I have been building a piece of gear that will both keep my face warm and keep my glasses clear when I’m riding this winter. Since I be P’ (too impoverished to buy a vowel to be po’) I only had one shot at making this right. I think I have a workable device now, or will have as soon as I find something to use to install the baffles into the mask. One of the people at church has a cement that supposedly sticks to plastic and PU foam and has a fairly good bond strength and long life so that should work for keeping the baffles in place. What I was doing last night was adding some color to the mask to make it less frightening. Mrs. the Poet said I look like a low-rent version of Darth Vader, while some of the people at church said it makes me look like Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. So to dispel any more movie villain comparisons, I added some simple painted decorations to the severe-looking solid black. I went with a flame motif, that I was so warm that I was breathing fire, and had flames from where my mouth and nose are under the mask. The nose flames I made look like a wild moustache, while the mouth flame looks more like a goatee. From a few feet away they look quite nice and not at all like Mike Meyers, Hannibal Lecter, or Darth Vader. After I get the mask finished I will get some pictures made and posted in a Sunday post.
Up first a cyclist is hit-and-run by a dump truck in Seattle. Cyclist critically injured by hit-and-run truck The description of the wreck makes it possible to be either a buzz job or a right hook. Intersection wreck, use the protocols to avoid and get the infrastructure right so that a man on a bicycle isn’t forced to contend for road space with a dump truck that weighs more than 10 tons empty. More SPD Detectives Search for Dump Truck That Critically Injured Cyclist This Morning This link makes it quite plain that the cyclist was right-hooked.
Another blind WA driver kills another cyclist. Bicyclist killed in crash with truck in Marysville Cyclist riding legally in the road gets hit from behind by a driver that wasn’t looking where he was going and they don’t even give the driver a ticket? TANJ!
Insult is added to injury as the driver of the vehicle that hit-and-run a cyclist also takes his bike. Cyclist injured in Presidio hit-and-run also loses mountain bike The weapon vehicle is reported to be a black Porsche Cayenne SUV. “If caught, the driver could face felony hit-and-run and theft charges since the bike is still missing“. The irony in this is that the driver could be facing a steeper sentence for driving off with the bicycle than he does for leaving the scene of the wreck.
Also in CA the parents of a 12 YO cyclist who was killed riding in the street are suing to get the infrastructure right. Ratliff family files claim against Novato for daughter’s death What should be a peaceful residential street is filled with road-raging drivers that routinely exceed the speed limit, text, talk on their cell phones, and do other activities than driving while they are supposed to be driving. The family is also suing the driver, the owner of the vehicle, and the company the driver was working for at the time of the wreck as it was on company time. At this time this is the only way to get people to drive like they have a brain, sue them until you hit pocket lint.
As demonstrated by the gentle caress on the wrist given to this killer CA driver. Driver gets probation, community service for death of Pasadena bicyclist Originally charged with manslaughter the driver will never see the inside of a jail cell for this crime, ever, and will have to endure no loss of driving privileges either. TANJ! TANJ! There Ain’t No Justice!!
A NJ cyclist is left-crossed. Asbury bicyclist badly injured in Greenwich collision The cyclist had a reflective vest but no light, so some responsibility there is on the cyclist as the vehicle was not properly equipped. At this point I don’t know if the cyclist would have been in the lights of the weapon vehicle before it started to make the left turn as the cyclist’s lane position has not been reported. Anyway intersection wreck, use the protocols to avoid and get the infrastructure right to prevent, with special attention to the infrastructure as the road the cyclist was riding used to be one of those quiet low-speed country roads that cyclists are “supposed” to be restricted to, that was changed to a highway without accommodation for other than motorized transport many years ago.
A PA cyclist is hit in what may have been a deliberate assault. Bicyclist Hit By Truck, Injured In Squirrel Hill âWe saw the red truck swerve to actually intentionally hit this biker,â said Walko. âThere was plenty of room for both the bike and the car to be traveling through the intersection.â Not to mention a serious violation of the PA 4-foot passing law.The only thing I can say that would have avoided this wreck or prevented it would be to get the infrastructure right, including getting the idiots driving motor vehicles off the roads and riding bicycles where they can do relatively little damage. More Injured Bicyclist: No Way It Was An Accident
Many links to the cyclist hit by a bus outside Boston story. BU student riding bike killed by MBTA bus OK this was just a smear piece on cyclists, there was no indication that the cyclist killed was running a red light since the impact seemed to be from behind. If he did then the bus was running the same light. BU student riding bicycle, struck, killed by T bus also BU student hit, killed in Allston This was the wreck that I had previously described as a buzz job after looking at the victim’s bicycle and seeing almost no damage to the bike except a few scuffs. The bike could have been ridden away from the scene. Infrastructure, infrastructure, INFRASTRUCTURE! Get the infrastructure right and there won’t be any wrecks like these. Oh and the majority of the comments to the last link were left by congenital idiots apparently pounding their keyboards at random.
