I’m back in shorts and a T-shirt, and the Feed

Well the headline pretty much says it all concerning life here at Casa de El Poeta, the outside temperature has risen to what the heating system was designed to cope with (low 40s-high 30s at night) so I’m back to wearing shorts and a T-shirt in the office, and Mrs. the Poet is still wearing her sweatshirt over a T-shirt and long pants. I am comfortable in a very wide range of temperatures wearing the shorts and T-shirt, and do much better than Mrs. the Poet when things get really cold, mostly because I have real cold-weather gear because I hung on to my issue cold-weather gear when I left the Army, and bought more of it when it hit the surplus market. Mrs. the Poet hates mil-surplus clothing because of the way it looks, but I’m the warm one in winter. And I have a selection of gear that I can wear riding a bicycle as well, so I stay warm on my bike. Or I would be warm if I could actually ride my bike.

Up first is some good news from Brownsville, as they discover that they can stuff a lot of bicycles into the space that used to house just one car. Brownsville installs downtown bike corral They replaced one car spot with 14 bike spots, greatly increasing the revenue potential for that parking spot. Sure shoppers that arrive by bike don’t spend as much money per trip, but they make 2-3 times as many trips and now they have the potential to serve 14 times as many customers.

Pedestrians are still getting killed same as they always were with Texas right out there in a battle for the “lead”. Pedestrians killed at about the same rate last year as they were in 2013 This mirrors UK statistics showing cars are getting more forgiving about bad driving, what with air bags and crumple zones and being required to have doors that open after running into a concrete wall at 35 MPH, but drivers are just as crappy as they always were if not worse now that the consequences for them are so much lower.

More on the Houston bike cops going undercover to get drivers who drive poorly around cyclists. Undercover Houston Cops On Bikes Are Nabbing Drivers Dangerous To Cyclists Houston passed a law against buzzing cyclists in 2013 when they discovered how many cyclists were getting knocked down by cars passing too close, then instructed bike cops to run stings against the drivers breaking the law. Nobody is getting ticketed for passing between 2 and 3 feet away (just warned), the (big) tickets are going to the ones passing less than a foot (300 mm) from the cop. So far no word on how many cops have been hit doing these stings, but you know it is just a matter of time before some Bubba decides to “teach a lesson” to one of the undercover cops and misjudges how wide his F-150 really is, like the guy who broke his mirror off on my elbow a few years ago.

Why is this news in NYC? Cops Are Giving Out Speeding Tickets To Drivers Who Are Speeding Really now, cops giving tickets is “Man bites dog” rare in NYC?

If you have a young-looking bike-riding friend in SF please check on his whereabouts and if you can’t find him call SFPD. Young cyclist unconscious, and police don’t know his name The wreck was early Monday morning to give your young man a time frame to be missing, if you saw him after 0800 or so on Monday it is pretty much guaranteed that this is not the same guy.

They have some bad infrastructure over in NOLA, so bad it kills people. Cyclist death shines light on dangerous intersection And cue the H8ers complaining about cyclists taking the lane for visibility when this was a crossing wreck at an intersection and LEO admit they have no way of knowing who ran the light. Check out the comments section.

When the state refuses to act in AZ municipalities take charge. San Luis to enforce ban on cellphone use for drivers It seems there are certain people in the AZ legislature blocking driving while using cell phone bills from getting to the floor, not naming names because I don’t know who is doing it, just that the bills never seem to get a vote.

It seems that providing even barely usable bicycle infrastructure has a positive effect on car ownership (if you are trying to reduce traffic congestion). Multnomah County car registration is down 8% since 2007, and isn’t rebounding They had a steep drop during the recession but people discovered they didn’t need to have a car for everyone so the number of people replacing cars sold during the recession has been very low. Also there is the possibility that they are just not registering their deadly weapons like they are supposed to.

Along the same lines just up the coast a bit. The Remarkable Drop in Car Commuting to Downtown Seattle They expect to see even further reductions when their bike infrastructure gets built all the way into the Downtown area.

Another link to that SD bill that would require drivers to not hit cyclists they are trying to pass. Bill Aiming To Keep Cyclists Safe On The Road 3 feet at 35 MPH and under, 6 feet on faster roads. And the bill has passed the Senate and goes on to the governor to be signed into law.

Cyclists in the Emerald Isle are discovering that protecting the head just seems to move the injury to some other part of the body. Soaring popularity of pedal power leads to 200% rise in spinal injuries That energy has to go somewhere, and when you protect the skull the next thing in line is the neck, which this report seems to indicate is the part taking the abuse.

