Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and the Feed

This will be the last post of 2015, and I have to say that I’m slightly surprised at having survived this year as a blog and as a blogger. There were car wrecks and tornadoes, food poisoning, muggings and other mayhem, and none of it actually touched yr fthfl srvnt author. It all kind of swirled around me so that I could see it and report on it, but not have to suffer through it. Another bit of evidence that I’m a character in a story reporting back on what I see and feel as others live the story. I really need a better writer for my sex scenes…

Up first, the driver who killed a MD cyclist was violating two traffic laws to cause the wreck. ‘It’s Just So Unreal’: 19-Year-Old Cyclist Dies After Crash With SUV The two laws? Failing to obey a traffic control, and not stopping for a car stopped in front of a crosswalk. The cyclist had no chance to avoid this wreck as his view of the weapon vehicle was obstructed by the car that was following the law.

A NYS resident doesn’t have to leave the house to get above the legal limit for BAC. NY Woman Beats DWI Charge Because Her Body Is A Brewery This is an actual medical condition that I have been aware of for at least 25 years because I read about it before I moved to TX back in 1989, and again some time during the “Aughties”. So, rare, but not unheard of.

Cop hit cyclist in the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike. Cyclist, Patrol Car Collide In Miami Gardens Cop claimed to have the green light when the cyclist “pulled out in front of him”. The geometry of the wreck indicates the cyclist was in the intersection for several seconds before the patrol car got there, meaning this could have been a stale green crossing where the cyclist had the right of way over the cop car. But since the comments have been closed for the article the only place you will see that is in this blog.

A WV cyclist is blamed for getting right hooked. Keyser man injured in bike/van crash at Memorial Bridge Nothing more I can say about this.

CT LEO are asking the public’s help in finding a cyclist’s killer. Shelton PD Seeks Help Finding Hit-and-Run Driver Who Killed A Cyclist

DiYDoT in action in Portland. Activists use traffic cones to improve safety of bike lane along new Orange Line MAX Yay DiYDoT! Doing what the regular DoT can’t or won’t do to make streets safer.

Lastly, did anyone order a box of kittens?

And that’s it for 2015. Here’s hoping 2016 is at least a little better.

Billed @$0.02, Opus the Poet

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I went for a massage today, and the Feed

Since the last file of links won’t show up in the Feed folder until after midnight Friday is a good day to go do things. So I went to get a massage to try to do something about my neck, which has stopped getting better about two weeks ago. My range of motion hasn’t improved much over the big jump I had on the day after surgery, and my neck still cracks every time I try looking up. The good thing today was after the massage I was able to turn the overhead light on without using Braille, I could look almost straight up to find the pull chain on the light. That won’t last, but I hope there will be some carryover until I get another massage.

Up first is Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: OC hit-and-run truck driver guilty; SGV bike rider found beaten to death; get ready for CicLAvia Didn’t that trial just start Tuesday?

From down the road a day’s ride. Memorial ride planned Saturday for bicyclist Brian Silva “This from Please Be Kind to Cyclists …”

And motor vehicles in NYC killed the same number of pedestrians in June as people on bicycles killed since 2000. NYPD: Drivers Injured 1,228 Pedestrians and Cyclists in June, and Killed 10 The 10 includes one dead cyclist…

This NYC wreck is just troubling. No Charges for Driver Who Killed 72-Year-Old Cyclist in Sunset Park and 72-Year-Old Brooklyn Cyclist Killed 1 Block From Home As was pointed out in the Streetsblog article, the cyclist or the driver could have run the red, or the cyclist could have entered with the green and gotten balked by pedestrian traffic and then the driver failed to yield. Only one of those scenarios has the cyclist at fault.

Update on a FL fatal hit-and-run. Suspect arrested in hit-and-run that killed teen on bike They did a database search for cars matching the description, narrowed it down by specifying a radius from the wreck and then went and looked at all the cars until they found the weapon vehicle. Exactly what I told the detective to do in my wreck, but he said it was “too hard”…

This Chicago cyclist isn’t fooling around. Cyclist avows injuries, sues three The driver that doored her, the driver that hit her when she got doored, because he shouldn’t have been driving, and the owner of the car that hit her for allowing a driver who was required to have “adult supervision” to drive alone. If she’d lucky she might get enough to pay her doctor and hospital bills and cover her lost income and maybe even the costs of moving after losing her apartment…

A cyclist in VA is found bleeding on the side of the road. Stuart man injured while riding bicycle Apparently they don’t think he was hit by anything, just fell down after getting dizzy or something.

The links to this Boston hit-and-run report keep changing as I write this, so I have no idea what you’re going to find when you click. Truck, driver connected to fatal bicycle crash located out of state That was originally a description of a bog-standard right hook, complete with a semi turning from the wrong lane across a bike lane. Police Find Driver After Fatal Bicycle Accident In Boston and this one Police locate truck that hit, killed bicyclist OK they found the driver and the weapon vehicle. and the comments from the first link are continuing to blame the cyclist even though they are saying the truck violated her right of way.

Another hit-and-run in Chuck. Judge sets bond for woman accused of DUI in fatal Hollywood crash OK that link changed and now the driver was “just” drunk.

