Sorry about the long headline there, but that’s the situation here today. I took my first dose of Synthroid this morning and my second dose of my regular BP medication after the study ended. The Synthroid won’t kick in fully for about 2 weeks, but I’m already noticing a difference as the study med washes out of my system. My fingers are cold, both to the touch and subjectively, but they don’t hurt any more and I can type without having to put gloves on for a while, then take them off to type, then put them back on when I don’t have to use the keyboard. The thermometer I keep in the room says the temperature hasn’t changed from where I was keeping it before and I’m back to my usual shorts and t-shirt attire with in-house temperatures in the mid- to low-60s F (19-17C). In fact the only difference between now and last summer when I kept the temperature about 80F is the A/C is off and I’m drinking my coffee warm instead of iced.
Speaking of people losing their minds, the Really Big National Bicycle Story is a bunch of L.A. cyclists went on a pub crawl and rode their bikes while drunk. 5 bicyclists arrested on suspicion of DUI in LA and local to the actual story Bicyclists Arrested for DUI more 5 bicyclists arrested on suspicion of DUI in LA and another piles on with 5 bicyclists arrested on suspicion of DUI in LA The hilarious part of the story is that all the “drunk” cyclists were allowed to ride away on their bikes after getting the tickets. Just so everybody knows I do not condone riding while under the influence as this is a serious impairment to your ability to avoid the drunks in control of the WMD on the roads.
Moving east a bit, questions about tying up so much manpower to pursue something that is such a slight risk that the larger risk is ignored. ‘Ticket blitz’ too lopsided I use this ratio as a metaphor pretty often, but that doesn’t make it any less true: In NYC cyclists kill on average one pedestrian a year, while an average of 50 pedestrians are killed by cars driving on the sidewalks, or to put it another way on average cars kill almost as many people on the sidewalks per week as cyclists kill in the entire city in an average year. Of course what gets left out is that cyclists kill, when they kill, single individuals, where many of the deaths from motor vehicles on the sidewalks was mass murder by a vehicle driven into a crowd of people that the driver didn’t like for whatever reason, which when you get down to brass tacks is an even greater reason to worry more about motor vehicles than bicycles.
From OR comes an article about a crazy guy submitting a bill prohibiting riding children on bicycles or using bike trailers to carry kids. Oregon House bills would prohibit wearing headphones, carrying kids under six while biking – Updated Hmm the number one killer of humans between the ages of 6 and 35 in the US is motor vehicles, and this guy wants to keep kids off bicycles?
Moving away from the media-induced insanity in the US for a minute, a pedestrian is killed in Canuckistan. Teenage pedestrian’s death ‘needless’ Why include a pedestrian death in a bike blog? Because the pedestrian was killed in what would have been a right hook for a cyclist. He was crossing the street legally when the dump truck turned from the street he was walking down to the street he was crossing. It isn’t just people riding bicycles that are at risk for this kind of wreck, it’s everyone not riding in a car that are at risk, because some drivers “can’t see” anything smaller than a Mini when they “look” for “traffic”.
Moving on to Enn Zed, the killer of a cyclist is finally charged in the death. Charge over cycle death and Driver charged over cyclist’s death This was a hit-from-behind wreck in broad daylight, and the best they could some up with was “Careless Driving”? That’s like saying the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was actually “negligent discharge of a machine gun”.
Now we have Infrastructure! articles from crazy people. NJ Lawmaker Wants All Bikes to Have License Plates This is a law that supposedly is going to protect the elderly, but I can’t read license plated on cars more than about 25 feet away and I practice this skill regularly. License plates for bicycles would be smaller and have more characters (there are about twice as many bikes as cars in the US) which would have to be smaller to fit in the space available, how would a person that might already have vision problems be able to get the number of a cyclist? More N.J. lawmaker withdraws proposal to require license plates for bicycles She discovered she was being stupid, and that the SCOTUS has already ruled against licenses for bicycles or any other muscle-powered mode of transportation.
And Carlisle PA gets funding for a connected bicycle infrastructure system. Carlisle to receive $500K for trail network This isn’t a crazy project, but until the other towns get with the program the “connection” part is going to be a pipe dream.
