Today was a Feed with lots of multiple link stories, some with additional information, some just multiple regurgitations of the original police report. There were a couple of stories that just infuriated me, some that puzzled me, and one that, well I’ll post my reaction when I get to that particular story. I’m taking the weekend off from riding the bike, except for any trips to the grocery store that might be needed, one because there are too many really stupid people out there who have “had a bit”, and the other because this is a really busy weekend for racing, I will be watching Indy on Sunday morning, the World 600 Sunday evening, and sports cars from Lime Rock CT (a really pretty track to watch a race at) on Monday. I might catch the Nationwide Series from Charlotte today if I get done in time. People are genuinely puzzled that I’m such a big fan of racing cars while being such an advocate for active transportation, but I tell them that cars belong on a track, away from people that might get hurt. Also racing is an engineering problem that fascinates me: Under constraints of X.Y, and Z go as fast as possible, or at least faster than the anybody else. It’s the same mentality I bring to Human Powered Vehicles: define the constraints, then go as fast as possible within those constraints.
Up first is almost always a hard decision, when there’s nothing close to local and more than one story with multiple links it becomes even harder to choose. I think that the story of the elderly man rolling through a stop sign in front of a pickup truck qualifies today. Crash Involving Bicycle and Pickup Kills One and Cyclist killed in Corning collision also Crash kills Corning bicyclist and even Bicyclist killed on South Avenue near Corning This was a wreck with multiple witnesses who saw the cyclist roll the stop sign directly into a vehicle moving at a moderately high rate of speed. Nobody understands this wreck, including me. The cyclist was a mature individual, and not racing or otherwise engaging in an exercise in speed, and there was no visible gap in traffic when he went through the stop sign. According to one witness report he just slowed a bit and went right in front of the pickup truck, no panic or anything out of the ordinary until he got hit. To avoid, stop at stop signs until traffic clears.
One of the stories that infuriated me is this hit-from-behind on the shoulder still in CA. Visalia man killed when pick-up hits him on McAuliff Road The other links have gone 404 on me, but the gist of the story is the guy that got hit had a regular route that he would ride recovering recyclable materials from the side of the road riding his adult tricycle and towing a trailer made from an old shopping cart, total vehicle length about 12 feet and about 4 feet high with a back panel of about 3 feet tall and almost 3 feet wide. So a vehicle with a very large visual profile, riding on the shoulder of the road not actually in the road, gets hit from behind by a driver that claimed to never have seen the cyclist before he hit the other vehicle. There is no way for any cyclist to avoid a wreck like this, because the drivers is an egregious asshole that shouldn’t be on the road, or in this case driving off the road.
A bike ninja in NC is killed Top Stories – Charges Not Likely in Fatal Teen Bike Accident No lights, no reflectors, wearing hipster black clothing, at night. Can we say bad choices?
Another story that infuriates me Charge in cyclist’s death expected to be dropped I sincerely hope that since they can’t try him on the charges because of his continued mental problems that he is permanently housed in state custody for the protection of the community and himself. IOW he may have beaten the rap, but not the sentence, he will spend more time as a patient than he would have ever gotten as an inmate. BTW the comments section is a hoot on this one as racism apparently outweighs cyclist hate…
Lots of links about the girl run over by a semi hauling hogs in Canuckistan, but they all say pretty much the same thing. Young woman cyclist killed after hit by hog truck near Steinbach, Manitoba and Steinbach teen dies in traffic accident I had like 9 links to this, all word-for-word identical except the headlines. Nothing in any of the articles about direction of travel of either vehicle aside from the hog truck turning west on 52 from the other highway, so I can’t tell you how to not get hit in a similar wreck.
Final report from the UK is a guy that knows when a helmet saved his life because that’s what his day job involves. Nottingham crash test professor ‘saved’ by helmet Since this guy does stuff like this for a living, I’m inclined to believe him when he says the helmet reduced the impact energy enough to prevent catastrophic injury.
And that’s all I have today, tomorrow will be a wreck free rant on a subject to be determined.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
32.928601
-96.607394
Witch on a Bicycle 
Lots of stories with multiple links, the Feed
Today was a Feed with lots of multiple link stories, some with additional information, some just multiple regurgitations of the original police report. There were a couple of stories that just infuriated me, some that puzzled me, and one that, well I’ll post my reaction when I get to that particular story. I’m taking the weekend off from riding the bike, except for any trips to the grocery store that might be needed, one because there are too many really stupid people out there who have “had a bit”, and the other because this is a really busy weekend for racing, I will be watching Indy on Sunday morning, the World 600 Sunday evening, and sports cars from Lime Rock CT (a really pretty track to watch a race at) on Monday. I might catch the Nationwide Series from Charlotte today if I get done in time. People are genuinely puzzled that I’m such a big fan of racing cars while being such an advocate for active transportation, but I tell them that cars belong on a track, away from people that might get hurt. Also racing is an engineering problem that fascinates me: Under constraints of X.Y, and Z go as fast as possible, or at least faster than the anybody else. It’s the same mentality I bring to Human Powered Vehicles: define the constraints, then go as fast as possible within those constraints.
Up first is almost always a hard decision, when there’s nothing close to local and more than one story with multiple links it becomes even harder to choose. I think that the story of the elderly man rolling through a stop sign in front of a pickup truck qualifies today. Crash Involving Bicycle and Pickup Kills One and Cyclist killed in Corning collision also Crash kills Corning bicyclist and even Bicyclist killed on South Avenue near Corning This was a wreck with multiple witnesses who saw the cyclist roll the stop sign directly into a vehicle moving at a moderately high rate of speed. Nobody understands this wreck, including me. The cyclist was a mature individual, and not racing or otherwise engaging in an exercise in speed, and there was no visible gap in traffic when he went through the stop sign. According to one witness report he just slowed a bit and went right in front of the pickup truck, no panic or anything out of the ordinary until he got hit. To avoid, stop at stop signs until traffic clears.
One of the stories that infuriated me is this hit-from-behind on the shoulder still in CA. Visalia man killed when pick-up hits him on McAuliff Road The other links have gone 404 on me, but the gist of the story is the guy that got hit had a regular route that he would ride recovering recyclable materials from the side of the road riding his adult tricycle and towing a trailer made from an old shopping cart, total vehicle length about 12 feet and about 4 feet high with a back panel of about 3 feet tall and almost 3 feet wide. So a vehicle with a very large visual profile, riding on the shoulder of the road not actually in the road, gets hit from behind by a driver that claimed to never have seen the cyclist before he hit the other vehicle. There is no way for any cyclist to avoid a wreck like this, because the drivers is an egregious asshole that shouldn’t be on the road, or in this case driving off the road.
A bike ninja in NC is killed Top Stories – Charges Not Likely in Fatal Teen Bike Accident No lights, no reflectors, wearing hipster black clothing, at night. Can we say bad choices?
Another story that infuriates me Charge in cyclist’s death expected to be dropped I sincerely hope that since they can’t try him on the charges because of his continued mental problems that he is permanently housed in state custody for the protection of the community and himself. IOW he may have beaten the rap, but not the sentence, he will spend more time as a patient than he would have ever gotten as an inmate. BTW the comments section is a hoot on this one as racism apparently outweighs cyclist hate…
Lots of links about the girl run over by a semi hauling hogs in Canuckistan, but they all say pretty much the same thing. Young woman cyclist killed after hit by hog truck near Steinbach, Manitoba and Steinbach teen dies in traffic accident I had like 9 links to this, all word-for-word identical except the headlines. Nothing in any of the articles about direction of travel of either vehicle aside from the hog truck turning west on 52 from the other highway, so I can’t tell you how to not get hit in a similar wreck.
Final report from the UK is a guy that knows when a helmet saved his life because that’s what his day job involves. Nottingham crash test professor ‘saved’ by helmet Since this guy does stuff like this for a living, I’m inclined to believe him when he says the helmet reduced the impact energy enough to prevent catastrophic injury.
And that’s all I have today, tomorrow will be a wreck free rant on a subject to be determined.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
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Tagged anti-bike blatherings, Bike ninjas, cycling life, cyclist injured, cyclist killed, Dead cyclists, Don't read the comments, hit from behind, infrastructure, Jolly Olde, Something smells, stupid cyclist, stupid drivers, updates, waste of human skin