Well, those halcyon days of yore with almost no bicycle wrecks (yesterday) are over now. >sigh< I was asked yesterday what the US would look like if the ratio of private motor vehicles and bicycles was reversed, with 98% of trips made by bicycle and only 2% made by private motor vehicle. Well to begin with the roads would be a lot less crowded, you can get 16 bikes in the space required for one medium sedan, or about 20 in the space required for a big SUV. Second the roads would last a lot longer as bikes do an amount of damage that can't be pulled out of normal weathering unless you get thousands of bikes using the stretch of road per day carrying heavy cargo with every one loaded to 350 pounds GVW or more, which I suppose might start happening with a 98% bike share. The thousands of bikes a day would definitely start happening, and I suppose that people would start carrying cargo on most trips, but I don't see many bikes at 350 lbs. GVW even when I do a grocery run I seldom get to 300 pounds of me, bike, and cargo. We would also be a lot less fat with a 98% bike share because almost everyone would get moving by muscle power every day, which would also reduce the heart disease rate and the diabetes rate and probably a bunch of other things we don't even think about as being problems related to a lack of movement on our part. And we would all be able to breathe easier because a major source of pollution would be gone from our lives with a 98% bike share, both directly from the cars and indirectly from the refining process for making the fuels from crude oil. And don't forget all the stuff that could be made from the oil we no longer burn to make cars go, all the plastics and other things that we need every day, when the oil runs out those go away too. It could be done, too. All it takes is taxing motor vehicles and incentivizing riding bicycles with the proceeds. This leads to why we don't have a national health care system in the US, but that is a rant for a different day.
Up first is another reason why we would be better off without so many cars, no more left crosses. Man seriously hurt in Hyannis bicycle crash I guess technically the cyclist did hit the car, after the car turned left in front of him and left no escape route. Don’t forget every driveway is an intersection, and every driver is trying to kill you and make it look like an “accident”, so use intersection protocols at every place where someone could cross your path to get to another road or whatever.
In the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bicycle they killed another one. Hit-and-run driver kills Midway bicyclist, 58 This was in the same area as another FL cyclist was killed this summer. As for avoiding wrecks like this I suggest mandatory execution of DUI homicides by slow torture on national TV with a constant close up on the killer’s face until death. That was a little gruesome I know, but honestly that’s the only sure way to stop drunks from killing with their cars, make the penalty so awful that nobody would drink and get behind the wheel of a car for fear of getting that penalty. For drunks that don’t actually hit anyone just crush their cars, and require local TV news to show the driver watching his or her car getting crushed. Once again you have to make the penalty real by making it visible to the potential violators of the law. And what could be worse in this country, short of death, than taking a person’s car away and destroying it?
After a long time spent litigating and negotiating the survivors of a dead cyclist get a small measure of justice for a right-hooked cyclist. Family of cyclist killed in crash settles with truck driver, employer and Family of bicyclist killed on city street settles suit Interesting thing in the comments is the number of people that zero in on the original incorrect police report that was proven wrong by a video of the wreck that showed the truck passing and then turning over the cyclist before completing the pass, aka the classic right hook. It’s like “Don’t confuse me with the facts, I hate cyclists and this confirms my reasons for hating them.”
The survivors of a Enn Zed cyclist killed in their equivalent of a left cross (a right cross) describes the financial and emotional damages done by the wreck. Overwhelmed by grief Yes a bike wreck can be terrible even for the people that were not in the wreck.
Finally, a request that extraneous information be left out of reports on wrecks. Report only the necessary facts, no more, in fatalities How about leaving out the part about her being helmetless when there were other injuries that would have killed her even if her head had been completely shielded from all harm, and not leaving out the part that she had a legal reflector on her bike and saying the bike was not equipped with a headlight when she was hit from behind. Having a light shining to the front would have had next to no impact on getting hit as it would not have materially changed her visibility from the direction from which she was hit.
