Now I know I have people scratching their heads about that headline, the secret is the quotation marks. I’m not any happier than usual doing my filtering of dead bodies and mangled cyclists from the Feed, but I am using a quote from a media reference. If you’re still “at sea” I’ll light the Grail Shaped Beacon to guide your sense of humor home. And in case you’re wondering what this has to do with bicycles, I deal with death and mayhem on these pages 6 days a week, if I don’t want to end up like that Loughlin guy in AZ I need some funny. Granted it’s funny about death, which isn’t moving the needle too far on the compass, but it’s “funny” and sufficient at the moment to keep me from mounting the rocket launchers to Blue Bike. With as big a Feed as I have to deal with today, I need either funny or Prozac to not put those rocket launchers on Blue.
I’m going to open the post with a wreck that just, well it just floors me. Read the article. Two seriously injured in 2-vehicle, 1-bike crash This strongly reminds me of a fatal NY wreck from 2008 where a drunk on a motorcycle left a highway and hit a guy on a bike path fixing a flat tire. Here you have 2 people in cars having a wreck and the guy riding the bike can’t even see the wreck until he’s in it because there is a pile of dirt in the way. As for how you can avoid a wreck like this, maybe get a Tarot reading before going on a bike ride? Do the I Ching? Read tea leaves? Seriously how do you avoid a wreck that happens on another road but migrates to the road you’re riding?
Someone at NYPD has lost their mind. Widow Applauds New Bike Safety Crackdown and NYPD’s Brooklyn Bike Crackdown to Last “Forever” I guess that NYPD has solved the problems of rogue taxis driving on the sidewalks and killing pedestrians, and now have a great deal of time on their hands to pursue cyclists? There are no more speeding cars or trucks maiming pedestrians in crosswalks? To be honest, there are some cyclist behaviors that need tickets, like salmoning against traffic and riding too fast on sidewalks, but cyclist violations don’t kill bystanders like motor vehicle violations, and serious effort has to be taken against motor vehicle violators before “permanent crackdowns” fatwahs are issued against cyclists.
From Jolly Olde, a study has shown that wrecks against cyclists and pedestrians are routinely prosecuted at a lower rate and punishment when convicted is even less than a similar incident involving heavy machinery in the workplace, just as one example. Cyclists ‘left unprotected by police and courts’ I liked the one comment that walking around shooting a shotgun would be punished much more severely than hitting cyclists and pedestrians and claiming blindness, in spite of the lesser danger posed by the person shooting a shotgun at random. More Call for courts to do more to protect cyclists
And what has to be one of the most idiotic “safety” campaigns in this century. Cops give special jackets to cyclists with eye on safety “The General Department of Traffic recently launched a campaign to distribute “Phosphoric Jackets” carrying the logo “Speed Kills” among cyclists on a number of Dubai roads.” That’s glow-in-the-dark for those of us on this side of the pond.
Ghost bikes in Enn Zed. ‘Ghost bikes’ grim reminder of deaths I would dearly love to live in an era when this blog would be devoted to recalling my trips by bike, and the antics of my cats, instead of marking the fallen and telling how to avoid joining them. Let’s all pray for a WoaB blog devoted to bike trips and cats, and no more need for Ghost Bikes…
And that’s all the news that gives me fits.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
Witch on a Bicycle 