One of the things I do before placing fingers on keyboard to create these posts is to peruse the WP Dashboard and among other things check out what other people are posting both top posts and new. Top posts are mostly good, the ones that are in English. The new posts are well, Spam. Commercial advertisements for cheap knockoffs or factory seconds posted as news. Of the 10 listings for new posts 9 were for commercial products including prices and how to order, and this was a good day. Four out of 5 days I open the new posts tab and find all 10 are spam posts from pure spam blogs. And don’t get me started on the spam comments, if the traffic counters included all the spambots on my blog I would have double the traffic I get now. Lately it has been the Brazilians leaving the most spam, before that it was the Russians, before that the Poles… Anyway there are WP blogs that are nothing but spam posts, advertising anything from refurbished laptops in one to leather handbags in another, and all kinds of knockoffs from “Guchi” to “Accer” to just strange brands that are probably just the real factory names where the name brand stuff is actually made. I have seen this in the bike business, where the factory makes bike frames for a number of different brands and then sells more from the same molds but with different layup schedules, and under strange brand names. Sometimes you get a good product at a screaming deal, sometimes you get death on two wheels. I hate to think what kind of computer you are getting from “Accer” or “Acerr” if you think you’re getting an “Acer”. You might be getting the same thing you get from Acer without the markup, like you get at Deal Extreme (talk about a place that sells strange brand names…). Or you might be getting something totally unlike what you ordered because they’re just there to get their money and not to actually deliver a product.
Up first I’m going to post a rare Infrastructure! item. Texting while driving law and Virginia legislature criticized by Fairfax judge The wreck had no skid marks, just a dead body and a wrecked car (actually two wrecked cars as the victim was pushing a dead car off the road when he was hit), and phone records showed the driver had just opened a text message when the wreck happened. Something like this could and has happened to a cyclist, this wreck just happened to be a driver with a stalled car…
Other news along the same lines but in a different direction, the driver that chased and ran down a cyclist on a golf course is charged with attempted murder. Oakmont man charged with attempted murder in cyclist road-rage assault
From the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike 8 years running, a cyclist drives into the back of a semi? Bicyclist seriously injured after driving into semitrailer Seriously wondering about this one. The initial report just does not make sense. First of all the “life-threatening injuries” sounds more like a right hook than a cyclist riding into the back of a semi-trailer. Second the “stopped in the middle of the road” just doesn’t make sense either, unless the driver right-hooked the cyclist and stopped. I’m going to try to find more links on this one. More Palm Valley bicyclist crashes into semi-truck and Cyclist hospitlized with life-threatening injuries in Ponte Vedra also Law & Disorder: Bicyclist in serious condition after hitting tractor-trailer in St. Johns County I really want to see a picture of the bicycle, but nobody had posted one yet.
Also from FL comes a report of another cyclist hit by a train. Report: Cargo train hits and kills a man riding his bicycle in West Palm Beach Do I really need to tell my readers how not to get hit by a train? The comment on this article is highly offensive. OK and a tiny bit funny in a dark humor sort of way.
A CT child is killed while riding his bike. Young Crash Victim Dies and Boy struck while riding bike dies There were a ton of other links that all said the same thing, plus or minus a word or three. The kid basically rode in front of the person driving the unregistered and uninsured car without a license, so there were two people at fault for this wreck, one by just being there and the other by acting like an 8 YO kid with no instruction on where and how to ride his bike. Since the information I have says the kid rode from the driveway into the street I guess intersection protocols would apply to avoid, get the infrastructure right to prevent. The driver should not have been there in the first place, and the street in front of the house should have been calmed enough that a car hitting a kid would not have caused a crushing skull fracture (a report I can’t create a link to says the car basically ran over the kid’s head).
From a bit north of the previous wreck a cyclist is hit-and-run in MA. Cyclist injured in hit and run in Brewster Notice the criticism of the cyclist for not wearing a glow in the dark clown suit when there was a reflector on the back of the bike (probably the CPSC required reflector sold with the bike). Obviously lights and reflectors make a bike more visible, but the CPSC reflector makes the bike visible from about ¼ mile if the car has its headlights adjusted properly (as in what’s legally required).
An OH cyclist is killed by a driver passing another car by driving off the road. Marion Teen Dies in Bicycle Crash and Bicyclist Dies After Being Struck In Marion also Bicyclist killed in Fairgrounds Road crash OK what appears to be the situation is the driver hit a salmon cyclist from behind. The number of things wrong in that statement just boggles me. The car went off the road passing another car, and hit a cyclist riding salmon on the side of the road from behind. Still trying to process this, and it just ain’t working. OK at the bare minimum had the cyclist had lights and/or reflectors and been riding on the proper side of the road then maybe this would not have happened. The rest of it… infrastructure. And I don’t think bicycle infrastructure cures all road ills, but had this cyclist been on an off-road bike path them he might not have been hit, if the path was far enough from the road to keep the driver from getting to the cyclist to hit him.
Another right hook in far West Canuckistan. Cyclist killed in crash with truck in Abbotsford Typical right hook, intersection protocols to avoid, and get the infrastructure right to prevent. From the picture it looks like it was in a residential area, under the Dutch model this would be shared space with trucks only allowed for delivery with severe restrictions. More Abbotsford cyclist killed in collision with truck Also Senior cyclist killed by truck in Abbotsford
From Oz a cyclist is hit by a semi. Cyclist critically injured after pinned under truck in collision at Melrose Park From the picture it looks like the cyclist was hit in the wrong-side-of-the-road version of the right hook as the truck is still in the middle of the turning movement as they took it off the cyclist. Intersection wreck, use the intersection protocols to avoid with proper adjustments to driving on the wrong side of the road, and get the infrastructure right to prevent.
The Holy Land is still not a safe place to ride a bike. Hit-and-run driver strikes cyclist in Tel Aviv Nothing on the mode of this wreck, I just mentioned it because it was a wreck in a place I don’t usually get links for.
From South Africa, a cyclist is hit pushing his bike on the side of the road. Cyclist killed in accident Looking at the picture of the cyclist’s body being recovered, there’s no way this could have been survived. since the cyclist was walking his bike there was little he could do to avoid the hit from behind impact.
More infrastructure from Canuckistan. Two wheels good, four wheels also good
And those are all the links I could stand to keep reading long enough to put them in the blog… I want to keep some hair on my head.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
Witch on a Bicycle 