A cyclist in the Great White north is severely injured just a short distance from where bike lanes are being removed. Woman seriously injured in collision with garbage truck and Cyclist critically injured after collision with garbage truck at Yonge and Gerrard I hesitate to call this a right hook because the weapon vehicle ran over the cyclist from behind, judging by the reported damage to the weapon vehicle and the damage visible on the victim’s bicycle. What made this similar to a right hook was the cyclist proceeding straight through the intersection and the weapon vehicle turning right. I doubt intersection protocols would have helped much in this wreck as there was no escape route for the cyclist because of tall curbs and the width of the weapon vehicle. I’m going to tag this one with the “blind driver” tag because of hitting the cyclist squarely from behind while the driver was supposed to be slowing for the right turn. To prevent a wreck like this in the future get the infrastructure right instead of tearing out what little infrastructure you have.
A “safety” campaign in the UK has resulted in the taking down of at least one web site and one ad company worker going into hiding… Karmarama ‘enormously distressed’ after campaign sparks fury from cyclists The company claimed the ads were the result of a “rogue operator” in the company. Right, and I’m a millionaire.
And those are all the bicycle links that gave me fits today.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
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Not sure if I’m crying because of allergies or what, and the Feed
I’m experiencing something I never did before. My eyes will start watering uncontrollably, but I’m not experiencing any particularly strong emotion at the time. I have all the physical manifestations of crying, but none of the emotional ones. It’s really weird, I get tears or something like them, runny nose, red eyes. and I’m just not doing much of anything real emotional. Last night it happened while I was working with Mentor’s Circle to help get next Sunday’s morning and evening services assembled on the subject of “thankfulness”. It also happened a couple times while I was composing yesterday’s blog post. The closest I came to any strong emotion when I was doing the blog post is Righteous Anger, which for me is about a 3 on a scale of 10 as far as my emotions go. Someone at Mentor’s Circle last night asked if it might be a reaction to stress, which is a good possibility as things have been very stressful lately. Dad dying is only the most recent and most public of the stressors I have been facing. Incidentally the only time I ever hit 10 on the emotional scale of intensity was the time I was hit by the pickup truck passing me on the right as I rolled to a red light.
Up first and the only non-UK link so far today is a report on a cyclist that ran a red light in CA. Injured Bicyclist I trust this reporter assuming this is the same Urban Hikers that regularly comments on Streetsblog. The report is the cyclist entered the intersection after the light had changed, as recorded on video from a nearby store camera that had a clear view of the intersection and the lights. Obviously to avoid a wreck like this use intersection protocols, especially the one about not running the red or yellow. I’m not sure infrastructure could fix this one, as what would be in place in this location would be a cycle track with a separate light phase for bicycle traffic. This cyclist ignored the red light when there were cars coming, I don’t think that a separate light phase for bicycles would garner any more compliance.
Grim statistics from just down the road in Austin. Auto-pedestrian deaths in Austin reach a record high They’re mowing down pedestrian and cyclists at rates not seen since the Great Depression. As I keep telling people, the reason that driver and passenger deaths are going down is because of better cars, the drivers are still wrecking as much as always but the cars make what had been deadly wrecks something you can walk away from now.
A fatal wreck that is still under investigation in the Great White North. Cyclist Killed in St. Clair Township Many local LEO are still woefully unprepared for investigating a bicycle/motor vehicle wreck. As of now they still don’t know the direction of travel for the cyclist, and so don’t know the mode of the wreck. Until they get that figured out I can’t tell you how to avoid this kind of wreck.
Another mass batch of links to the cyclist hit by a truck in Enn Zed. Dunedin cyclist named and Uni lecturer killed in Dunedin also Cyclist killed in Dunedin named more Students mourn lecturer killed on bike and finally Cyclist killed outside Dunedin Hospital named Nothing new on the wreck, but tons of info on the victim.
A link that I still don’t understand how it got in the Feed but is pertinent to this blog because it is about a major fuel source for cyclists on the roads. Twinkies Good, Unions Bad, The Whole Story Yes those little lard bombs are vital for a long-distance cyclist to maintain energy levels at a minimum of digestive issues (but more digestive issues since they started using HFCS as a sweetener instead of pure sucrose), and I have consumed many a Twinkie as I crossed the highways of north central and far north Texas.
And those are all the bicycle links that gave me fits today.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
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Tagged anti-bike blatherings, can you top this, cycling life, cyclist killed, Dead cyclists, Don't read the comments, door prizes, Enn Zed, infrastructure, red light runner, Something smells, stupid cyclist, stupid drivers, stupid LEO, stupid politicians, waste of human skin