They closed the tax office an hour early today, and the Feed

Cutting to the chase, they closed the GISD tax office as I was walking up to it at 1600. The line of people out the door were very vocally unhappy about getting turned away, to the point that police were on hand for crowd control. I think that this may have been a planned thing, because the police were there long before the office was closed. I know this because I was walking up to the door as they closed it and there was a cop inside already.

Up first is good news from just a half-day’s ride east from WoaB World HQ in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell. Injured cyclist rides again following months recovering WoaB and employees very happy to see this. Her recovery period was about the same as mine.

LAPD shows NYPD how it’s done. Suge Knight Arrested For ‘Suspicion Of Murder’ After Fatal Hit-And-Run This was a pedestrian death on a closed film set, but still, NYPD should be taking notes.

Speaking of NYC, they had another fatal pedestrian right hook. Woman Fatally Struck By Nassau County Bus Driver In Queens And in spite of a bus full of witnesses NYPD failed to arrest of even charge the driver.

Another article on the loss of who may have been the world’s oldest active cyclist. Long Beach loses its 106-year-old symbol of cycling

And that makes for a great segue into our next link, our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Atwater paper calls legal cyclists lane hogs, a handful of links and a long list of upcoming events

Update on a cyclist that a road-raging driver tried to kill. Donations help injured cyclist recover at home I like the remodeled bathroom, Mrs. the Poet wants a shower like that, too.

Infrastructure news from VA via DC. Bills in the Virginia General Assembly would hurt and help transit and cyclists I’ll withhold comment on this because I haven’t read the full text for any of the bills.

A hit-and-run driver gets a gentle caress on the wrist from a CO judge. Woman gets probation for hitting Fort Collins cyclist, fleeing They totally ignored the sentencing guidlines for felonies of this nature. According to one commenter if this had been treated like other crimes of this grade of felony the minimum sentence would be 2 years with the possibility of probation.

A little legal infrastructure in action in Jolly Olde. Marjorie Trappenden accelerated into Kevin Lane on High Road, Woodford Green, on February 9 Another dead cyclist with the killer getting community service in the UK.

I find it interesting that a surviving cyclist elicits more severe punishment than a deceased cyclist. Diabetic driver mum jailed for crash which left cyclist seriously injured

Another “bicycle safety” article from people who haven’t been on a bike since elementary school. Life in the bike lane: Riding responsibly Once again too much emphasis is placed on helmets to prevent wrecks.

Another article that should not have to be written, but was because too many drivers have the morals of a Chaotic Evil kinder. Attorney John Nojima of Lederer & Nojima, LLP Reminds Cyclists to Carry Uninsured Motorist Coverage in Light of News Regarding Hit-and-Runs Now if they would just provide a source for this insurance that doesn’t require buying a car and getting a license first…

A little humor from Spokesmama. 10 Reasons Not To Get A Cargo Bike The one I thought was hilarious was the one about not supporting the poor oil companies… HA!!

Last link is a bit of bike culture from the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike. Critical Mass Set To Take The Streets Friday

And I’m out of links again.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

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Practically an all-infrastructure Feed today after taking a long trip to pay 2/3 of my taxes

Yep, I spent most of the day on the road and on my feet today standing around in lines to pay 2 out of 3 tax bills. I managed to cover the City and County taxes in about 2 hours plus travel time including walking between the two offices. I still have to hit GISD to pay those taxes, which will be a slightly quicker trip as I have to drop by the bank first to transfer money from the savings account we use to accumulate the money for taxes and insurance to the checking account so the check won’t bounce first, then walking 4 blocks to the tax office, and probably standing around in line for at least an hour if the lines today were any indication.

Up first, this is one of the main reasons why nobody likes the NYPD. Bike Cop Tickets Bicyclist For Biking On Bike Path The cyclist was ticketed for ignoring a sign and riding on the path while 10 feet away from a sign (caught in the picture the cyclist took of the officer writing the ticket) telling people that they were on a bike path. And yet even with photographic proof that the cyclist was riding on the bike path and not a pedestrian path this case will go to trial. The only thing I can think of is the judge has a deal to split the overtime with the cop.

