Thank [$Deity] the last post for 2013 has very few links. Hundreds of cyclists have died this year and thousands more were injured, for what? for the most part it was because people driving motor vehicles did not want to be inconvenienced with a delay of a few seconds. Seriously, that’s it. Not for any grand plan, not as the result of devious designs, not even out of malice, but to save a few seconds on a trip. And the price for that few seconds was someone’s life or health or a leg or an arm or perhaps the ability to think straight for more than 2 sentences. And for many that were killed the driver was never caught with fatal bicycle wrecks being 4 times more likely to be a hit-and-run than the same result with other road users at 17% for cyclists and 4% for everyone else. That could end with Dutch-style bicycle infrastructure, which we could get for ~$30/person/year for about 20 years. Compared to the $336/person/year we spend on highways that’s a pittance, and compared to the savings in health-care dollars that would come from the investment, it’s a bargain as riding 30 minutes a day can save $544 per person, per year
Up first on the news is what looks like a vehicular murder in CA. Ending the year of hit-and-run on a sadly appropriate note and Bicyclist victim of hit and run The driver of the weapon vehicle crossed the centerline to hit the cyclist head on and then drove away without diminishing speed. Not something a human cyclist with human reflexes can expect to avoid, and the only way I can see to prevent is segregated infrastructure built to the Dutch standards.
And in Oz a driver that hit and killed a cyclist remains in jail until she can be transferred to a facility closer to her home. Queensland hit-run accused appears in court over death of Adelaide cyclist Kathleen Heraghty
And that’s all the links I have today this year. See you in 2014.
Billed @€0.02, Opus
Witch on a Bicycle 