I was busy yesterday

I went and did stuff yesterday in the heat. By Texas standards it was a bit on the warm side as we hit 101°F while I was out walking around. I did some banking for Mrs. the Poet, got a haircut from someone who knows how to do a flat top, and then got a good massage from a little slip of a woman.

Anyway, I got started on doing stuff about 1530 and got home about 1930. Now part of that is because it takes time to get places even if you go by Lyft, and part of that is because it takes time to do things. Banking took a while because I had to deposit a paper check, get cash, and check balances. That took a bit of time, because it just does.

The next thing I did was walk to the barbershop in the 101° heat, as one does in TX. That was a few minutes to walk the 0.85 miles to the barbershop because I was too cheap to pay a Lyft and didn’t feel like waiting for the bus that may or might not stop at the bus stop. The closest stop to the bank is right in front of the Community College and for some reason the bus route I needed tends to go right by that stop. Anywho after walking most of a mile in 100+° heat I was hot and thirsty when I got to the barbershop and needed to take a break before I got covered by the barber’s apron. So after I cooled off enough I got the haircut, which included an eyebrow trim, all the way down my nose. I think I mentioned I have a monobrow that goes all the way down my nose and ends right above the tip, and also my eyebrows above my eyes were bushy and needed a trim.

Next part of the trip was via Lyft to the massage place. I found a new place closer to home and only a couple of miles from the barbershop, which was too far to walk, and the Lyft driver was initially sent to the wrong side of the strip mall that went in next to the barber’s, and it took a few minutes to guide him to the place to pick me up. Then it took a few minutes to find the massage place in another strip mall. Strip malls appear to be this guy’s Achilles heel, especially if they go around a corner like both of the ones at either end of this trip. The massage tech at this place was a slip of a woman who looked like a tween girl, but was actually a full-grown woman and managed to give a decent massage despite her minimal mass. My hips haven’t felt this good in ages. Usually a massage doesn’t last long in the hip area because of the nature of what the muscles do, but this one has managed to feel good-ish for almost than 24 hours and still feels not-bad.

I got a summary of my expenditures for Lyft for the day and it came out just under $30, which is a big chunk of my transportation budget. But $30 for 3 trips is not too bad, and I wouldn’t have even been able to do it on the bus because of the uncertainty of having a trip home. DART is so short of drivers that if someone gets sick their bus doesn’t go. And they don’t put out a notification that the bus isn’t running on their app. That’s what really annoys me, they have an app to take fares and alert riders, and they don’t alert riders when a bus isn’t running because of a sick driver. They give notices when the bus isn’t running because of no AC, or other mechanical issue, but staffing issues that shut a bus down don’t get notices on the app. This is stupid, and DART needs to fix it. Anything that interrupts bus service needs to be shown on the app. They don’t need to say why a bus is out of service, but they do need to let people know a bus is out of service. Especially if it’s a route that is last mile on the return to home. Transportation rant over.

AC is back again because the humidity is back down, so at least Casa de El Poeta is comfortable.

Another day, another mass shooting

As I was going to bed last night/this morning I got a notification there was another mass shooting, this time in Indianapolis. The shooter was reported at one time using an AR-style rifle with at least one large capacity magazine. This was after I had put my last post to bed.

This happens so frequently that at least one web site has a boilerplate article that changes as the location and body count differs, but is otherwise static and has had the same headline since the Obama administration. They have already run several articles with that headline this year.

At this point reports on casualties are still coming in since some people were injured as a byproduct of panic but were not shot, and other people were not critically injured by getting shot and did not know they had been shot until they started to get undressed after the shooting. To use an old joke their fracas was injured.

And some people got the news indirectly (yes I know it’s from The Onion and probably not real) after getting questions about the incident from constituents.

And at this point we are still getting reports that I won’t link to that the shooter had a sub-machinegun, or other kind of automatic weapon. So lots of bullets sprayed all over, maybe? And since the shooter is dead presumably LEO have the weapon in evidence, so since it is important to the debate release at least a description of the weapon? Even just the type of weapon would be of use in the debate on which kind of gun to ban since we don’t seem to be doing anything useful to prevent these atrocities from being committed.

Still, one has to question how this would happen if say semi-auto longguns with removeable magazines were banned and confiscated, or you had to have a special license to own one, like machine guns. There have been a few mass shootings done with semi-auto pistols, but the body count was much lower in all of those shootings especially when compared to ones with longguns. And compared to mass murders by a single swordsman there have been none in over a century. Texans just recently had the right to carry melee weapons restored after someone pointed out the 2nd did not specify firearms, but “arms” which included clubs, spears, swords and other weapons which had lost favor as the only worked in melee or ranged weapons that required much more training and practice or upper body strength to use as compared to firearms.