A drunk driver is on trial for killing a cyclist in the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike. Trial continues for man charged in fatal crash with cyclist There are many reasons why FL kills more cyclist per capita than any other state in the US, the high rate of DUI is just one of them.

And along those lines come these thoughts. Florida Cities: “Unsafe at Any Speed” for Cyclists, Pedestrians? and South Florida roadways not just dangerous for cars Physical infrastructure, legal infrastructure, education, all are deficient with FL. The legal infrastructure is being addressed on the law side of the equation, but where it really falls down is on the LEO side when wrecks that were recorded by the cyclist and prove the cyclist was not at fault end up with no enforcement against the driver. Some of that failure is a result of the long-term failure in the education side. People just don’t know the laws, and LEO are people at the end of the day.

More of the same in MO. Man arrested for fatally striking bicycle rider in St. Louis County Fortunately there was nothing on the mode of the wreck.

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: LA considers hit-and-run alert, Pacoima Wash Bikeway meeting, Glendale surrenders to traffic

More on the London glorified bike lanes. London is building Europe’s longest bike superhighway As far as the longest actual “superhighway” for bikes, I think that would be the recent 27 km or so long highway opened in Denmark might have that title. And it is a real superhighway, basically a divided highway in bicycle scale. More Cycling in Central London set to get safer with new superhighways

Why this is needed is illustrated in this infographic. How London’s streets became a death trap for cyclists: Every bicycle accident mapped All that money and they are still decades behind the Dutch.

And I’m fresh out of links.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

I can haz schadenfreude, and the Feed

Filtering the Feed today was an exercise in controlling my schadenfreude as I got more and more links to killer drivers getting theirs. Then Mrs. the Poet decided that we needed to get out of the house (and I needed to get away from this computer) so we went to a book store to spend her gift card, and also dropped by a home improvement store to peruse tile for the upcoming bathroom remodel/repair. My major concern was being able to use the same tiles on the walls and the floor for a price break, and tiles that had enough texture to not be a slip hazard when wet, Mrs. the Poet mainly didn’t want tiles that looked like boards or were too dark, too light, or too beige. I picked up a car magazine at the book store and we split a triple chocolate brownie and had iced tea for our snack.

I mentioned schadenfreude in both the headline and the opening paragraph, and here are the first links. Md. Bishop Accused of Hitting, Killing Cyclist is Asked to Resign and Md. diocese calls for bishop who killed cyclist to resign They can’t fire her until the criminal complaint is complete, so she is being “asked” to resign.

More schadenfreude from just down the road a piece. Woman Charged For Alleged DWI Crash That Injured Cyclist I have noticed a sharp increase in the severity of charges filed in TX against killer drivers in recent months, with manslaughter and simple murder charges not being out of range, and I’m expecting a Capital Murder charge against a drunk driver at any time.

Double dose of schadenfreude from NYC. Cops Arrest Unlicensed Driver A Month After Killing Pedestrian Note the picture of something people claim never happens accompanying the article, there is a cyclist waiting at the red light for a pedestrian. And Cops Nab Inwood Hit-And-Run Driver After Finding Him Crying In A Parking Garage

More on the London infrastructure protest that I was invited to but could not attend. Cyclist killed in lorry crash – just months after sister died during childbirth and Hundreds stage “die-in” protest over death of cyclist in Stamford Hill

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: A sad goodbye to Long Beach’s Octavio Orduño, and it’s up to you to Bike the Vote this spring

A Canuckistani cyclist was buzzed by a bus and fell under a dump truck, but the local cyclist community is fighting back for him. Community rallies around Vancouver cyclist who was side-swiped by bus, run over by truck

In the UK a permanently disabled cyclist had good lawyers. Injured cyclist receives £2m compensation payout from driver’s insurers He was 65 at the time of the wreck, which would make him 68 or 69 now so the £2m should last for the little time he has left, but only just barely. He is not to the state that moss for his north side would be a thoughtful Christmas present, but that state is probably not too far away at any time.

