Yeah, FB has screwed the interface that connects my blog to my Wall, again, and I’m back to manually connecting each individual post to the page for this blog and my Wall. The fix that WP put in lasted all of 48 hours before it went down again. If putting things on my Wall and page were not so important in driving site views I wouldn’t be bothered, but sometimes more than half my views come from people seeing something on FB.
Up first because it actually left me speechless for a minute. Man charged with murder following death of cyclist – Mullumbimby This is from Oz, BTW. I wasn’t startled that a driver deliberately ran a cyclist down (remember who is doing this blog), I was stunned that LEO were actually charging a driver with murder for killing a cyclist. Anyway, hit-from-behind, the appropriate protocols as spelled out in the link at the top of my blog might have prevented or reduced injury, but given the charges filed and the lack of bail for the driver I would say, probably not.
And a similar thing from the US, only with a much longer time frame. Motorist faces murder trial for cyclist’s death You may remember this drunken rampage from early last year, as the driver targeted several cyclists and “lesser vehicles” in a drunken road rage wreck spree… And more than 6 months later he is finally charged with a crime.
And from the Great White North a classic case of blaming the victim for wearing winter clothes during, wait for it, winter. Vernon cyclist injured and Cyclist hospitalized after ramming car The wreck was a classic left cross with blaming the victim added. “He was wearing dark clothing at night! I couldn’t see him in my million candlepower headlights!” Left cross, intersection protocols to avoid, and put a headlight on your bike, those dinky white reflectors are freaking useless.
Another hit-and-run in SA. Hit-and-run cyclist hopes for justice This was the hit-and-run that was briefly mentioned in one of the links to the homicide-by-cop-car report from the first of the year. Hit-from-behind with the cyclists already doing everything they could to avoid the wreck except get completely off the road.
A bike wreck in the UK that’s more than a little unusual. Winds of up to 70mph in Lincolnshire cause havoc Yep, a wind that was more than 3 times your cruising speed might be a bit more than you can ride in. The interesting thing is the cyclist wasn’t blown off the road but was hit by debris in his injury.
The most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike makes riding at night without a light a ticketing offense. Proposed bicycle law shines light on nighttime riding At least the proposed fine is in line with the danger to others ($15) as opposed to the previous law which allowed LEO to jail someone for not having a light.
Legal infrastructure from the Great White North. Sidewalk bike strife As was pointed out in the comments section, sidewalk riding is a symptom of bad bicycle infrastructure. If you want to get bicycles off the sidewalk then you need a safe place to ride in the road, and not just a place that is actually safe but a place that feels safe to be on an unprotected vehicle like a bicycle.
A NYC citizen asks that more attention be paid to things that are really dangerous insteadof spending time setting speed traps for bicycles in the parks (while ignoring speeding cars in the parks). Vacca Constituent Asks: When Will City Council Get Real About Street Safety? In the video that went with the article there was a 4.6511628% compliance rate for the drivers being recorded. In NYC the last cyclist/ped fatality was in 2009, while an average of 1 pedestrian per week was killed by motor vehicles ON THE SIDEWALK in that time span. In the meantime cyclists were ticketed at a rate 3 times higher than drivers.
Final link is from Oz again as a cyclist has to deal with near daily assaults with thrown objects. ‘I don’t deserve to be pelted’ Maybe some of my Australian readers can enlighten me, is throwing a rock simple assault or assault with a deadly weapon? Because if it’s assault with a deadly then there are serious charges waiting to be filed here…
And that’s all the insanity I can stand for today.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
Witch on a Bicycle 