As has been pointed out numerous times, more than can be linked in this blog post, when the Second Amendment was written to shoot multiple people you had to have a loaded weapon for every person you wanted to shoot because the cyclic rate was measured in rounds per hour, not per second. You had to use a barrel and chamber scraper right after firing to remove possibly burning remnants from the previous round, measure out the powder, pour it into the barrel, ram in a wad to hold the powder, wrap a patch around the ball and ram the patch and ball in, and either put priming powder in the pan, or set a cap on the chamber and then cock the hammer, aim and shoot. A skilled rifleman could do that in about 45 seconds if at a stationary firing position, or about a minute while moving from one firing position to another. In the same time a skilled rifleman today could fire 30 times, remove and replace the magazine, and fire another 15 rounds. Precise aim would be superfluous since that many bullets flying downrange in the general direction of the target would hit something important in the general vicinity. And that wasn’t a joke. When you had one bullet per minute aim was important, but one or more a second makes “spray and pray” a viable tactic. And when there’s nobody to shoot back…

And enough of this rant.

Short post on my hearing aids

The irony of getting hearing aids is if I didn’t need to be able to understand speech, I wouldn’t even need hearing aids. This was hammered home as I tried to get to sleep last night, because I could hear all three noises made by the clocks in the bedroom, and the sounds of the dripping faucet in the bathroom adjoining the Master Suite of Casa de El Poeta. Seriously, I could hear every coyote, neighborhood dog, trash panda, and the opossum going by the bedroom window. I can hear cars on the freeway more than 5 miles away, as well as the tollway that gets within 2 miles. If it wasn’t for the noise in my head from the brain damage I would have the hearing of a teenager who had never been to a rock concert, because my healing factor is that awesome. I heard phones ringing in the business adjacent to the sound proof room I took my hearing test in, and there were no walls on that room that were on the outside wall of the office. Below 4KHz my hearing is perfect which made adjusting the equalizer in the hearing aids “interesting”. I mean most people who need amplification need it from 1KHz on up, meaning I’m losing 3 or more channels on the equalizer because I don’t have any loss in that band.

This is so annoying because I just want Mrs. the Poet to stop mumbling, when she’s just talking normally. So I need some help, but not much help. And it annoys the piss out of me that I need help. Like seriously annoyed. And it also annoys me that I can’t heal brain and nerve damage like I can other things like skin and muscles. What good is it to be the closest thing IRL to Deadpool and Wolverine if brain damage is outside my abilities? It’s like “You’re going to live forever, but gradually get more and more stupid as you get older.” Something else to get annoyed at.

And that pretty much covers everything I wanted to say, so rather than ramble on, this is auf wiedersehen.

Pardon me while I get political

I was sitting in the Lab Rat Keeper’s office reading Twitter and there is a mass shooting in VA. Then a couple refreshes later there is a mass shooting in NYC, nobody killed. Then there is a mass shooting in CA. That’s 3 mass shootings in one day within a few hours.

Three mass shootings with more than 20 victims and one never even gets covered because the shooter was a bad shot and nobody died so it kinda gets lost under the other two. What country has so many mass shootings that there has to be a body count to get news coverage? Just one, us. That one shooting I know literally nothing about except multiple people hit outside the Barclay’s Center and nobody died, from the original tweet.

And what country has more than one mass shooting in a day? Just us again. We Win! USA! USA! USA!

We don’t win we’re just the most spectacular losers.

You hear this America!?! We are all spectacular losers! Every other country has figured out how to protect their people from Crazies With Guns and Too Much Ammo, except us. What makes us the Short Bus Kids of the world on this one? “Our” representatives literally voted to allow crazy people and domestic abusers to buy guns and as much ammo as they can carry because “duur, Freedumb!” In fact one of the victims of the VA shooting helped write one of those bills, Steve Scalise. He literally wrote the law that put a gun in the hands of the guy that shot him. Dharma (that’s when life kicks you in the balls for what you did in this life AKA Instant Karma).

And as much as I would like for Dharma and Karma to take care of things, there is just too much collateral damage to let it work that way. What we really need is a way to not let fuckups like that bill get through legislatures at all levels. What I’m proposing is Instant Review. After a bill is passed and signed, then it goes to either SCOTUS or another court specifically set up just to do this. Most of the time it will literally be a rubber stamp job, but then you get things like the PATRIOT act and other laws like that, that require serious nit-picking. Hell, Donnie is dropping bombs based on the AUMF Congress gave George after 9/11, that should have had a “don’t use after” date on it. You see what I mean?

My next post will be about building something, the indignities of being a lab rat, or something funny the cat did if I can ever get the cat to do anything.

OMG! The Feed!

