knowledge that he or she is going to get hurt as bad or worse than anyone else in the wreck regardless of that other person’s mode of transportation. Interestingly enough where statistics are available for injuries in wrecks by mode, cyclists injure people slightly higher than their mode share would indicate, probably because in a wreck a cyclist is much more likely to get injured then a driver of a motor vehicle in the same wreck. I mean think about it, when was the last time you read that a driver or other motor vehicle occupant was injured just by hitting a cyclist or pedestrian? When a cyclist hits a pedestrian it’s a coin toss over who gets hurt worse, the injuries are more determined by the geometry and physics of the impact instead of who had the tons of armor around them. The trick now becomes how do we get that when a motor vehicle is involved. How do we make hitting a pedestrian or cyclist as dangerous for the driver as it is for the people not in the motor vehicle? We do that with laws, strictly enforced laws that make killing a pedestrian or cyclist an automatic one year loss of license with full testing to get it back (school, written and road test, and probationary period after the road test) when it wasn’t the driver’s fault, and a permanent ban on driving when it was the driver’s fault. You might think this is a little harsh, but it’s the legal equivalent of the physical and mental trauma of the cyclist or pedestrian who gets hit. It has been almost 11 years since I was hit, and I have not regained full use of my left leg yet. I have not regained full use of my brain yet. I have permanent disfiguring scars. Even if the driver that hit me had not been trying to kill me but had “just” misjudged haw far to move over when passing when I had to dodge road debris from the storm, making it not his fault, I would still be 11 years down the road with scars, a leg that stopped working and turned into a meat prosthesis, and a brain that no longer allowed me to work at a job that I dearly loved to do. Losing a driver’s license for a year compared to what I went and am going through is still not a fair trade, but for most motor vehicle and pedestrian/cyclist wrecks without brain injury the trade would be about even, one year of major inconvenience and some loss of income.

I’ll get back to that process of reinstating the license in a later blog post.

Up first because of media coverage are two hit-and-runs in a short span against two cyclists in NYC. [UPDATE: Second Cyclist Killed] Cyclist Killed In Queens Hit & Run and Cyclist Killed By Hit-And-Run Driver In Queens more Cyclist Killed in Queens Hit-Run not done yet Bicyclists killed in two separate hit-and-run incidents in Brooklyn, Queens another one Cyclist Dies After Crash in Brooklyn OK there is just so much wrong in both of these wrecks I can hardly enumerate everything amiss. One wreck was caused by the driver of the motor vehicle running a red light while the cyclist was on the cross street, the other was a vehicle travelling too fast for conditions when the cyclist crashed in front of him and was run over by the motor vehicle. In both wrecks witnesses commented on the sound of the wrecks, like explosions in the street, so the driver “not knowing” about the wrecks is just so much hogwash. Ughh! Anyway to avoid the red light runner use intersection protocols even when you have the green someone will be stupid and try to get through and claim they “didn’t see” you. The second wreck is a bit trickier to avoid because we don’t know what caused the first part of the wreck that made the cyclist go down, nobody saw that except the cyclist and anyone else that might have been involved. After that part there is nothing anyone could do as a cyclist because of being on the street and unable to get out of the way because of the curbed median to the immediate left. Getting the infrastructure right might have prevented the second wreck but I’m afraid that nothing will prevent red light runners except draconian enforcement up to and including seizure and destruction of a vehicle when the operator runs a red light and kills or injures another party. And maybe public flogging.

Next Big Story is a cyclist hit by a bus in CA. Bicyclist collides with AC Transit bus in Emeryville, suffers severe head injuries more Emeryville: Bicyclist injured in collision with AC Transit bus OK at this point the only thing I can say about this wreck is intersection protocols might have helped avoid the wreck. I don’t know that getting the infrastructure right would have prevented it unless there would have been 100% separated travel in this intersection.

Another Big Story is the service member killed riding a bike on the Marine Corps base in NC. Service member killed riding bike and Camp Lejeune: Navy corpsman killed on bike also Navy Corpsman Killed On Bicycle At Camp Lejeune At this point all I know is the wreck was near an intersection maybe in it. MP are even tighter lipped than civilian LEO, because they have to maintain military secrets.

Update on a wreck in AZ. Injured cyclist speaks out after hit and run The description of the wreck from the witnesses make it definite that the weapon vehicle operator was at fault even before the running part of the wreck. Intersection protocols would not have helped as the weapon vehicle ran the stop sign, and it was already on the kind of infrastructure that is designed to keep bikes and motor vehicles away from each other. Maybe building a bridge to forces the motor vehicle traffic to go over the bike trail would do it, but that is a whole lot more expensive than just stopping at a stop sign.

Update on a bike wreck in IL. Fatality tracker: Young woman killed by person driving on suspended license Terrible, the driver should not have even been there. Driving under a suspended license makes this her fault regardless of any other circumstances in the wreck. She just should not have been there in that car.

Update on a wreck in WI. Man faces charges in crash that killed biker The driver failed to maintain their lane, was driving without license or insurance, and as a result killed another human being. The driver should never have been on the road, and definitely should not have been driving at speed in the bike lane. Warm up the car shredder, this is going to be messy.

Update on the West Canuckistan hit-and-run, the cyclist should recover. Search is on for hit-and-run driver who left cyclist in ditch The picture of the wrecked bike looks like it was an Xtracycle, which means the cyclist was A Serious Cyclist (capitalization intended), with at least a moderate amount of experience on the roads. Combining the witness statements with the physical evidence this was either deliberate on the part of the driver of the weapon vehicle, or the driver needs to be placed in a nice, soft room because they aren’t capable of handling so much responsibility for a long time.

Lifestyle in honor of a cycling leader killed in a traffic wreck in SC. RIDEdwin Bike Breakfast WoaB approves of this event.

Infrastructure! news from the UK. Calls for “Urgent Action” Over Alarming London Cyclist Death Toll The infrastructure is so bad that it’s literally killing cyclists as the try to use it. And to add insult to (literal) injury what little good infrastructure they have for cycling is being dismantled for the Olympic games.

And to wind things up an amusing picture of bicycle life from Cycle Twin Cities. June Twin Cities Bike Picture of the Month OK you know your tires are too big when you can float your bike across a stream without getting your chain wet in shoulder-deep water.

And those are all the links that gave me fits today. If you think I’m right about the opening words in today’s post let me know either with a comment or sending me a PM through the site (I’m not sure how you do that but people have done that before so I know it can be done).

Billed @$0.02, Opus