And whadda you know, crap infrastructure is crap. Are Southend’s roads safe for cyclists? If you have to ask, then the answer is probably “NO!”.

I think I’m done taking Boris Johnson seriously. Cyclists should wave like Simon Rattle to avoid being hit, says London mayor Really, get out in front of a heavy truck and wave your hands around in the vague hope that the driver will see you and not run you over? And how is that begging for your life at the base of the guillotine working out for you, Boris? 😉

Speaking of stupid things in the UK. Cyclists vs motorists – 3 STUPID acts committed by the frustrated car driver

Dealing with the rather arcane legal infrastructure in Oz. TAC admits cyclist claim rules are confusing after host of anomalies in rules exposed If I had to deal with a mess like this with my wreck I would be pushing a walker or a wheelchair still.

This is stupid, bike 4 months, skate 4 months, and 4 months transition when you can’t safely do either. Canadian ‘freezeway’ could let residents skate to work And what about people who can’t skate, like yr fthfl srvnt blogger? Aside from the fact that I’m 2027 miles from Edmonton by bike that is.

The kind of lifestyle article I like to link to, because nobody had to die first. For injured veterans, bike ride helps heal body

Our Daily Ted was a little late posting, but I got it. Morning Links: Endorsing Ramsay and O’Grady in CD4; and a blind bike rider needs your help to regain his sight

Some infrastructure news out of Dallas as they debate adding a bypass Interstate (I 345) or enhancing the existing grid. Why the Grid Has More Latent Capacity Than a Highway The thing about I 345 that I object to is they are putting it through existing neighborhoods, unlike its northern counterpart I 635 which was built on what was mostly semi-rural farmland (there is still an active Future Farmers of America at Garland HS in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell, which is located outside the 635 loop).

And a Texan I would be proud to share the designation with. 76-Year-Old Man Bikes 300 Miles To Raise Money For Planned Parenthood

I’m outta here.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

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Trying not to explode, and the Feed

As you may know this blog is posted from Texas. Recently our Governor Rick “I have good hair” Perry, declared Planned Parenthood not acceptable as a provider for the low-income Women’s Health Program system. The Feds disagreed, as they did every other time this was brought up under 2 presidents. Previously TX dropped the idea of excluding PP as a provider, because Federal funds pay for 90% of the $40M program, which would basically cease to exist without the Federal funds. Well the Feds called Perry’s bluff on this one and pulled their money, and the 130K+ women that depended on this program for access to basic health care as well as reproductive care are now up the proverbial unsanitary tributary without visible means of locomotion. I have also heard rumblings that those women are now members of a class-action lawsuit against Perry and the State of Texas. Personally I would like to see as a provision of that lawsuit that Goodhair be required to ride his bike to every member of the class and apologize in person, that would make him re-consider his 2009 veto of the Vulnerable Road Users bill as well as force him to put a face on the pain he caused to thousands of women. I realize this is not specifically a bicycle issue, but rather a human rights issue, but I live here and this abuse of my tax dollars really aggravates me.

Up first, people in Oz are outraged that a woman carried a baby on a bike without a helmet. Cyclist snapped with baby causes outrage Oh, the horror! If that woman was to be hit by a car while her baby was unprotected by a helmet… a helmet would do next to no good in protecting the child from harm. I don’t have the statistics from Oz, but in the US the second most common way for children under 5 to die is from sitting in a parent’s car, with head injury being the primary cause of death in those cases. I don’t see a big uproar about helmets for babies in cars, but that’s where a lot of them die. More Picture of female cyclist on a St Kilda road with baby attached causes outrage among road safety experts

First wreck link is a kid from CA hit in a crosswalk. Boy in Critical Condition After Being Hit By Car While Riding Bike In this case there was no other way for the child to get to/from his school except on this dangerous road, and cyclists have right-of-way in a crosswalk just like pedestrians. There was no way to avoid this wreck except to not be there to get hit, or for the driver to not violate the right-of-way of the cyclist, with the built environment. What would be needed to prevent wrecks like this is a safe way to get around the Interstate highway. More Bicyclist Hit By Vehicle Near Bollinger Canyon Road On-Ramp The cyclist had a helmet on prior to the wreck but was either not wearing it at the time of the wreck or it was knocked off in the wreck.

A woman in MS is killed riding her bike. UPDATE: Bicyclist killed in traffic accident Not much aside from the death and the location in that article. I tried doing a search more more links but I couldn’t find any.

And those are all the links that gave me fits today, now to go mow the lawn or at least try to.

Billed @$0.02, Opus