Ideas churning without a place to go, and the Feed

I have blog posts that are churning inside my head that would only be suitable for a Wreck-Free Sunday post. Unfortunately I only have time to do one of those a week, but I have many more ideas than that running around in my head that have a limited shelf life. As a “fer’instance” the day after the (alleged) nutjob in CO shot up a theater and killed 12 people with a gun here in TX one guy in a pickup truck killed 15 people with his vehicle. I have seen and heard nothing about that from the MSM. Right now more people are killed by motor vehicle wrecks than by gunshot wounds in the US. Right now the biggest killer of children in the US is motor vehicle wrecks. Right now the biggest killer of adults in the US is motor vehicle wrecks up to age 35, after that diseases caused by extensive automobility start to take over. The last year that we have access to statistics for 33,000 people were killed in motor vehicle wrecks including almost 5000 people that were not in cars, or about 15%. We don’t have good statistics for the people killed by pollution from motor vehicles and the support industries needed to support those vehicles, only estimates with wide windows of confidence, because pollution seldom kills suddenly like a wreck. All those ideas with no place to put them, no way to flesh them out.

Up first is another cyclist hit in OR on the “scenic bike route”. Cyclist injured in crash on U.S. 101 south of Bandon identified and Bicycle rider injured in crash near Coos Bay also Man struck while bicycling on Highway 101 south of Bandon Another cyclist is seriously injured with no apparent consequences for the driver. Hit-from-behind wreck but the cyclist was already in the escape route for this particular wreck, so even using the protocols would have been to no avail. However getting the infrastructure right including criminal charges for leaving the road to hit a cyclist would prevent a wreck like this, or at least sharply reduce the likelihood of a similar wreck.

Another wreck with lots of links is a cyclist hit in KS. El Dorado bicyclist hit by car, killed and Bicyclist killed after being hit by car near Augusta also El Dorado optometrist killed in bicycle accident Another hit-from-behind on a clear, straight road with almost no visual impediments and 3 of 4 lanes for the driver to use to not hit the cyclist. I mean, how hard is it to change a lane when you’re going the same direction as the cyclist? And don’t give me that BS about cyclists being hard to see, if you can’t see someone riding a bike, how the H 3 1 1 are you going to see the stripes on the road? Anyway, hit-from-behind protocols to avoid, and get the infrastructure right to prevent. And as part of “getting the infrastructure right” could we please have a law that places fault on the rear vehicle in case of a fatality unless the rear driver has video or skid mark evidence that the front vehicle cut them off.

A drunk driver in CA hits 3 cyclists in a group, killing one and injuring the others. Child Killed In Suspected DUI Crash; High School Coach Arrested No mode of wreck listed but since the wreck was not reported to have been in or near an intersection I’m going out on a limb here and say that the drunk hit the cyclists from behind and will claim blindness or lack of lights/reflectors on the victims’ bikes as some kind of mitigating factor that he drove drunk into a group of cyclists and killed one outright and may have killed the other two. What the relation of the surviving adult rider and the 2YO were to the dead victim was not released. EDIT: there were a huge number of links that just appeared in my Feed about this wreck. Central HS coach arrested in DUI crash, 1 dead, 2 injured and Police Say Fresno Coach Who Hit Father and His Two Children Was Possibly Driving Drunk more Fresno basketball coach facing DUI charges another one 7 Year Old Boy on Bike Hit by Fresno Basketball Coach Dies not done yet Fresno Basketball Coach Facing DUI and Manslaughter Charges There was a lot of victim blaming and trying to find the drunk driver innocent of actually hitting the cyclists in that link Young boy dies, suspect out of jail And the driver is freed on bond before the victim’s body has had a chance to get cold Basketball Coach Accused of Fatal DUI still more 7-Year-Old Killed by Suspected Drunk Driver another one High school basketball coach faces DUI, manslaughter charges even more Dozens gather to remember boy, 7, killed in suspected D.U.I crash this is a bit ridiculous now Vigil held for boy killed in suspected DUI crash getting closer now Fresno Boy Killed In D.U.I. Hit & Run, Driver Was Central High Coach As I keep reading reports the distance the deceased victim was dragged has gone from “several” yards to 200 yards to almost a quarter of a mile Child’s death in suspected DUI shocks Fresno; arrested coach ‘devastated’ last link Hit & Run Victim Brings Community Together When I first filtered this story there was only the one link at the top of the paragraph to look at, which while devastating enough was not nearly the whole story here. The whole story is just so vile, so reprehensible, so disgusting that I just can’t wrap my head around it. The crossing is fitted with flashing lights to alert drivers they have to stop for traffic on the trail, which has the right-of-way at this crossing, and the driver went through in excess of the speed limit and dragged one victim, the deceased, almost a quarter of a mile (final report was “1000 feet”), and the driver then left the scene. And there were still comments that blamed the kid for riding his bike in the street. I don’t know how long they will stay up as I marked them as offensive every time I could. Getting back to avoiding and preventing this wreck, the cyclists were on good bike infrastructure that gave right of way to them as users and a drunk driver still hit them and killed one of them. And this wasn’t just any drunk driver, this was a coach that had made repeated speeches to students about the dangers of drunk driving. So aside from making the driver watch his car get recycled from the inside, I’m at a loss as to how to prevent another wreck like this. Obviously with no car and no driver to drive it this won’t happen with them again, but how often does the death penalty prevent other kinds of killing?

Another wreck in CA, with much less information. cyclist Killed In Campbell Crash All LEO have released to date is there was a cyclist hit by/with a car.

A GA cyclist is killed. Pooler bicyclist killed after being struck by car in Bloomingdale Thursday And another hit-from-behind wreck that they try to blame on the cyclist… Although to be fair a lot of comments were blaming the driver for DWO (Driving While Old). So hit-from-behind protocols to avoid, get the infrastructure right to prevent.

Not a bicycle wreck, but a rare assault and attempted murder charge for a driver. Police: Man charged with attempted homicide after hitting man with car No word about if the victim was driving, walking or riding a bicycle.

Infrastructure! news from Enn Zed as the fallout from a door prize continues to reverberate. Outrage over claim cyclist caused own death So, the cyclist opened the door herself?

And those are all the links that gave me fits today.

Billed @$0,02, Opus