Well there ain’t much to it, but here is the Feed. I waited until mid-afternoon but this was all I got, but you watch, now that I have posted what a weak useless Feed I had today, there will be scads of links pour into my inbox in additional Feed reports, that I will have to post in additional blog entries all night long…

From Jolly Olde, Wales to be precise, a 15 YO male was giving a 12 YO female a ride on his bike and got hit by a car. Cyclist, 15, seriously injured in North Wales collision Yes I know, that’s almost half the article in the intro, but if you have read any of my blogs for any length of time you know that is just the way things are with UK media. The story won’t come out until all the court cases are done, or the coroner’s inquest if there was a fatality, by which time nobody but me will care and media coverage will be limited to some obscure back section of some obscure newspaper that is the official record for that town and which doesn’t have a web site to be linked to, much less a searchable online archive. And so lessons on how to avoid winding up in the same situation are lost. And people wonder why so many wrecks in the UK seem to have the same pattern.

Disgustedly yours,

Billed @$.02, Opus

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Late Feed idiots

I had a late Feed report come in with an idiot bike wreck, and one not an idiot.

Let’s start with the idiot. This idiot forgot to take his work clothes off before he went riding his bike, but his “night job” was robbing Dollar stores. So his clothes were all black, at night on a bike with no lights. Robbery suspect struck, killed in Savannah Stupid Bike Ninja tricks…

The apparently not an idiot was a report that was UK-ish. Cyclist killed in crash Yeah, another one of those reports that pretty much begin and end with the notice that there was a wreck involving a cyclist.

And that’s all I had in this report. As always keep one pointed here for further updates.

Billed @$.02, Opus

A large Sunday Feed, and stuff to make you crazy

Yes, there is a news item in today’s Feed that will make you crazy, want to rip someone’s face off and stomp on it crazy. It is a story on a crime and the charges resulting from that crime, that are so out of proportion to the crime that even the bike haters are saying “Wait a minute, what?”

So as to not make you any crazier than you already are when you get here I’m going to do that report first. Charges filed against driver who killed 9-year-old girl Yes, you read that story right, the woman was talking on a cell phone and drove off a road and into a bike lane and hit a little girl head on, and the worst, absolute hardest sentence that she can get is one year in jail and a $1000 fine. Like I said, even the bike haters are questioning the charges as insufficient. The comparison is being made to the charges facing a person who said something bad about an ex on Craigslist and is facing felony charges with up to several years in prison for hurting someone’s feelings, while a person can drive over and kill a cyclist that was on a completely separate piece of pavement from the road and be facing a maximum of a year in jail. TANJ!

As I suspected, the woman that was working at a strip club and hit-and-run a cyclist to death was drinking, but an hour and a half after the wreck she only tested at .04 BAC, about half of the legal limit. Didn’t See Cyclist, Hit-Run Driver Says As there was no mention of the bicycle not being equipped with legal lighting and MSM looooves to point this out, we have to assume in the absence that the bicycle was legally equipped with at least a taillight or reflector visible 300 feet from behind. As for the blood test, according to Wikipedia most people metabolize and excrete at a rate of .015 to .020% per hour, which would have the driver impaired but not legally drunk at the time of the wreck. Still too stupid to stop, just not stupid enough to charge with intoxication manslaughter, the only thing we are going to get out of this is the hit-and-run, and possibly a speeding ticket based on the distance the body flew. How you avoid this? Well about the only way to avoid ending up in the same circumstances is to keep that head on a swivel, and check six constantly. I suggest either a helmet or glasses mounted rear view mirror. I’m building a pair of Beer View Mirrors to mount to my helmet visor. You can look them up on the Instructables web site. Lots of good DIY projects for bicycle safety on that site, I heartily recommend it for the cash impaired reader.

I’m sorry if this link is a little late, that’s one of the bad things about link journalism. Sometimes your link search is a bit (bunch) late on breaking stuff or announcements. Candlelight vigil scheduled for Martinez cyclist killed by hit-and-run driver I hope they had a nice ceremony.

Criminals are discovering the increased mobility and escape speed of the urban mountain bike. Woman with disabilities knocked down, robbed I knew it would be just a matter of time before street criminals would either start stealing bikes, or just buying cheap bikes to use in crimes that depend on speed of attack and escape to succeed. I’m just sad they chose a disabled person to hit.

The headline is true taken by itself, but the article is straight fear mongering. Bicycles are not just harmless toys No, bikes are not just harmless toys, they are serious transportation tools. Just because a tool can be used by a child does not mean that that tool is suddenly a toy, and that applies no matter if the tool is for woodworking, metalworking, or transportation.

From Oz comes a report that a cyclist lost control riding downhill and hit a truck head on. Three killed on QLD roads Well I suppose it is possible to do, lose control of a bike going downhill.[/sarcasm] Actually it’s quite easy to lose control of a bike going downhill, especially on a road bike with skinny tires or a mountain bike with knobbies on pavement.

Also from Oz parents blame infrastructure for a bike wreck that killed their child, not the truck that ran him over from behind. Parents blame road for son’s death Yes, bad infrastructure can kill, just ask the next-of-kin of Tracey Sparling or Brent Jarolmek. But I don’t think infrastructure can cause a driver to run a child over from behind.

And that’s the Feed for this Sunday, keep an ocular organ pointed in this direction for further updates.

Billed @$.02, Opus