More on the nonsense Volvo cyclist avoidance scheme. Bloody Volvo drivers – now they’re keeping cyclists safe To reiterate, the scheme depends on cyclists having special helmets and compatible phones with the right version of the Volvo app loaded and running which means that if your phone shuts off because of a dead or dying battery you become invisible to Volvo drivers depending on this scheme to “see” cyclists around them. And cyclists not having the right phone or buying the right helmet are right out of luck from the get-go.

And I seem to be out of links today.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

Still getting sidetracked by outside distractions, and the Feed

And by “outside distractions” I mean little things like making sure the account we use to pay our taxes actually has money in it, which takes a bit of time and somehow wound up taking up most of the day. I think that the big reason why transferring money from one account to another took more time than yesterday’s trek to find Blue was today I used DART and yesterday I was given a ride by one of the tenants renting a room here. The bad thing about DART is the low frequency of the busses out here in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell. It took about an hour and a half of transit time to get 3.1 miles from the house and back. One of the reasons I’m looking forward to getting Blue back is drastically cutting that time down when I have to go downtown or to church, especially church. When I go to evening services I have to depend on there being someone who can take me home after because the last bus leaves the station about 20 minutes after evening services begin. When I ride my bike I already have a ride home.

Up first today is another bit of schadenfreude over a killer driver finally getting a sentence commensurate with the serious nature of what they did. Unlicensed, intoxicated driver who killed 2 cyclists during bike ride gets 15 to 40 years I was afraid this would end up being another gentle caress on the wrist like I have seen so many times, but this judge seemed to get the message that as many people are killed with cars as with guns so the punishments for killing with a car should be similar to killing with a gun.

I was invited to this event over on FB, I guess because I’m an internationally known bicycle safety “expert”. Vigil and ‘die in’ held to mark the death of cyclist Stephanie Turner and Hundreds stage ‘die-in’ protest over cyclist killed in Stamford Hill

I can’t imagine what it would be like trying to ride a bike when there are people who want to kill you just for being out on public. Egyptian female cyclists pedal for acceptance

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Bikes could sway the race in LA’s CD4; WeHo candidates debate banning sidewalk riders

I was sent this link as a FB message, so I have to include it somehow… Eleven geeky tips that will ever-so-slightly improve your bike life Besides, this guy is a Real Geek, you can tell from the name of the company. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, well it isn’t that important for you to know. It’s just a little “thing” between geeks so that we can exclude those not in the know.

A little infrastructure news from NYC. NYPD: 1,399 Pedestrians and Cyclists Injured, 10 Killed in December The only bright spot in the report was the 0 in the death column next to bicyclists. The rest of it was very depressing. It once again shows the most vulnerable mode of traffic in NYC is walking, followed very closely by cycling.

Sin City is having an infrastructure problem. Lamb cyclist accidents prompt road review With as many cyclists as have been hit in the last few years on this road it is patently obvious that many cyclists cannot avoid this road if they want to get places, but that it is not safe for them to be there. It needs to be redesigned and rebuilt with either slower motor vehicle traffic or physically segregated bicycle infrastructure.

A reaction to that link from yesterday about the new tram tracks causing cyclists to crash in droves because they put the trams in the freaking bike lanes. Cyclists need to toughen up

More UK infrastructure, as they put in actual infrastructure instead of just putting down advisory blue paint that cars are not required to stay out of. Boris Johnson gives go-ahead for ‘Crossrail’ cycle superhighway through central London Boris, please stop painting grandiose names on your bike projects. They range from criminal in planning and execution to just bad, and putting a name like “superhighway” or “Crossrail” on them is worse than putting lipstick on a pig. At least lipstick on a pig doesn’t get anyone killed. The same can’t be said about “cycling superhighways” in London.

South Africa struggles with wanting to be a bicycle superpower, and not having the physical or legal infrastructure to support the aspirations. Will more cyclists make the sport safer in 2015?

