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
Witch on a Bicycle 