This was another “fun” day to do the Filtering. There is still just so much death and destruction even in simple physical infrastructure articles, and it’s 10 times worse in legal infrastructure articles because every change in the legal infrastructure is in response to one or more (usually more) dead cyclists, ones that I usually have covered in detail in this blog. I had to take several breaks during the filtering process, most for links that will never get posted to this blog. Sadly while I don’t post an analyse wreck links any more, I still get a mess of them in the Feed. I tried changing search settings to prevent this, but as I said earlier most physical and every legal infrastructure change has been in response to a dead or crippled cyclist, sometimes several dead and injured cyclists. Removing search terms for dead or injured cyclists prevented me from finding links to those infrastructure articles. The good news is this has become much less of a PTSD trigger and the attacks have gotten much less severe since I stopped writing about wrecks until legal proceedings against the driver are proceeding. The bad news is that means I have gone from 4 or 5 PTSD attacks a day down to one or two, not zero. And I am more than a decade out from my wreck…

Up first a driver in GA rammed a building and injured a store employee there. Woman imprisoned for ramming car into Dollar General 12 years in prison and another 8 on probation, or at least 20 years under state supervision for a non-fatal wreck in a parking lot.

Now compare and contrast this fatal wreck in NYC. Throw away the keys: Driver who killed cyclist loses license for six months Yes that’s right, 20 years state supervision for hitting a building and injuring someone inside, compared to 6 months license suspension for a fatal hit-and-run. And we all know how much of an imposition it is to not have a license to drive when you have already ignored laws against leaving the scene of a wreck. Absolutely none.

This report is on a wreck that I covered here a couple of years ago, the guy that hit a group of cyclists on the sidewalk and proceeded to knock a building off its foundation a few feet further on. Biddeford man charged in fatal bicycle crash sentenced to 10 years in prison Still less than the woman that hit the building in GA by a binary order of magnitude, but an uncountable improvement over the utterly symbolic “punishment” given to the driver that killed the NYC cyclist.

A little closer to home in LA an extremely drunk driver gets 25 years in prison with all but 7.5 suspended for hitting two cyclists and killing one and permanently injuring the other. Branch gets 7.5 years for killing cyclist The lax sentence was at the request of the surviving victim and the deceased victim’s survivors, so I can see some of this. I would really like to see a lifetime ban on driving with a mandatory prison sentence appropriate to illegal possession of weapon if caught driving.

After all that cheerful news, here’s today’s Daily Ted. Morning Links: Westwood BID considers Westwood Blvd bike lanes, South LA cyclist critical after collision

The relatives of a cyclist killed on the road in the UK discover that they had been lied to concerning prosecution of the driver that killed the cyclist. Family of cyclist killed in road crash hits out at police who gave ‘false hope’ of prosecution Now they are rushing to pay for a private prosecution that has to be started soon to prevent dismissal for failure to prosecute before expiration of the statute of limitations in the case.

And in Oz, the driver who used his motor vehicle as a weapon is given a slight fine for the infraction. Fine for driver who knocked down cyclist The difference between murder and assault with a deadly weapon is fractions of an inch, or the choice of deadly weapon.

Why don’t more people in the US ride a bike in spite of so many that want to? It’s the stupid infrastructure. Here’s what keeps people from riding a bike If I’m reading that right, what is keeping the US from having a 54% participation share for bikes (54% regularly riding at some point during the week) is crappy drivers, followed closely by even crappier infrastructure that does nothing to protect cyclists from crappy drivers. Most urban trips in the US could easily be done on a bicycle if the riders felt safe to do so.

And here is why we have crappy infrastructure. Two perfect examples of the attitude Vision Zero is supposed to change As is pointed out in the comments, looking at roads a tenth of a mile at a time does not show where an entire road is unsafe because you could get 10 fatal wrecks per mile and not get any clusters that would indicate bad design in that particular 0.1 mile segment. But nobody outside of that engineering study would agree that this was a safe road.

Put a crazy person who hates bicycles in charge of regulating off-road bicycle infrastructure and guess what you get? In letter to Mayor Hales and commissioners, national orgs ‘object’ to River View decision If you guessed “less off-road bicycle infrastructure” give yourself a cookie. The city bought an existing network of privately maintained MTB trails and 3 years later banned people from riding those trails, without citing a reason and going against their science and technical advisory committee’s recommendations. And when pressed have given a changing palette of “reasons” that were easily refuted by facts, which resulted in no reasons at all.

Conflicting realities in Oz. Cyclists in Sydney need a ticket to ride and one based in our world 18 reasons why registering bicycles is a bad idea The first link is a meandering collection of unsupported opinions masquerading as “fact”, the second is a collection of real facts with links to government sources supporting them.

And I’m out of both links and patience, thank [$DEITY] I ran out of the first prior to running out of the second.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

Well, that sucks, and the Feed

I’m sure you have all heard by now that Robin Williams has passed. I’m not going to go into the whys and wherefores of his death, that’s for other people, I’m mentioning this because Robin was One Of Us, a cyclist. There was a movie he made that I don’t remember the title, he played a little boy who was growing up too fast. In that, he wanted what every little boy wants, a bicycle. They built a 26″ wheel BMX style bike for him to ride (in character) in the movie, and he bought the bike after the movie because he liked riding it that much. He used to ride with Lance (yes, that Lance) and the Posties on what were recovery rides for them and all out race pace for him. He may have gotten to ride because he was a celebrity but they kept riding with him because he was cyclist. He has made many quiet contributions to enhancing the infrastructure near his home in CA that didn’t get much attention outside the cycling world. And I’m always sad to see One Of Us go. May your trip to the Summerlands have just enough hills and a tailwind, Robin Williams. Nanu-nanu!