And that’s all I have today.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

Blue has been found, and the Feed

My stolen bike Blue has been found at a Garland pawn store and placed on hold pending a property hearing in front of a judge. I haven’t seen him yet, but the RBENT club member who spotted him said that he was mostly intact except for a missing headlight. The rack was still on the back but no mention of the pump, fenders, or computer still being there. I will probably have to get another frame pump and fabricate another mount to hang it from. I am somewhat resigned to having to redo the fenders, but heartened that having done the job twice already the biggest problem will be buying another 2 sets of fenders to get the blanks to use to build the front fender. After I did the first part of this paragraph I got a call from GPD that the pawn shop was disputing my claim and I will have to be present at a property hearing in 6-8 weeks.

Up first is a Daily Ted left over from the weekend. Weekend Links: UCLA Transpo group honored; Bike the Vote next month and score a Wolfpack Hustle T-Shirt Catch the stuff that hasn’t happened yet.

Here’s a good one for you and three friends of a similar size and riding similar size bikes. Free to good home: a bicycle-powered star destroyer About the only place I could ride this would be the lead hole. Any other position and the supports would be floating above my shoulders. Put the big guys in the back and let it slope down to me.

I really don’t care if the Episcopalian church has a raging drunk leading them so long as the drunk is not driving. Cyclist death opens debate about theology of addiction Seriously, as long as she’s not driving they can do any damn thing they want with her, that’s outside my purview. Separation of church and state and all that.

I can haz infrastructure in CA? Plan in works to add third eastbound lane and bike path on Richmond-San Rafael Bridge All that money and the bike lane doesn’t even have a permanent barrier? Yeah, that “bike lane” will never see a bike.

More CA infrastructure news. Berkeley Bicycle Subcommittee Mtg: Bike Plan Launch, Hearst Ave Bikeway

More infrastructure news this time from MN. Guy On A Bike: Ghost Bikes

Sad news as what is believed to be CA’s oldest living cyclist gives up the “living” part of that title. Long Beach’s oldest cyclist Octavio Orduno dies at 106

Several cyclists have been killed on one short stretch of road and there is debate about changing the infrastructure to keep drunks out of the bike lane? Facing South Florida: Cyclists Struck Part II That there is any debate on what to do just strikes me as insensitive to the memory of the deceased, and insulting to the survivors. It’s simple, put in a steel guardrail between the bike lane and the driving lane so there is no way for the drunk drivers to get to the cyclists. Since the problem is drunk drivers put a tax on alcohol to pay for it. I also like the real-time speed monitoring idea.

UK infrastructure at its usual crap state. Edinburgh cyclists sue council for tramline injuries The video in the article was shot less than 5 minutes after the camera was set up on a notoriously bad stretch of road, and there were pictures of other bicycle traps disguised as bike lanes. Seriously, whose idea was it to put the tram in the freaking bike lane?

This news from Oz just floors me. Police investigate rope-stringing incident that injured cyclist Part of what floors me is the amount of time elapsed between the terrorist act and the posting of the news article. Really, it took from October to the end of January to let people know about a home-grown terrorist attack on a citizen?

They ignore a terrorist attack on cyclists but one cyclist a year causes pedestrian injury and they demand cyclists all line up to pay insurance? Pedestrian case sparks cyclist insurance calls

Another collision with wildlife or pets in Enn Zed. Cyclist injured in collision with dog Dogs are bad because they can take you out and you will never see one coming.

Still in Enn Zed, someone thought they had the right to abuse a little girl for riding her bike in the bike lane. Show respect: mother The comments are literally priceless, and worth every penny of it.

Your next package could come by bike. 5 businesses embracing the cargo bike

Last link, someone else has made a minor improvement to a hub-motor e-assist bike. Salem company bets on smart electric bikes Yet another company that will “change the world” with an e-assist bike.

And that’s all I got today, I had a late start because of having to go all the way across town to find Blue today.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

Working on the car without touching the car, and car racing has started on a Wreck-Free Sunday

I have been using some tools that I have access to her at Casa de El Poeta to visualize where the frame is going on the Sprint T. What I did was measure out where the edges of the mounting flange were on the body at 3 major “landmarks”: the firewall, the back corner and the “joggle” where the body necks down between the dashboard and the firewall, because there is A Major Change in the body width between those two points. I place the pre-determined locations of the firewall and the rear axle on a piece of graph paper then located the front axle and the body mounting flanges from those and from those I located the wheels and tires. Then I put in the frame rails and some of the crossmembers that I know the locations for already because they locate something that has a specific location, mostly things like the gas tank and the front axle. Anyway here’s a picture.