And that’s all the news that gives me fits today.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
32.928601
-96.607394
Witch on a Bicycle 
While I try to get my hormones under control, everybody else loses their minds
Sorry about the long headline there, but that’s the situation here today. I took my first dose of Synthroid this morning and my second dose of my regular BP medication after the study ended. The Synthroid won’t kick in fully for about 2 weeks, but I’m already noticing a difference as the study med washes out of my system. My fingers are cold, both to the touch and subjectively, but they don’t hurt any more and I can type without having to put gloves on for a while, then take them off to type, then put them back on when I don’t have to use the keyboard. The thermometer I keep in the room says the temperature hasn’t changed from where I was keeping it before and I’m back to my usual shorts and t-shirt attire with in-house temperatures in the mid- to low-60s F (19-17C). In fact the only difference between now and last summer when I kept the temperature about 80F is the A/C is off and I’m drinking my coffee warm instead of iced.
Speaking of people losing their minds, the Really Big National Bicycle Story is a bunch of L.A. cyclists went on a pub crawl and rode their bikes while drunk. 5 bicyclists arrested on suspicion of DUI in LA and local to the actual story Bicyclists Arrested for DUI more 5 bicyclists arrested on suspicion of DUI in LA and another piles on with 5 bicyclists arrested on suspicion of DUI in LA The hilarious part of the story is that all the “drunk” cyclists were allowed to ride away on their bikes after getting the tickets. Just so everybody knows I do not condone riding while under the influence as this is a serious impairment to your ability to avoid the drunks in control of the WMD on the roads.
Moving east a bit, questions about tying up so much manpower to pursue something that is such a slight risk that the larger risk is ignored. ‘Ticket blitz’ too lopsided I use this ratio as a metaphor pretty often, but that doesn’t make it any less true: In NYC cyclists kill on average one pedestrian a year, while an average of 50 pedestrians are killed by cars driving on the sidewalks, or to put it another way on average cars kill almost as many people on the sidewalks per week as cyclists kill in the entire city in an average year. Of course what gets left out is that cyclists kill, when they kill, single individuals, where many of the deaths from motor vehicles on the sidewalks was mass murder by a vehicle driven into a crowd of people that the driver didn’t like for whatever reason, which when you get down to brass tacks is an even greater reason to worry more about motor vehicles than bicycles.
From OR comes an article about a crazy guy submitting a bill prohibiting riding children on bicycles or using bike trailers to carry kids. Oregon House bills would prohibit wearing headphones, carrying kids under six while biking – Updated Hmm the number one killer of humans between the ages of 6 and 35 in the US is motor vehicles, and this guy wants to keep kids off bicycles?
Moving away from the media-induced insanity in the US for a minute, a pedestrian is killed in Canuckistan. Teenage pedestrian’s death ‘needless’ Why include a pedestrian death in a bike blog? Because the pedestrian was killed in what would have been a right hook for a cyclist. He was crossing the street legally when the dump truck turned from the street he was walking down to the street he was crossing. It isn’t just people riding bicycles that are at risk for this kind of wreck, it’s everyone not riding in a car that are at risk, because some drivers “can’t see” anything smaller than a Mini when they “look” for “traffic”.
Moving on to Enn Zed, the killer of a cyclist is finally charged in the death. Charge over cycle death and Driver charged over cyclist’s death This was a hit-from-behind wreck in broad daylight, and the best they could some up with was “Careless Driving”? That’s like saying the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was actually “negligent discharge of a machine gun”.
Now we have Infrastructure! articles from crazy people. NJ Lawmaker Wants All Bikes to Have License Plates This is a law that supposedly is going to protect the elderly, but I can’t read license plated on cars more than about 25 feet away and I practice this skill regularly. License plates for bicycles would be smaller and have more characters (there are about twice as many bikes as cars in the US) which would have to be smaller to fit in the space available, how would a person that might already have vision problems be able to get the number of a cyclist? More N.J. lawmaker withdraws proposal to require license plates for bicycles She discovered she was being stupid, and that the SCOTUS has already ruled against licenses for bicycles or any other muscle-powered mode of transportation.
And Carlisle PA gets funding for a connected bicycle infrastructure system. Carlisle to receive $500K for trail network This isn’t a crazy project, but until the other towns get with the program the “connection” part is going to be a pipe dream.
And that’s all the news that gives me fits today.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
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Posted in Daily Feed
Tagged Don't read the comments, Enn Zed, hit from behind, infrastructure, lawyer blatherings, stupid cyclist, stupid politicians