A cyclist tries to beat a train in CA, train wins. Bike rider killed in Vista train collision; popular randonneur killed Saturday in Santa Maria The cyclist was reported by multiple witnesses to have gone around the crossing guards with the train sounding the horn to warn him it was coming. So there is a very good chance the cyclist was using the train as a suicide weapon, IMHO.

Update on a right hook in the Great White North. Friends and Family Gather To Remember 19-Year-Old Cyclist Killed In Crash Yeah, after the wrecks come the funerals. Happy trails.

Rant from Oz. ‘Bikes must pay’ – injured man calls for insurance after hit How’s that working for you now? Did you check to see how many companies in Australia were offering the kind of insurance you were demanding cyclists buy? I would expect there would be something between what is available in the US (zero) and the UK (2).

And in food news… The World Now Has a Bacon-Powered Motorcycle I think the engine and drivetrain come from the same model motorcycle that has won the Vetter Challenge fuel economy contest in SoCal the last three years. Can you imagine riding down the road with the vehicle smelling like not just bacon but REALLY GOOD BACON and not being able to eat anything because you needed both hands on the controls and you were wearing a full face helmet like the guy in the video? Even if you could ride one-handed you couldn’t get a BLT through the eye-port of the helmet without getting mayo all over your face and losing most of the sandwich in the slip-stream. Then you would have a greasy face, no sandwich and still be hungry.

And those were all the links that I found even remotely applicable to this blog fits, giggles, or otherwise.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

Hoping for an easy day, and the Feed

I haven’t even opened the Feed Folder in my email yet today, so I’m hoping for the bicycle equivalent of fluffy bunny and baby ducks stories (yeah, right) instead of the usual wall to wall gore and broken bodies. I have been listening to my MP3 player on shuffle for a few days now (8-12 hours a day and it was 4 days before I heard the first repeat) and I have discovered a problem with my music files, level control. Even for files I converted myself the volume level between sources is not consistent, and I have to continually fiddle with the volume control to either be able to hear the music or keep my eardrums intact, except for one song that always gets turned to 11 when it comes up. That would be the original version of “Won’t Be Fooled Again”. I think I’m going to take that down to my local polling place and put it on endless loop through a 300 watt sound system, just to try to pound some sense into people as they come to vote…

Since there were lots of cyclists injured without ID, or their ID was lost in the wreck, I’m putting those at the head of the line today.

A UK wreck with an unidentified body. Cyclist killed in crash in Derbyshire still unidentified

Another UK wreck with an unidentified body. Cyclist killed on London Bridge after falling into oncoming traffic

And an unidentified body in L.A. CA. Bike rider killed in Orange; OC bike deaths match total for all of last year Both of these wrecks are currently under investigation so LEO are sitting on details about direction of travel and lane position.

And another unidentified body in L.A. 40-something cyclist killed in DTLA; second rider to die on Alameda Street in the last six months

A spate of bike wrecks in western NC. Motorcycle, Bike Wrecks Cause Injuries The only thing reported about the first wreck was the rider was injured, other wrecks were caused by bad pavement or gravel in the road, others were motorcycle wrecks with animals or bad pavement. And one car that flipped when it ran over an emergency turnaround, bleh!

A cyclist somehow survived this horrendous wreck in Seattle. Cyclist injured in Seattle collision with truck The narrative sounds like the cyclist was either buzzed, or right hooked as the truck was passing. Either way the fact that he is still alive is nothing short of a miracle. Until I know exactly how this wreck happened I can’t say what to do with the built environment to avoid it, but getting the infrastructure “up to Dutch” would have the cyclist and the semi segregated with a barrier between them so the wreck would never have been possible.

Update on that MO assault with a deadly weapon (1991 Mercedes Convertible). County police take over investigation into Sunset Hills mayor accused of striking biker and Sunset Hills triathlon sponsor threatening to cancel over Mayor investigation

A totally blind driver hits a cyclist waiting to make a left turn in PA. Man on bike injured in Neshannock The driver admits he never saw the cyclist waiting to make his turn in the center turn lane. This is not an avoidable wreck with the built environment as the only thing the cyclist could have done would be to not make a left turn from the left turn lane. That only leaves infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent a future wreck.

A bad wreck in West Canuckistan. Cyclist injured in accident on Sumas Prairie The skid marks on the road look like the driver was tracking the cyclist instead of trying to avoid him. From the directions of travel in the narrative the driver should have been turning the other way to avoid the cyclist. Could this be a case of target fixation on the part of the driver? The fact that the bicycle is on the same side of the road as the SUV says that also. Anyway, intersection wreck so intersection protocols to avoid or reduce damages. And get the infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent a future wreck.