Something I wanted to try was seeing if loading the picture at a higher resolution and then shrinking it down leads to a better quality picture.

You can see two different tires in the picture, the street tires on the left and the race tires on the right The actual size in the brochure for the street tire is 26.5″ tall and 10.5″ wide but I drew it in as 28″ tall and 10″ wide. The race tire is drawn and in the brochure at the same size, 24″ tall and 14″ wide. The little circles in the drawing are the uprights of the roll cage that run between the 1.5″ by 1.5″ square lower frame rail shown in the drawing and the 1.5″ round upper frame rail that I will add later. Something else I need to add are the rest of the crossmembers for things like the transmission mount and the front mount for the rear suspension trailing link. I would like to make that the same crossmember if that’s possible because that is simpler than a transmission mount and additional bracing for the front of the rear trailing arms.

I am a firm follower of the KISS school of engineering, the Colin Chapman school of auto engineering, and the Captain Murphy school of engineering. Everyone knows about the KISS school, but not many people are familiar with the Colin Chapman and Captain Murphy schools. Colin Chapman was the legendary founder and first engineer of Lotus Cars in England and his philosophy was, “Never build two parts to do two things when you can make one part do both things.” Not many people know Captain Murphy, but most people know the general law of engineering named after him, “If something can break or go wrong, it will.” This can be synthesised into a single statement made by Charles Kettering an early 20^th Century GM engineer, “Parts left off do not add weight and never malfunction.”

Something else car-related today was the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, one of the premier road races of the US and international seasons. This year’s race was a nail biter right down to the checkered flag, with less than 5 seconds separating second place from the winner after 24 hours and 740 laps of the Daytona “roval” course for 2819.4 miles of racing. The lower classes of racing had similar finishes for their races with the GTLM class being only a few seconds apart at the end also. Prototype Challenge was also close with the leader wrecking out less than 20 minutes before the finish of the race. The only class that did not have first and second places on the same lap just before the end of the race was GTD.

Something bicycle-related for today is there is a strong possibility that Blue has been found in a local pawn shop. I’m taking the card I was given at the time of the theft and my computer with the picture of Blue as my background picture. with me when I go to verify the identity of the bike, but honestly with as few of that model bike that were sold locally and the factory rack still on the back of the bike, according to the report, there is little doubt that this is Blue. I will have to reconstruct the serial number because I can’t find the hunk of paper where I had written it down. I remember the number was June or July of 07 making it an ’08 model and the serial was in the 200s. This time I will make sure I don’t lose the paper again when I write down the serial.

Since I have to get up early tomorrow I’m going to end this post earlier than I had planned. I really want to get Blue back so that I can start riding again with the upright seating position and see where I’m going.

PSA, Opus

Busy night tonight, and the Feed

I will take a break in composing the post today to go to a function at my church while I wait for all the links to come in. Some of you may know that I wait until after midnight to get the last update from the Feed before I finish composing the post, but usually there are only a link or two to stuff into the mostly-finished post so it just takes a little while to come up with the deathless prose that surrounds the link (if I am an “unkillable badass” then I can write “deathless prose”, unkillable badasses can write any damn thing they want 😉 ) check the links for functional HTML and proofread the other words and wallah! Post is done.

Another reward in South TX for yet another hit-and-run driver. Reward offered in hit-and-run death of cyclist

More on federal prodding of local officials to make the built environment compatible with human beings outside of motor vehicles. U.S. Transportation Chief Urges Mayors to Make Pedestrians a Priority The one thing wrong in the article is ascribing the decrease in people getting killed inside motor vehicles to “fewer crashes” when the reality is crashes are also up, it’s just that as the 2006 crash standard of “hit a steel-faced concrete barrier at 35 MPH and every door has the operable and anyone inside the vehicle has to be able to get out of the car unassisted and walk away” has propagated deeper into the existing fleet as older vehicles are retired for whatever reasons. This video shows how much newer cars do to protect the occupants. So does this video with an older “new” car and a slightly younger “old car”. The “new” car was a generation older in that video than in the first video and you can see the previous generation did not have the same requirement to be able to open the doors after the wreck.

