Daily Archives: September 23, 2014

What a party! and the Feed

OK so it wasn’t all that wild. We had cherry pie instead of cake to go with the chocolate ice cream. So we did violate custom a little bit. But other than pie and ice cream it was pretty much a normal Monday evening for us. I got some interesting gifts. I got a seat-belt style belt from Hot Topic in green, I got a DVD of three episodes of Van-Pires story of undead cars that suck the gas of the living (no I’m not kidding), and Floyd Landis’ book. The cat deigned to sit in my lap for a few minutes that evening, but I forgot to take a picture of that momentous occasion…

Up first I was sent links to this story from 9 different sources including FB, the Feed and directly to my e-mail addy. Luckiest cyclist in Russia and quite possibly the world and the link from the Feed Cyclist cheats death three times in dramatic car crash Notice the cyclist’s behavior as he entered the intersection, he’s looking in every direction, at least twice at the near lane and then locks on the truck that’s not slowing down for the yield sign so he slows way down to not be in the lane when the truck comes through. Had the red car not been there this would have been a non-event, the cyclist’s situational awareness would have prevented him from getting too close to the truck running the yield and the driver could continue to be oblivious to traffic controls. The cyclist’s SA did save him in this wreck, but dumb luck played as great a part as his SA.

More on the pedestrian death in NYC last week. Cyclist Who Killed Woman In Central Park Calls It An “Unavoidable Accident” I find it ironic that a cyclist killing a pedestrian may be what forces NY State to change their vehicular homicide laws that have allowed drivers who were sober and remained at the scene to avoid even tickets when killing pedestrians in crosswalks, or walking on the sidewalks, or eating at the window seats in restaurants. Basically the way the law and supporting case-law are now in NYS if you’re sober and have a valid license, remain at the scene and did not post a rambling screed about some other class of transportation users needing to die horribly at your hands you skate for killing with your vehicle, and even those caveats are not set in stone as hit-and-run killers are frequently not prosecuted because of mens rea (“I didn’t know”).

Another link to that DC hit-and-run Cyclist Killed in Shaw Hit and Run This Weekend The narrative and the description of the scene suggest the weapon vehicle ran a 4-way stop at speed. This would mean the cyclist was probably well into the intersection prior to the wreck and had zero chance of avoiding this wreck without Kreskin levels of SA. For those of you too young to remember the Amazing Kreskin, substitute Jedi for Kreskin in that statement.

Another “cyclist didn’t stop” wreck, this time in SC. Troopers: Cyclist dies after hit by car in Spartanburg Co. Intersection protocols to avoid, especially the one about stopping at stop signs, and get the infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent.

Driver is sentenced for killing a cyclist in NC. Driver who killed cyclist gets prison time, hug from victim’s mom Hit cyclist, kill cyclist, leave body laying beside road, get 13 months in jail… Seems like a fair sentence to me for killing another human being and improperly disposing of the body, NOT!

More on that tourist hit in OR. San Diego cyclist struck on Friday near Netarts dies from his injuries Notice how this is worded to try to make it look like the cyclist should not have been there? Anyway, hit-from-behind protocols to avoid if possible, and please, please get that infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent. This is an area that gets lots of bicycle tourism and desperately needs such infrastructure.

A CA intersection wreck where the bike damage doesn’t match with the narrative. Bicyclist suffers life-threatening injuries after colliding with car at the intersection of Spruce and Eunice and Cyclist dies after North Berkeley crash with car The bike looks like it was hit from the side on the front end at speed not running into a car that had just pulled away from a stop sign.

Our Daily Ted from yesterday. Morning Links: Protected bike lanes are now legal; WeHo considers removing crosswalks to improve ped safety

And today’s Daily Ted. Morning Links: More media frenzy over fatal NY bike/ped collision; fallen SD cyclist was keeping blog of his trip

Infrastructure!-ish. A cyclist’s plea to motorists

And more infrastructure that the person who sent me the link found offensive (?). Roadshow: Bicyclists must pull over if 5 or more vehicles are behind them As long as they include “when safe to do so” and not just demand cyclists get off the road whenever cars get backed up…

And those were all the links that gave me fits or giggles today, a little short on the giggles but there were some.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the unkillable badass Poet

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