And that’s all the news that gives me fits today. I don’t know when my Saturday post will get posted as I have a 1030 meeting and also a 1300-1600 event I’m supposed to “create art” at. I’m still trying to figure out what kind of art I’m supposed to be creating as my artistic endeavors require either an oven for baking, or some dangerous equipment for cutting and welding metals…
Billed @$0.02, Opus
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Witch on a Bicycle 
A slightly more robust Feed
Well, those halcyon days of yore with almost no bicycle wrecks (yesterday) are over now. >sigh< I was asked yesterday what the US would look like if the ratio of private motor vehicles and bicycles was reversed, with 98% of trips made by bicycle and only 2% made by private motor vehicle. Well to begin with the roads would be a lot less crowded, you can get 16 bikes in the space required for one medium sedan, or about 20 in the space required for a big SUV. Second the roads would last a lot longer as bikes do an amount of damage that can't be pulled out of normal weathering unless you get thousands of bikes using the stretch of road per day carrying heavy cargo with every one loaded to 350 pounds GVW or more, which I suppose might start happening with a 98% bike share. The thousands of bikes a day would definitely start happening, and I suppose that people would start carrying cargo on most trips, but I don't see many bikes at 350 lbs. GVW even when I do a grocery run I seldom get to 300 pounds of me, bike, and cargo. We would also be a lot less fat with a 98% bike share because almost everyone would get moving by muscle power every day, which would also reduce the heart disease rate and the diabetes rate and probably a bunch of other things we don't even think about as being problems related to a lack of movement on our part. And we would all be able to breathe easier because a major source of pollution would be gone from our lives with a 98% bike share, both directly from the cars and indirectly from the refining process for making the fuels from crude oil. And don't forget all the stuff that could be made from the oil we no longer burn to make cars go, all the plastics and other things that we need every day, when the oil runs out those go away too. It could be done, too. All it takes is taxing motor vehicles and incentivizing riding bicycles with the proceeds. This leads to why we don't have a national health care system in the US, but that is a rant for a different day.
Up first is another reason why we would be better off without so many cars, no more left crosses. Man seriously hurt in Hyannis bicycle crash I guess technically the cyclist did hit the car, after the car turned left in front of him and left no escape route. Don’t forget every driveway is an intersection, and every driver is trying to kill you and make it look like an “accident”, so use intersection protocols at every place where someone could cross your path to get to another road or whatever.
In the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bicycle they killed another one. Hit-and-run driver kills Midway bicyclist, 58 This was in the same area as another FL cyclist was killed this summer. As for avoiding wrecks like this I suggest mandatory execution of DUI homicides by slow torture on national TV with a constant close up on the killer’s face until death. That was a little gruesome I know, but honestly that’s the only sure way to stop drunks from killing with their cars, make the penalty so awful that nobody would drink and get behind the wheel of a car for fear of getting that penalty. For drunks that don’t actually hit anyone just crush their cars, and require local TV news to show the driver watching his or her car getting crushed. Once again you have to make the penalty real by making it visible to the potential violators of the law. And what could be worse in this country, short of death, than taking a person’s car away and destroying it?
After a long time spent litigating and negotiating the survivors of a dead cyclist get a small measure of justice for a right-hooked cyclist. Family of cyclist killed in crash settles with truck driver, employer and Family of bicyclist killed on city street settles suit Interesting thing in the comments is the number of people that zero in on the original incorrect police report that was proven wrong by a video of the wreck that showed the truck passing and then turning over the cyclist before completing the pass, aka the classic right hook. It’s like “Don’t confuse me with the facts, I hate cyclists and this confirms my reasons for hating them.”
The survivors of a Enn Zed cyclist killed in their equivalent of a left cross (a right cross) describes the financial and emotional damages done by the wreck. Overwhelmed by grief Yes a bike wreck can be terrible even for the people that were not in the wreck.
Finally, a request that extraneous information be left out of reports on wrecks. Report only the necessary facts, no more, in fatalities How about leaving out the part about her being helmetless when there were other injuries that would have killed her even if her head had been completely shielded from all harm, and not leaving out the part that she had a legal reflector on her bike and saying the bike was not equipped with a headlight when she was hit from behind. Having a light shining to the front would have had next to no impact on getting hit as it would not have materially changed her visibility from the direction from which she was hit.
And that’s all the news that gives me fits today. I don’t know when my Saturday post will get posted as I have a 1030 meeting and also a 1300-1600 event I’m supposed to “create art” at. I’m still trying to figure out what kind of art I’m supposed to be creating as my artistic endeavors require either an oven for baking, or some dangerous equipment for cutting and welding metals…
Billed @$0.02, Opus
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Posted in Daily Feed, rant
Tagged anti-bike blatherings, cycling life, cyclist killed, Dead cyclists, Don't read the comments, Enn Zed, hit from behind, hit-and-run, Left cross/right hook, rant, Something smells, stupid cyclist, stupid drivers, stupid politicians, updates, waste of human skin