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: The wages of road rage sin, bike thieves get busy (and get caught), and how car wrecks happen Enjoy!

More on the UK cyclist ripped off while on the deck semi-conscious after getting hit. ‘Disgraceful’ thief takes £1,700 bike after rider is hit by car and YEP Says, January 22: A cyclist lying in the road? Great, let’s steal his bike

South Dakota decides to get ahead of Texas in bicycle laws. Lawmakers Consider Bicycle Passing Bill This is almost identical to the bill vetoed by Perry here in TX back in 2009. Some day I hope all his actions detrimental to my health and safety come back on him. I lost count of how many bills he vetoed and federal programs he decided not to participate in…

Similar law with bigger teeth being proposed in the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike. The birth of a bill to protect cyclists, walkers This bill includes aspects of the L.A. CA cyclist anti-harassment law, only with a bigger bite, and defines where a cyclist may “take the lane” more precisely.

More from FL, this time about physical infrastructure that has demonstrated several times needs to be upgraded. Cyclist’s death in Key Biscayne spotlights needed road protections The next cyclist hit from behind in the bike lane needs to sue the county for failing to put up a barrier between the drunks at freeway speeds and the cyclists after having several demonstrations of need. I notice there is no way to add comments to this article… More Increased Police Presence On Rickenbacker In Wake Of Cyclist’s Death and Bicyclists Push For Safety Plan Following Rickenbacker Causeway Death

Eye-witness account of just how bad FL is for riders from an outside perspective. SWFL’s dangerous roads an eye-opener for bike specialist I wonder if SYG applies to people threatening cyclists with motor vehicles? Because that is a threat with a deadly weapon brandished which when the deadly weapon is a knife or club permits use of deadly force…

And sometimes the legal infrastructure works, even in FL. Man charged in Christmas Eve hit-and-run crash that injured cyclist One of the major factors in this wreck was the cyclist remained conscious and was able to give LEO a good description of the weapon vehicle.

WA decides that it’s cheaper to allow bikes to run broken traffic lights than it is to make every light detect cyclists every time. SB 5438 – Updating State Law to Accommodate for Faulty Traffic Signal Detection

And a judge in the other Washington (the one chock full of parasites) decides that a cyclist hit from behind was a victim of a lawbreaking driver, not contributing to the wreck just by being there. DC JUDGE UPHOLDS THREE FOOT LAW; CASE HIGHLIGHTS NEED FOR CONTRIB REFORM

Even Oz is starting to get the message on passing clearance. South Australian motorists will have to leave at least a 1m gap when overtaking cyclists and riding on footpaths will be permitted under proposed laws backed by Premier Jay Weatherill. and New Laws Will Force SA Drivers To Leave A One-Metre Gap Between Their Car And Cyclists When Overtaking

Turns out it was more than just rural roads that were paved first by cyclists. Cyclists in corsets built NYC’s roads

Some UK students had some practical experience with their first-aid classes. Students go to the aid of injured cyclist

A car breaks the cordon for a bike race and collides with one of the racers and the racer got the ticket? Race marshall: Cyclist not to blame for crash If I’m reading the article right this was not the first car to break the cordon while bicycles were on the course.

Lifestyle events in the other LA. Two fundraising events raise awareness for bike safety WoaB says this might be a good ride if you are in the area.

What do fracking for natural gas and dead cyclists have in common? Leaders: Murphy’s law on fracking | Cyclist’s rage Turns out they are both tricky legal questions that are being heavily pursued by a Scottish politician.

