Looking at another long day, and the Feed

Well, the computer crashed twice during filtering. So I know it’s going to be a long day when that happens. Usually that means I had too many pages with Flash ads running on them for the available memory on my Chromebook which has 2GB of memory. So when you read the links, only open one at a time, s’il vous plaît. OK, maybe two. [Monty Python]Four is right out[/Monty Python]

Up first because the injured (killed?) cyclist was pretty much ignored in the other casualties and because the number of dead and injured in this one incident was so high. Three Killed As Car Ploughs Into Shoppers and Man kills 3 driving into crowd in Austria — on purpose, authorities say also Car ploughs into crowd in Graz, Austria Sorry about the auto-play videos on those. So as it appears as I post this, the guy went off his rocker after getting kicked out of the house by his wife and starts looking for someone to take it out on and these people were handy as he drove into a car-free section of town (roads still passable because delivery vehicles were needed for shops in the district). Either the cyclist was not among the named dead or the fact that the dead person was the cyclist mentioned earlier did not make it into the article.

Our Daily Ted. LA bike rider attacked with machete, bad news from Hemet, plus Bicycle Coffee and pleasant private bike cops

And another link to the machete attack. 18-Year-Old Bicycle Rider in Critical Condition With Skull Fracture, May Lose Hand After Late-Night Machete Attack

Still in CA. Family of Rady Children’s CFO killed in bike crash wants answers, apology If the airbags were deployed this indicates a very severe impact for hitting a person riding a bike, an impact where there was a significant force transmitted to the car by the body of the cyclist. That is a BIG hit.

Not out of CA yet, would you rather have this drunk on a bicycle or behind the wheel? Cyclist falls, gravely injured in Chula Vista As it is, the falling-down-drunk cyclist hurt exactly one person in this wreck, himself. Most drunk drivers manage to avoid hurting themselves while injuring or killing others.

Machete attacks seem to be the rage this weekend. Brooklyn Man Arrested For Road Rage Machete Attack In Holland Tunnel Road rage, that is… I know, it is a bad pun but in my defense I saw 30 deaths in links that won’t get posted here. Interesting that he was charged with assault when all he hit was the car… are cars people now, too?

Not sure about this report from Seattle. UPDATE: Woman hospitalized after bicycle/car collision at Delridge/Dakota AFAIK this seems to be infrastructure related because the cyclist was hit in a bike lane but the driver did not hit-and-run.

Holding a hit-and-run driver accountable in the Great White North. Woman charged in hit-run death of cyclist remains behind bars

Lifestyle news from the Great White North after another hit-and-run death. Tribute held for cyclist, 26, killed in hit-and-run and Vigil held for cyclist killed in Yorkville hit-and-run

Don’t hit puppies either! Puppy owner thought cyclist had killed dog in ‘hit-and-run’ collision Off-leash dog runs under the cyclist and gets run over, not the cyclist’s fault, but you could hang around for a few minutes to show compassion for the owner.

Not again… Cyclist killed in crash with tipper truck at Bank junction in the City of London That makes 8 dead, 7 caused by trucks, and 6 victims have been women. Is there something in the water? or does it have more to do with the state of the infrastructure that places cyclists in the blind spots of trucks at intersections where neither party can see what the other is going to do?

Does it seem like every time a tiny bit of paved space is taken back from cars it’s a big news item? Closing Streets to Cars for Walkers and Cyclists Is Getting More Popular by the Minute

Infrastructure news in ME. Leg Work: Seeking safe passage in Maine crosswalks, on foot and on wheels A vulnerable road user bill is long overdue in most states.

More infrastructure news from VT. Another View: Our goal is zero deaths

First of several infrastructure articles from north of the border. Brian Dexter: Cyclists, get on the sidewalks! Basically what this guy is saying is if you aren’t going to provide safe infrastructure for cyclists, let them use the spaces for pedestrians even if it’s sub-optimal. Better than they should get killed.