Our Daily Ted. A new video — and change of heart — from the formerly bike-hating former reserve Santa Paula police officer Yep, on a good day it’s frightening, on a bad day it can be terrifying even when you don’t get hit.

A new kind of e-assist bike. Optibike Releases Pioneer Citi Electric Bicycle This bike is extremely stealth in appearance compared to hub motor bikes with large motors. Compared to bikes with smaller motors not so much, but there is still a lot less “stuff” to attract attention from e-assist unfriendly LEO.

Lifestyle from St. Louis in the aftermath of a high-profile driver assault on a cyclist. Cyclists rally for bike safety at St. Louis City Hall Monday

A light bit of Infrastructure news. The Perils of Biking in Manhattan… and L.A. Not light as in “funny” but rather “not in depth”. To say this link just skims the material a bit is granting too much gravitas to the writing.

And hey, I’m out of links again. I had some giggles, a few fits, and some sad head-shaking.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

I know I left my mind around here somewhere, and the Feed

Did you ever have one of those days where you just couldn’t get it together, and while you are trying to focus on one task, someone else is trying to direct you to another unrelated task? Mrs. the Poet was trying to get me to search on the CONUS version of the Peace Corps while I was trying to get into blog-posting mindset. Mrs. the Poet thinks that at age 60 she should get back to working with the poor and disadvantaged (well technically 61 because she won’t be retiring from taking the flavor out of jr. high students’ lunches until a few days before her birthday), and is mildly technophobic, so I get to do everything that involves a computer in our house. If I’m doing something at the time that’s just too bad, because I’m the geek and geeks must obey 😉 But anyway this has caused me to be very late starting the filter and composing the post, because with the brain damage and the existing ADD from prior to the brain damage, pulling focus together on my original task is worse than herding cats.

Up first because I think this is the biggest story of the day, the story of Mitch Olin’s wreck gets stinkier and stinkier. District Attorney’s office has yet to make decision on deputy whose patrol car killed cyclist in Calabasas It has been over 8 months since Olin was killed, and nobody can/will say what will happen to his killer. The bald facts of the case are bad enough, the killer drove straight into the back of Olin while texting on his personal phone and there were no brake lights until after Olin flew over the weapon vehicle. Anybody else driving into someone on the side of the road would have been already in jail… I mean they don’t even have the excuse of the cyclist “swerving” because of the witness driving behind the weapon vehicle seeing the whole thing. This whole thing stinks to high heaven.

Hmmm, I wonder where this guy was at 0119 on 08/31/2001? Bicyclist claims Sunset Hills mayor swerved car into him; mayor has different version That phrasing is exactly what the driver that hit me used, twice (once in each direction) the night I was hit. Now avoiding this would be impossible as the driver matched speed with the cyclist before (allegedly) swerving into him. And infrastructure would only be as good as the driver respected it. BTW the comments section is a hoot!

The most deadliest state in the US for cyclists (not sure if they still hold that “honor” for pedestrians) gets close to killing another cyclist. Cyclist stopped to help fellow rider, hit by car Nothing the cyclist could have done to avoid this as he was stopped and off the road when he was hit, and infrastructure would have to either have a barrier big enough to stop a motor vehicle or be far away from motor vehicle roads that getting a motor vehicle over there to hit a cyclist would be an obvious assault with a deadly weapon.

This cyclist did add to the toll in FL. Oldsmar bicyclist struck, killed after collision with pickup truck SWCC wreck intersection protocols to avoid or reduce damages, and get the infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent.

This report from MA was incomplete as I filtered links. Cyclist killed after crash in Chelsea Still not any better, cyclist hit, driver remained at scene, film at 11… Nothing on location or mode.

This CA wreck could have had a much higher body count, but fortunately did not. Driver Tries To Flee On 38 Geary After Striking Cab, Cyclist, Pedestrian Six people taken away in ambulances with the cyclist still in hospital because of the wreck. The funny part is the driver tried to use a city bus as a getaway vehicle after abandoning the wreck scene and the stolen vehicle. Nothing the cyclist could have done to avoid, and infrastructure without barriers, even built to Dutch standards, would not have prevented the pinball effect from tossing 3k pounds of steel and plastic on top of the cyclist.

A serious wreck in Canuckistan could have been much worse. Cyclist hit by two vehicles seriously hurt; police looking for driver (with video) Looking at the scene in the video one thing that caught my eye was the odd situation of one street having a traffic signal, while the other street had a stop sign. ?!? Anyway intersection wreck means intersection protocols to avoid or reduce damages and get the infrastructure right to prevent a similar wreck. Like not putting stop signs on cross streets and signal lights on the through street, that would be a big step in the right direction.

A cyclist is left crossed in the Great White North. Cyclist suffers head injury after being hit by van in Kitchener Cyclist ran into the side of a vehicle turning on to the street where he was riding and suffered serious injury, so intersection protocols to avoid or to reduce injury (and the narrative states he did pretty much that), and get the infrastructure right so that cyclists are not dodging motor vehicles pulling out in front of them.

This update from West Canuckistan is enough to make your blood run cold. Craig Premack recounts being shot during Cache Creek bike race Seriously, making a tourniquet from your own clothing is a scary situation, and not being able to move your arm because the bullet had broken your elbow is even scarier.

Another attack with a motor vehicle on a cyclist, this time in Jolly Olde. Hit-and-run cycle incident could have had ‘tragic outcome’ The cyclist was run over twice after being chased down a narrow alley, making this impossible to avoid and likewise negating using infrastructure to prevent (if the driver chased the cyclist into a narrow alley, what would prevent him from chasing the cyclist down a narrow cyclepath?).

Update on a deadly wreck in Enn Zed. Charges follow cyclist’s death For those unfamiliar this was the truck driver towing a trailer that tried to pass a string of bicycles, ran out of room, and pulled into the line, hitting one of the cyclists.

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Two months later, still no word from DA on Olin Case; Amoeba plans Hot August Bikes celebration

Infrastructure! news from the UK. Will this hi-tech lorry be the key to slashing death toll of cyclists on London’s streets? and Sainsbury’s unveils safer lorry as Boris Johnson launches consultation also Campaign success as Mayor brings safer lorries for London one step closer

And a sad lifestyle story from Jolly Olde. Allotment memorial for hit and run cyclist Garry Hobson Turning his garden patch into a parklet…

And those were all the links that gave me fits or giggles again today. Still pissed off at the Olin case dragging on so long, there should have been charges filed by now…

Billed @€0.02, Opus

After ruining my “vacation” I’m back at work in TX, and the Feed

That was the last time I bring my laptop with me on vacation. I mean seriously the only time I didn’t work on the blog was when I was unable to find an Internet connection, and there was so much I missed out on by being stuck inside on the computer. Also I really needed a longer break from all the “lovely” death and gore that goes with this job. I realized that when I was watching a wreck video taken from the wrecked bicycle, and other people in the room had to leave because they had to throw up and I was just watching to see how far over into the cyclist’s lane the weapon vehicle was driven. This is a level of detachment I really don’t want to sustain. It’s not good for my long-term mental health to be that detached from death, dismemberment, and destruction. It leads to things like supporting the death penalty for reals, not just as a demonstration of how serious I believe an offense should be taken.

Up first is what appears to be a left cross that is blamed on the cyclist’s failure to wear a magic foam hat just a few miles from the WoaB World HQ in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell. Cyclist killed in Plano after being struck by vehicle Yeah, totally the fault of the cyclist riding through the intersection with the right of way over the turning vehicle but not wearing a helmet, not the guy driving blindly through the cyclist. Intersection protocols to avoid or reduce damages, and get the infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent. And fire any LEO who places more emphasis on wearing a helmet than in making a legal left turn that does not hit cyclists.

Update on a hit-and-run in LA. Cyclist died of drowning; driver out on bond The cyclist had survivable injuries but died because he couldn’t get out of the ditch after the wreck. He would have lived and recovered had the driver just stayed at the scene and helped him out of the ditch. It’s situations like this that make me want to chain the driver to the steering wheel and run the car through a car shredder. More Coroner: Bicyclist drowned following hit-and-run

Karma runs over a drunk driver in NM. Woman tied to 2010 cyclist death gets prison time in separate case She’s still awaiting trial on charges the killed a building while driving drunk (no that is neither a joke nor a typo, she destroyed a building with her car).

From the current US champion cyclist-killing state of FL, another notch on the infrastructure… Cyclist killed in crash near Beverly Beach Camptown This report makes no sense whatsoever. I mean, sure SWCC wreck, and without seeing the wrecked bicycle I can’t say what way the bike was pointed at time of impact, but the point of impact on the weapon vehicle would have been right in front of the driver if he had been looking where he was going. So I can’t say if this was an intersection wreck, hit from behind, or if the cyclist was riding across the street at mid-block. That kind restricts my advice to installing Dutch infrastructure to prevent a similar wreck. More Another highway fatality

For when you think there might be sane drivers in FL. Road-raging Florida man run over by his own truck after drunken crash Unfortunately he survived. Recounting, drunk driver hits car stopped for red light in the rain, gets out to bang on driver’s window and rant, light changes and driver that was hit from behind leaves, then the truck with the driver’s open beer on board runs over the driver trying to catch and stop it with his hands. Driver had a BAC% of 0.22 when tested in hospital… idiot.

An OH cyclist gets a lucky break. Cyclist Hit By Passing Truck The luck breaks were manifold in this wreck, the first being the cyclist was not hit fully by the truck that buzzed him, another being the spokesman for LEO was not person who investigated the wreck because the levels of understanding of the law from the investigator vastly exceeded the understanding displayed by the spokesperson. Buzz job means hit-from-behind protocols to avoid or reduce damages, while infrastructure “up to Dutch” including education of LEO about laws and the limitations of PPE like bicycle helmets will prevent a similar wreck. Or if not prevent it, make sure everyone knows that passing motor vehicles are at fault when hitting bicycles being passed in the same direction.

An IA wreck with cyclist survivor. Cyclist in fair condition after Ireton, Iowa, crash Driver buzzed the cyclist and was ticketed for the offense. Hit from behind protocols to avoid or reduce damages, and I’m really sorry the cyclist’s RAGBRAI vacation was ruined by an idiot with a driver’s license and 2 brain cells to rub together. Oh yeah, get that infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent.

A really annoying wreck in NYC that LEO seem to insist is the fault of the cyclist for being there to get hit. Cyclist’s Legs Crushed By Cement Truck In East Williamsburg Right hook, cyclist survival is still unknown.[UPDATE] Comment from User ID “JB” says the cyclist is recovering in hospital. and “Broke’N’Hungry” left the comment “(T)hats a friend of mine. Didn’t read through all the comments because there are so many of them but just updating for anyone that wants to know– she’s okay!!! will be in and out of surgeries for a little but blessed be the powers that only got her leg!! 1-2 weeks hospital time with like 6 months-ish of recovery (mostly wheelchair bound, but recovery!).” Intersection protocols to avoid or reduce injury, and if this was anyplace other than NYC I would say get the infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent, but since this is from NYC I’m going to say ban motor vehicles without a pilot carrying a red flag walking in front and behind the vehicle is the way to go because they really can’t move the buildings to install more infrastructure, and they have the required public transit to replace any and all private motor vehicles in the city, except for trucks delivering goods which is where the pilots walking with red flags come in.

Another NYC wreck on a bike path. Bus Driver Seriously Injures Cyclist on Hudson River Greenway Right hook with the bus and the bike path both getting the green light at the same time, a move that is guaranteed to cause wrecks, deaths and destruction. As this is already a segregated bike path I place all blame on the infrastructure and the driver’s failure to yield to the cyclist who had the green light to proceed straight through the intersection. This is a direct violation of the CROW manual for building bike infrastructure in the Netherlands.

What it takes to get a murder conviction for killing someone with your motor vehicle in NY. Upstate NY driver convicted for fatally hitting bicyclist, fleeing with body wedged on truck OK seriously, just put his guy away for life without parole, he was out on drug charges when he killed the cyclist (using, not selling). Or just let me have him… I promise to put all the pieces in the same location, and in the right order. I even promise he will have a pulse and respiration and most of his blood.

A report from WI that has 2 vehicles in the intersection after a 4-way stop, so why are they assuming the guy riding the bicycle was the one that ran the stop sign? Green Lake Co. cyclist injured in crash with pickup I looked at the intersection in Google Maps, and I saw 4 way stop signs (well technically I saw shadows on the ground from where the stop signs should be). Intersection protocols to avoid or reduce damages, and infrastructure to prevent.

Another WI wreck with a DUI driver. Cyclist injured in Sparta collision Nothing on the mode or anything that would allow deducing the mode, just a drunk driver hitting an innocent cyclist… INFRASTRUCTURE! _damnit.

I think this MI wreck is a prime example of the difference between getting infrastructure “up to Dutch” and just throwing pavement down and calling it “bicycle infrastructure”. Bicyclist slams into truck on crosswalk Looking at the intersection with Street View you can see traffic on the bike path did not have priority over motor vehicles in the street, 180 out from the Dutch standard. The intersection seemed to have good visibility and the driver stating he “always” slowed down coming to that spot may have sucked the cyclist into believing the driver was going to stop and let him proceed. Intersection protocols to avoid or to mitigate damages, and turn those stop signs to face the street like “real” bicycle infrastructure to prevent. I mean they are more than ²/₃ of the way there, why not make the simple change to get all the way there?

A cyclist is hit from behind in IL. Van hits 17-year-old cyclist on 45/52 Since the weapon vehicle was leaving the road as it hit the cyclist this negates any chance to employ the protocols to avoid the wreck or reduce the damages from it.

Some days I really feel for Ted, like today. Update: Bicyclist killed in Menifee collision; Riverside County bike fatalities twice as high as last year Hit from behind presumably in the bike lane, but the description of the weapon vehicle sounds like one of the micro cars from the Lane Museum. or one of these? protocols would not be useful if the description of the scene is accurate, so getting the infrastructure “up to Dutch” is all that can be done to prevent a similar wreck.

Another CA wreck is a hit-from-behind. One teen killed, another injured in Modesto auto vs. cyclist collision Since it seems there were two up on a single bike and it wasn’t a cargo or tandem bike and at least one was drunk… There are things that have a high chance of a bad outcome in the US that are if not “normal” are at least not uncommon and fairly safe in places where the infrastructure is not heavily biased in preference to private motor vehicles as transportation…

Another CA cyclist is hit by a train? Cyclist killed by train Seriously, don’t do this. The cyclist rode around the crossing guards to try to beat the freight train and not have to wait for the several minutes required for the crossing. Your life is not worth taking the chance to save a few minutes.