And I finally ran out of links after finally getting back from services at church that I totally did not expect to be tonight. I honestly thought the Uster service for the Sumerians was going to be on Saturday just like all the other Sumerian services, silly me.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

The rain is helping my allergies, and the Feed

The weather has turned cold and rainy, and the drizzle has the side effect of washing the pollen out of the air so I can breathe without drugs. I wish all those climate change deniers would buy me a 100 count bottle of diphenhydramine so I can breathe normally all the time and get to sleep at night. Do you know how hard it is to sleep when you can’t breathe through your nose? My throat and mouth get so dry it hurts, I can’t speak when I wake up, and I sound like a truck load of gravel for several hours until I get my throat properly hydrated. All because of what a former president of the board at my church calls “plant bukkake”.

Up first a meaningless gesture at “justice” from NYC. DMV Revokes License Of Driver Who Killed 3-Year-Old In Crosswalk As nobody cares about driving on a suspended license, even if he kills again there will be no consequences to this death. And until death by motor vehicle is treated like death with any other kind of deadly weapon this will continue to happen.

Another hit-and-run in America’s most deadliest state to walk or ride a bike gets a protest ride. Family members of bicyclist killed near Key Biscayne reflect on loss and Cyclists Ride In Honor Of Man Killed In Causeway Crash This is as much an infrastructure problem as a drunk driver problem. When the only way on or off the island was built there was a small walkway sheltered by a concrete barrier but nothing for cyclists except what was the breakdown lane is now a paint-“protected” bike lane. The wreck happened when a drunk driver veered into the bike lane at speed hitting both cyclists from behind. The long and straight bridge looks like a freeway to a drunk driver so they just put the pedal down and just GOOOooo!

There are some really low-class people out there. Thief stole cyclist’s bike as he lay injured in road after Leeds crash and How low can you get? Callous thief steals bike from injured rider after car crash This story comes less than 2 weeks after people robbed both the driver and the cyclist in a wreck in CA while the driver was providing first aid to the cyclist… I’m reminded of something my elder daughter used to say, “I hate people!”

Another memorial ride, this time in AZ. Prescott College holds memorials for alum killed while riding bike

More infrastructure news from the Feds on local infrastructure. DOT head challenges mayors on bicycle, walking safety Ultimately all infrastructure is local even when serving a national purpose.

UK infrastructure is examined and declared to be “not good”. ‘A cyclist is going to get killed at some point’ I think that headline is the epitome of “not good”.

Wounded Warrior gets a bit of a financial boost. World T.E.A.M. Sports Welcomes DuPont Fabros Technology as Face of America Sponsor

\Last link is sorta ironic for this old hot-rodder. America’s best-selling cars and trucks are built on lies: The rise of fake engine noise Basically, they program an MP3 player to play different tracks based on engine load and speed, pipe it through the stereo system and use sound shaping technology to “aim” it at the driver, because modern cars are sound like crap.

And I’m out of links today.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet (still an unkillable badass)

Nothing strange here, and the Feed

Well I tried to find a link to Wednesday Addams saying “Everything’s perfectly normal,” but apparently nobody has uploaded that to YouTube yet, pity. That was from the 1960s TV show, not the movie, so there may not be any record of it any more. And Happy Squirrel Appreciation Day to all my “squirrelly” friends.

Some recreational “infrastructure a few towns up the road from WoaB World HQ in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell. Frisco council approves construction of pump track for bikers

Still in TX Lubbock riders try to get baby steps started to making bicycle infrastructure there. Lubbock cyclists mobilize to address bike safety concerns What is sad about this is they are trying to get “bike routes” and “sharrows” or basically the “abstinence only sex ed” of bicycle infrastructure, i.e. not real bicycle infrastructure.

And today’s big story is a cyclist injured in a hit-and-run with a kangaroo. Cyclist injured by kangaroo and Kangaroo knocks cyclist off bike on Canberra’s Adelaide Avenue also Thomas Jordan at it again? Is he on the loose in Australia? I don’t know who Thomas Jordan is, I assume it is some kind of foreign exchange in-joke as the wreck was a hit-and-run. The kangaroo continued on to have another wreck with a motor vehicle where it was killed. Toxicology tests have not come back to determine if the ‘roo was drunk at the time of the wreck.