And more blame the victim from Canuckistan. Motorists, cyclists share responsibility — improved weather often means rates of fatalities on roadways increase

This is the time of year when cyclists ride in honor of people not killed or injured riding bicycles. Wounded Warriors Canada Battlefield Bike Ride Participants Raise $500,000 for Ill and Injured Veterans and their Families As a vet and a cyclist you know I am endorsing this one.

This truck makes a better window than a door. The Safety Truck Could Revolutionize Road Safety I can personally think of several bike wrecks where something like this could have made a difference.

And I’m all out of links. And sanity, but that was pretty much a given years ago.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the unkillable badass Poet

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Running late because of making sure my house won’t get stolen by Wells Fargo, and the Feed

It’s just after 2100 as I begin this post because I had things to take care of during the day, then dinner, and filtering during dinner. It was very warm today, not what I would call “hot”, just 96°F for the high locally. One of the things I had to take care of was setting up things so that the money I’m getting from my Dad’s estate will ensure a roof over my head by taking Wells Fargo completely out of the situation. When we got our mortgage way those many years ago we got a good rate for the time, but we thought that because we were dealing with a financial institution that had been in existence since the late 1800s we were “safe”, compared to the situation when we first bought our house where our mortgage was sold multiple times as one bank after another failed following the Savings and Loan Debacle of the early ’90s and several times we had to fight to keep the house when the loan servicer went under and records were “lost”. Then there were the multiple foreclosures where Wells Fargo foreclosed on paid off mortgages because of a lack of current payments on the paid-off mortgage. Well, we are going to prevent that from happening… And I wore white after Labor Day!

Up first is more on the victim of that Seattle infrastructure-created wreck. Bicyclist killed fought ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and Cyclist killed in Seattle was ACLU lawyer I have said all I can say about this wreck, except I expect somebody to arrest the member of the Seattle City Council who delayed installing the barriers and separate signals that would have prevented this wreck and indirectly killing this cyclist. Since this was entirely predictable that someone would turn left across a cyclist going straight because of the scarcity of left-hand bike lanes and the fact that most people don’t look left when they are making a left turn from the furthest left lane for motor vehicles, that delay directly led to the death of this cyclist and in my mind becomes a criminal violation.

An OH cyclist is hospitalized by a hit-and-run driver. Bicyclist hurt in hit-skip crash in Montpelier Hit-from-behind protocols to avoid or reduce damages, and get the infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent.

This was either deliberate on the part of the driver, or someone really dropped the ball at the AL DMV eye test. Bicycle rider killed in crash As the link reads now there were 3 cyclists hit in this wreck, one killed, one hospitalized, and one that needs clean shorts. Hit-from-behind protocols for any good they could do, and obviously if the driver can’t get to the cyclists then he can’t hit them, which is entirely dependant on the infrastructure with the Dutch model having the best results so far for both protecting cyclists and getting more cyclists on the roads. Yeah, that is a very roundabout way of saying “up to Dutch”.

A CA cyclist is killed because somebody had too much to drink. Update: Huntington Beach bike rider killed by suspected drunk driver Hit from behind wreck really needs better LEO support as the driver has so far only been charged with misdemeanor DUI in spite of killing the cyclist and leaving the scene of the crime. Hit-from-behind protocols might have been useful in this wreck, getting the infrastructure “up to Dutch” would probably have prevented the wreck by keeping the drunk driver safely away from the victim.

Still in L.A. for a bit of lifestyle. Memorial ride to honor cyclist killed by sheriff’s deputy RIP Milt Olin.

Lifestyle from the Great White North. Family, friends of Darcy Allan Sheppard mark 5 years since cyclist’s death I would dearly love to see those videos where the driver of the weapon vehicle (quite literally in this case) was NOT using the car to beat the cyclist against mailboxes and other street furniture after the cyclist got up off the street to complain about getting run over from behind while waiting at a stop light, because all the videos I saw that is exactly what Michael Bryant was doing, using his vehicle as a blunt instrument to bludgeon the cyclist to death. But the Special Prosecutor assigned the case must have seen completely different videos than what we in the public saw.

More lifestyle from the entire country of Canada. Cyclist honours late-wife with cross-Canada ride The cyclist being remembered on this ride was killed scant miles from one end of this trail.

Lifestyle from the UK. Cyclist killed in Richmond Park crash was brilliant scientist who smuggled orchids

More lifestyle from the UK. Cyclists get on bikes for ride for dad killed in road smash I freaking HATE drunk drivers… not that this is unknown to my regular readers, what with the blood-thirsty demands that convicted DUI killers be chained to the steering wheels of their weapon vehicles right before they are fed through a car shredder together…

Infrastructure! news from the Great White North. Runner says speeding cyclists a city-wide problem The amazing cyclist, capable of going too fast and too slow at the same time and place!

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: How to file a claim for pothole damage; La Habra rider injured crashing into street sign Not to be confused with Our Daily Tedd. El Goonish Shive

And something assisting electrically. New technology electrifies Tucson’s bicycle scene

And those were all the links that gave me fits or giggles today, mostly fits.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the unkillable badass Poet

[Monty Python] “I’m not dead (yet)” [/Monty Python], and the Feed

Yesterday was the 13th anniversary of my death, but to use another Python quote “I got better”, so hence the blog. Seriously I do this blog so that nobody else has to go through what I went and continue to go through. The small community that has sprung up around this blog is enough for me to keep going even when it’s obvious that I’m attempting to demolish a concrete wall by banging on it with my forehead. I regenerate (slowly) but any damage I can inflict on the wall remains. Like rain eventually made the Grand Canyon, if I keep persevering long enough that wall will come down. I will have a flat forehead and a terrible headache, but the wall will be no more. And I know that is a terrible metaphor for what I’m doing, but after all this time banging my head against that wall, I can’t think of anything better. Besides, do you know what kind of abs banging your head against a wall gives you? 😉 Titanium Nitride abs (abs of steel is so 20^th Century). Now we have a lot of links to cover, so let’s get busy.

But before “getting busy” a quick note about the U.S. holiday today. We celebrate Labor Day on the first Monday in September because there was “too much Communist involvement” with the rest of the world’s celebration on May 1^st. As we go into this celebration of American Labor this year the median CEO wage is more than 52 times the median worker wage and more than 350 times the minimum wage. To place that in perspective there are a few hundred people in the US who make more in a week than half of the rest of the population makes in a year, and nearly as much in a day as the low rung on the totem pole make in a year. I’m not going to make any judgment on the morality of those ratios, but the ratio of the incomes of the French nobility to the median French income just before the French Revolution was somewhere around 40:1…

Up first by way of most links (barely) is more on the cyclist left-hooked in Seattle. Cyclist killed days before city to upgrade notorious bike lane and Bicyclist killed in collision in downtown Seattle also Dead cyclist was new mom, well-regarded attorney also this Memorial grows for cyclist killed in Seattle accident still more Woman hit and killed by truck was well-known attorney and not least but last link Cyclist killed in Seattle was ACLU lawyer I’m going to be honest here, I normally shed no tears when lawyers get killed, but this lady was one of the good ones. Maybe not “good” in terms of number of cases won, but definitely “good” in terms of the cases she worked on and won. And she didn’t have to die, the markings and signal lights that would have prevented the left hook were delayed by a sphincter of a city council member for over a year…

Down the road from that Seattle wreck an idiot takes the life of a cyclist in OR. Texting driver arrested, bicyclist killed on Highway 30 identified and Cyclist killed in reported hit-and-run on Highway 30 near Rainier also Driver in fatal hit and run with cyclist near Rainier identified by Oregon State Police The cyclist had no time to react when the driver went off the road and onto the shoulder at speed making protocols moot. That only leaves infrastructure with any chance at having any effect on this wreck. That and crushing the cars of people who have wrecks while texting, my opinion of drivers that text is only slightly higher than DUI because they are both about as deadly as the other…

UK reaction to the LACSD killing of Milt Olin. LA sheriff to face internal investigation after hitting and killing cyclist while typing on mobile computer Their reaction is similar to US cyclists. And even gear-heads are unhappy about this driver getting to text and kill. Outrage: Cop Who Killed Cyclist Not Facing Charges Granted they are a green gear-head blog, but still more tilted towards driving than to cycling.

A driver in VA that has killed behind the wheel once already finally gets some serious prison time. Woman convicted of reckless driving in incident that hurt cyclist Charges are still pending on the hit-and-run portion of the wreck. The narrative of the wreck is just so hard to read as the injuries were so very similar to my wreck 13 years ago…

Hit and run in the Great White North. Cyclist remains in critical condition after Saturday crash The wreckage of the bike shows the cyclist was hit from the right, indicating one of the vehicles was running the red light (or the cyclist was caught by a stale green and the driver failed to yield). So intersection protocols to avoid or reduce damages, and get the infrastructure “up to Dutch” to prevent.

Another hit and run in Canuckistan this time. Hit and run leaves cyclist seriously injured It is fortunate that the sidewalk cyclist was not seriously injured in this wreck, but aside from that there was just so much wrong with this wreck I scarcely know where to start. Cyclist position, riding the sidewalk, wrong. Since sidewalks are not bicycle infrastructure drivers are not expecting to see cyclists on the sidewalks (particularly in Canada where most sidewalks are prohibited to cyclists). Driver failing to yield to traffic on the sidewalk, wrong. Even when someone is technically in violation for being on the sidewalk that still does not relieve the driver of the obligation to yield to traffic on the sidewalk. Both operators leaving the scene, wrong. Even though the cyclist left the scene to seek medical attention he still should have hung around for LEO to report the wreck and make it official that he needed medical attention.

UK readers have you seen this low-life? E-fit released after road rage driver targets cyclists in Knockholt This driver has been identified as deliberately using his vehicle as a weapon against cyclists (and possibly pedestrians). He is considered armed and dangerous, as long as he is behind the wheel.

Final results in a UK wreck. Lorry driver who fell asleep at wheel and killed two cyclists on charity ride jailed The sentence is a little over 4 years per death, but by UK standards for killing a cyclist this is practically a life sentence. Given that there were sentences of 300 and 160 hours of community service handed down last week for killing while driving distracted (and one for 5 years in prison) 8½ years for killing two at once seems like forever. But also given that he did almost the exact same thing just a few weeks after the fatal wreck, minus the dead cyclists, prison seems the only way to stop him.

And even in the Holy Land, drivers seem to be unable to remain at the scene of a wreck. Be’er Sheva: Bike Rider Seriously Injured by Hit-and-Run Driver Nothing on the mode of the wreck, just noting that another victim had died shortly before this one was hurt…

Infrastructure! news from Enn Zed. The cycleway that hasn’t been built – how slow can they go? One fatality and multiple injury wrecks because of missing infrastructure and they still haven’t built it yet? Is there any mechanism in Enn Zed for prosecuting for deaths due to inaction?

Kinda sorta infrastructure (because the video has been removed leaving only a few lines from the transcript. Firefighter killed on I-84 prompting local cyclist group to take action I don’t know what the problem is, I can’t click on anything that shows the video, and only the first line of the transcript shows when I click that button…

CA infrastructure news. Central Coast Cyclists Ask For More Bike Lanes And I see that the first comment is a demand that taxes be raised on cyclists to pay for infrastructure they should have been getting all along.

These bike lanes would power up your e-assist bike and your iPhone at the same time. These “Power Lanes” Could Charge An E-Bike (And Phone) As You Ride The idea is distributed power would be cheaper than making everyone carry batteries (the suggested storage media is supercaps that weigh about 5 pounds and have virtually no cycle life).

Lifestyle in CA. Memorial for Chula Vista man killed while riding bicycle It might just be me but I think a suitable memorial would be the rotting corpse of the driver welded inside the car that killed the cyclist, but then I’m a bit biased from personal experience.

Lifestyle from Canuckistan. Whyte Avenue memorial honours life of cyclist, while urging people to share the road It really should be up for more than just the day or two…

Just plain fun. “You’re probably going to work and don’t have time to talk.”

And those were all the links I could find on this labor day. Turns out there were a lot of duplicates in the Feed.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the unkillable badass Poet (now we’re cooking with gas, badass gas)