Updates on multiple wrecks in AK. Cyclist Death Investigation Underway While Friends Mourn Still aren’t saying what will happen with such egregious wrecks as getting hit from behind by a driver speeding in reverse… If any wreck called for serious prison time this one does. And for the record, I doubt any protocols or infrastructure changes would do anything for this wreck unless driver’s license standards were also tightened severely at the same time.

Yucky wreck in the Great White North. Cyclist badly injured in collision with dump truck Even when the cyclist survives a wreck with a dump truck, it ain’t pretty doesn’t even come close to describing it. From the picture it looks like the truck was swinging wide and cut the corner in a seriously bad right hook. The bike is under the front wheel, which tells me the cyclist never saw what hit him until he was under the truck. That makes employing any of the protocols impossible, leaving only infrastructure that didn’t leave cyclists running from dump trucks driven by Mr. Magoo as the only sane alternative.

At least they know not to blame the cyclist in this intersection wreck. Cyclist seriously injured after being hit by car Drier ran the red hitting the cyclist after she entered the intersection, and was caught doing so by witnesses, so it wasn’t the driver claiming legality with nobody to speak for the cyclist. Anyway, not much the cyclist could do, and unless this was rebuilt as an intersection that had flyovers for the cars with bikes riding through at grade level changing the infrastructure would not have helped either.

A fatal wreck in Canuckistan. Cyclist killed on Interlake highway Naturally they blame the cyclist for riding in the “middle” of the road instead of the driver not looking where his vehicle was going. Hit from behind protocols might have given the cyclist a chance, infrastructure would not have required him to take one.

If this doesn’t make you feel warm and fuzzy, you’re either deceased or have problems. Boy Carries His Younger Brother Through Triathlon, Wins At Life

Now this is riding with a purpose! This rogue bicycle pony express delivered mail in 1894 Cyclists rode in shifts over a set section of the route waiting at each end of the section for the rider coming their direction to hit the road with the mail for the next section.

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Wolfpack Hustle debates bike lanes with John & Ken, and Calbike forms state’s 1st bike PAC

Horrible legal Infrastructure! news from New York. NY Court Just Made It Easier For Drivers To Get Away With Murder Seriously, I want to know what these guys are smoking… They just contracted the definition of “depraved” until you have to deliberately target everything on the road until your vehicle is too battered to continue to get a murder conviction for driving like a maniac. The driver in this case was doing over 70 MPH when he hit the victim throwing her body a NYC block, and the panel of “judges” declared this was NOT “depraved indifference” to the lives of others. Decisions like this make me want to require mandatory drug testing of judges before every case and at random times during the case…

Presented without comment… NYPD: 1,263 Pedestrians and Cyclists Injured, 11 Killed in Traffic in May

Usually I make jokes about cousins marrying when discussing the infrastructure for bicycles in AR. Safety tips for cyclists and motorists sharing the road Basically just more on how to deal with infrastructure built with no regard for any mode besides motor vehicles…

Infrastructure from CA. Another cyclist death prompts call for more bike safety

Infrastructure commentary from IA. The cyclist on the street versus the cyclist in the road There’s a serious disconnect here about bicycle infrastructure, when you have that many sidewalk cyclists they are telling government that the infrastructure SUCKS!

When the judge says that the infrastructure is so bad that cyclists and trucks are going to hit each other and it isn’t the cyclists’ fault in the UK you got some seriously bolluxed infrastructure… Guernsey judge criticises road layout as lorry driver acquitted of causing cyclist’s death

Lifestyle from NY. Ghost bike honors cyclist killed in Troy I no longer remember this wreck, how long ago was it again?

Lastly, I think this was my favorite picture from my visit to the Lane Museum.

Why be normal?

And those were all the links that gave me fits or giggles today. More fits than giggles, but that’s normal these days.

Billd @€0.02, Opus

Mental Hygiene Day, again

There was no post Monday and yesterday because I was riding the bus again, from NY to Nashville TN (Nashvegas for those of us who are hip) and the bus this year doesn’t have the same room as the bus did last year. Can’t put my finger on what changed, but the leg room and the room under the seats seems unchanged, but this year I could not stand in front of my seat nor get out without lifting myself on the back of the seat in front of me and neither could I sleep by resting my head on a pillow in my lap. Last year I could type on the laptop and read the screen at the same time, this year I had to put the keyboard on my chest to see the screen, or fold the screen to the point I couldn’t see it to be able to use the keyboard, making typing futile. Last year you may remember I did an entire post while caught in construction traffic in OH. This year no traffic but no post either.

I’m not doing any links today because I don’t want to spend a day looking at wrecks when I only have a short time to see my friends and do things here in TN. Fortunately we have beautiful weather for it this year courtesy of the Summer Polar Vortex caused by a super typhoon in the North Pacific redirecting the jet stream well south of where it usually stays in the summer. This is for those not paying attention to weather reports and just enjoying the weather 😉

Now I have someplace I have to go so I’ll be back tomorrow and keep you posted.

PSA, Opus