In national news, there is a bill in congress that would allow agencies from local to state levels to borrow money from the Feds at below-market rates to fund bicycle infrastructure now. H.R.199 – Bicycle and Pedestrian Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2015 – Full Text Lotsa words there that come down to authorizing $11 million to give away with $1 million for administration costs to loan at the same rate as Federal bonds, which is much lower than most municipalities can get.

Bikeyface has something to say about the condition of the infrastructure. ROAD DEMONS Potholes and debris are her road demons, because they cause unpredictable interaction with motor vehicles.

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Catching up with the local blogs, better PR from LADOT, and BWB at the Kingdom Day Parade

Nobody can convince me that months of media coverage to the effect that cyclists are not allowed on the roads did not contribute to this, or caused it outright. Lexington cyclist assaulted with car door This is the same media market where the Cherokee Schill affair took place.

PA infrastructure news. What one avid bicyclist wants from Philadelphia’s next mayor

More PA infrastructure news. Bring 9/11 memorial trail through Lehigh Valley The author makes a compelling point for this alignment, but never states what other alignments might be used.

Support for a revolutionary change in legal infrastructure in NE. Cyclists say they need more protection

Sometimes it’s subtle changes to infrastructure that make your life easier. PVH ambulances vow to leave no bike behind It has come to the point of cyclists refusing the ambulance ride because their bikes would be left unattended and most likely stolen or stripped when someone came back to recover them.

A plea for the legal infrastructure to so something when a cyclist is killed and there is no doubt at all as to the cause. ‘Don’t let 73-year-old who killed cyclist drive again,’ girlfriend urges The driver in this case mistook the gas for the brake and ran over the cyclist and drive around in circles (doing doughnuts in the street?) until the car ran into a bollard with the cyclist still under the car. One wonders why the driver would ever want to drive again after doing that?

A little e-assist link. Proposed bill would legalize, regulate electric bicycles

And somehow I got invited to this protest ride, a far ways away from WoaB in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell. Vigil and Die-In This event will take place in London.

And now I’m out of links to share.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

I shopped for home insurance and pants, and the Feed

Oh, the horrors! I went shopping for homeowner’s insurance today and then went and bought pants. I shall swoon soon! Actually I need a bit of a lay down because my foot started to swell and pinch inside my shoe and triggered a “phantom pain” incident. Basically my foot feels like I’m squishing it in a vice with the pain being all out of proportion to the swelling and any pressure it may have caused. I know this because I can feel that pain separately from the phantom pain, and it is just a minor pinch. The insurance shopping was about as enjoyable as root canal work and then having to pull the tooth anyway, but the worst thing about the pants shopping was going through pile after pile of nearly identical pants trying to find the right size. Once found a quick test fit showed them to be the correct size, thank [$DEITY] for accurate labelling of men’s clothing. Unlike women’s clothing, men’s sizes don’t get larger as the cost of the brand increases. /snark sorta

Up first Jaguar has a cyclist early warning system for drivers that does not require cyclists to have a cell phone with the required app loaded and running to warn drivers about cyclists in the area. Will Jaguar save lives? Firm unveils Bike Sense system that alerts drivers to oncoming cyclists and even brakes if they come too close and the same story with no Daily Mail bike haters filling the entire comment section. New Jaguar safety system will save lives of cyclists

A bit of good Infrastructure! news from CT. Malloy unveils more transportation projects for Connecticut Bicycle infrastructure creates jobs because bicycle riders spend their transportation dollars on things that stay in the local economy longer, and because bicycle projects use more labor and less materials than motor vehicle projects.

The wheels of American Justice grind exceedingly slowly. Trucker Who Killed Cyclist In Williamsburg & Fled Scene May Finally Lose His License and Family of slain cyclist fighting to get trucker off the road Almost 4 years it has taken and who knows how many more have come close to death… More Turning Traffic Grief Into Action

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Rolls Royce driver shot by bike rider, Times looks at North Fig politics, NFL bike victory lap

Bikes are back to being mere decorations at the Detroit Auto Show, with a few exceptions. The Bicycles of the 2015 Detroit Auto Show One of the more glaring exceptions was the Shinola company who make bicycles in Detroit.

And I have run out of links again so this is the end, my friend.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet