Things must be getting pretty chilly in Hell, because we in the ‘burbs woke up to a thin glaze of ice this morning. It wasn’t everywhere as there were still lots of places that had enough heat stored in their mass to resist freezing, but we did have ice this morning. I also had a covering of cats as they went to the open room with the warmest body in the bed to snuggle up to, which would be me in my bed. I kicked the heat on yesterday after I posted my blog, and depending on the wind direction the temperature in my office/bedroom has varied between 64 and 66°F, most of the time settling on 65° I find this temperature comfortable with my soccer shorts from the thrift store and a t-shirt and a pair of mid-calf crew socks. Everyone else in the house has gone to multiple layers of sweaters and in one case a knit scarf around the neck. Of course I admit that some of this might be due to the fact that I live on strong, hot, sweet coffee with lots of milk that raises my internal temperature and provides a few hot-burning calories for my high-carb metabolism. The funny thing about that is my normal body temp is in the 96°F range, approaching hypothermia for “normal” humans.
Up first is a link that didn’t come from my Feed but directly from WordPress about science literacy in the US. Religion reduces science literacy in America This is a major clue to why it is so hard to get decent bicycle infrastructure in the US. We who advocate bike infrastructure do so from evidence-based arguments about the safety and health benefits of such infrastructure, and about the durability of bike infrastructure compared to motor vehicle infrastructure because of the tiny amount of damage bicycles do compared to motor vehicles. The people were are trying to convince of this are resistant to fact-based arguments that conflict with previously-held beliefs. So, we must shift away from fact-based arguments to more emotional appeals that are still based in facts. My suggestion would be “think of the children” as childhood obesity is now endemic in this country, and as motor vehicles are the main cause of death for school-aged humans in this country. While many parents say they drive their kids to school to “protect” them they actually place their kids in much greater risk of death and long-term disability by putting them in the car/SUV/mini-van than letting them walk or ride a bicycle, not to mention the emotional damage this lack of independence fosters. But enough about that.
Up first from the Feed is another report on the cyclist that was killed in a hit-and-run wreck two months ago in the Williamsburg area of NYC. Report: Hit-and-run trucker must have known that he’d killed cyclist! Now that the official police report has been made public that shows the impact on the bike and the truck people are starting to put 2 and 2 together and getting 3.9999 that NYPD at some point lied through their teeth about this wreck. And I hope that HTML code survives the cut-and-paste to BikeJournal.com Same story from a different part of the paper, with better comments. Report: Hit-and-run trucker must have known that he’d killed cyclist!
A very unusual wreck in OH. Wrong-way bicyclist injured in collision The drunk cyclist riding the wrong way on the street is not unusual, the driver pulling out from a parking lot without looking for something or -one in front of him is not unusual, the unusual thing about it is the driver was a cop and charges are still pending for hitting a bicycle that was ridden in front of his stationary vehicle before he started to move. Cops are (almost) never given tickets for hitting things when they pull out of a parking lot.
A bar that may have over-served a driver that went out and hit-and-run wrecked with a cyclist may face charges related to the wreck. State liquor panel probes Exeter bar I find this heartening in that because of limitations in the law they can’t get the driver for DUI assault or any other DUI crimes, but they decided to expand the investigation so they can charge the people that sold him the alcohol that led to the wreck. That is very unusual and either shows dedicated LEO trying to get justice for the cyclist, or a psychological problem on the part of the investigator obsessed with charging anyone connected with a DUI wreck. Personally as long as the obsession is in our favor for getting dangerous drivers off the roads I say go for it, it’s the cops that try to blame a cyclist for being there that I have a problem with.
A SWCC is killed in the Great White North. 77-year-old Chatham cyclist killed by truck The cyclist died at the scene and the truck driver wasn’t injured, so guess whose version of the facts gets told to LEO?
Talk about a slow investigation, a driver that killed a cyclist in East Canuckistan back in July will face charges in court this January. Man charged in fatal collision with cyclist The wreck was an intersection wreck that was apparently discovered to be the fault of the driver. This is small consolation for the family of the cyclist that died, but it is something.
More on that tourist that crashed in Maui. B.C. man killed in Hawaii bicycle crash Now they are saying he was from B.C. not Toronto, and that he locked up the back tire and slid into the center of the oncoming lane coming down the mountain. When I looked at the wreck site in Google maps yesterday the turn didn’t look all that sharp, especially compared to the one right after it turning the other way, but I’ll concede to local knowledge. And unless the bike shop had swapped the tires for fat road slicks the knobbies on the bike would not have provided much grip on pavement.
An Ohio man went all the way to Guelph, Ontario in the Great White North, and killed a cyclist with a pickup truck. Cyclist killed in collision with pickup truck in Guelph The cyclist was riding in the crosswalk when he was hit, but because I can’t say for certain who had the right of way I can’t tell you for certain how to avoid this wreck if it happens to you.
From Oz another tandem bike hit from behind wreck like the one near San Angelo on TX16 in 2009. PICTURES: Cyclists killed by truck at Merricks Looking at the pictures of the bike the back of the bike was just crushed and destroyed to the point you can’t even tell at first glance that the bike was a tandem. You can also see the weapon vehicle in several of the pictures that was barely scratched in the impact. I also noticed lots of skid marks from both ends of the weapon vehicle in the pictures, which tells me that driver was going too fast to be able to stop in the distance he could see. It also tells me that this was not a wreck caused by the driver’s animosity to cyclists but rather by bad driving in a vehicle that takes a long time and distance to stop. More Two cyclists killed as truck hits tandem
Still in Oz a woman steps in front of a moving cyclist too close for the cyclist to stop amd she dies from the wreck. Elderly woman fights for life after bike crash When I was filtering the Feed the link said the woman was 83 and dead, but apparently that information was premature. The cyclist was also badly injured in the wreck but not as badly as the woman. Ordinarily I would advise caution around pedestrians to avoid a wreck like this, but truth is sometimes you can’t avoid the pedestrians.
And that’s most of the news that gave me fits today, there was some stuff I couldn’t share with you because it wasn’t even peripherally bicycle-related.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
Witch on a Bicycle 