I’m just flabbergasted with this link. Man charged in collision that seriously injured cyclist in Chapel Hill What surprised me the most is NC has a reputation of blaming cyclists for being there to get hit, and less than 4 days after the wreck they have criminally charged the driver for making a right hook.

The Mounties got their man! Oshawa man charged in Stouffville-area hit-and-run involving cyclist and Police arrest man in April hit-and-run that left cyclist seriously injured Is that the charges, or a laundry list?

A cyclist in the Great White North left-crosses herself. Cyclist seriously injured in Fort Erie and Senior cyclist serious hurt in Fort Erie collision What more can I say? Left turning vehicles must yield to through vehicles.

This tale from the Great White North sounds exactly like a Buzz Job. Cyclist injured in collision near Delhi, Ont.

This is about as far east as you can get in Canada without taking a ferry. Cyclist injured After looking at the front of that car, if the driver stopped it was only for a fraction of a second and it was burning rubber until contact with the cyclist. IOW this was a left cross at speed.

And Canadians can only stay polite for so long. It’s a mixed up, shook up world when pedestrians punch cyclists

[facepalm] Lorry driver who caused death of Denbighshire cyclist by careless driving has driving ban cut on appeal [/facepalm] Seriously?!? Only 5 years of not-driving for killing while driving and it was still too much? and he didn’t even get community service…

Part 2. County Durham bus driver spared jail after killing Washington cyclist Les Turnbull Another killer driver gets probation and a meaningless driving ban instead of something appropriate, like drawing and quartering.

Texting and driving is bad, umm kay? Deal Mum of teenage cyclist Daniel Squire features in emotional video for new phone app and Mum’s campaign to prevent texting at wheel after death of her son

Oh Ghisallo, fix this junction or direct large heavy vehicles away from it. Bank crash: Cyclist hit by van at notorious junction where Ying Tao was killed in lorry crash The only thing that prevented this from being a fatality was low speed and the weapon vehicle being comparatively light (compared to a semi that is).

Automating road surveys so they are done constantly instead of once or twice a year. Pittsburgh Program Looks to Seal the Cracks in Urban Road Management Good pavement looks textureless to the program, but as the pavement degrades it develops more and more texture, until it hits a point where it has to be replaced. Using this program will keep maintenance from getting behind the curve so that roads can be repaired instead of rebuilt and lower costs.

And when our robotic overlords take over the streets they will be polite to cyclists and pedestrians. This is why self-driving cars will be programmed to let cyclists rule the roads

And that was the last link, and I’m beat.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Unkillable Badass Poet (current time is 0227 )

We have a new addition to the Feed, and the rest of the Feed

Join me in welcoming infrastructure news magazine Next City to the Feed today. I got several “back issues” sent when I signed up so there will be many links from them in today’s post. I think this will be a good resource for the future for this blog. On a less happy note the spring equinox ritual for tomorrow afternoon at my church has been rescheduled because of forecast bad weather.

Up first Friend of WoaB Carlton Reid has another article on the fact that paved roads in the US and UK owe their existence to cyclists. “Roads were not built for cars”: how cyclists, not drivers, first fought to pave US roads That’s right, we paid for the first paved streets and highways between cities to get paved, not the motor vehicles that did not exist at the time. I know that, you probably knew that, too, we just have to get the news to about 100 million other people in the US who still think roads did not exist prior to the invention of the motor vehicle.

News from Our Daily Ted. Weekend Links: Witnesses wanted in El Segundo death, Westwood votes for bike lanes, and more Valley CicLAvia

And Bikeyface has got this infrastructure thing nailed down. A ZOO That’s kinda what I feel like out there on the roads some days.

And David Hembrow weighs in on the Sydney Rd. door prize in Oz, placing the blame squarely on crappy Oz infrastructure designs. Eliminating the risk of “Dooring”: Good cycle infrastructure design keeps cyclists out of the door zone and saves lives

Making a coroplast honeycomb material may be the next phase of bicycle helmets. The New Materials That Are Revolutionizing Helmet Safety Right Now More expensive than the current EPS material that is standard for bike helmets, but potentially this could make helmets work almost as well as people think they do now.

The first of the Next City links is about the best bike lanes in the US. Cycling Advocates Pick 10 Best New Bike Lanes in the U.S. The “Best” bike lane in the US would still fail to meet the minimum standards set forth in the CROW manual.

Memphis is feeling the loss of their streetcar revival. Memphis Streetcars Will Come Back, But When? And if you are wondering what this has to do with bikes, the increase in cars caused by the shutdown of the streetcars makes use of the parallel bike lane just that much more dangerous…

Does anyone recall how many times I wrote in this blog that stale greens and short amber phases were getting cyclists killed? Investigation Says Mayor Emanuel’s Office Is Ignoring Traffic Safety Numbers Seems like some other people had the same idea…

Surface level highways without grade separation do not belong in neighborhoods, period, full stop, end of story. Vision Zero Activists Target New York Arterials, Including “The Boulevard of Death” You can’t mix fast cars with cyclists and pedestrians without getting dead and broken bodies, they just are not compatible. And if you can’t get the cars away from the people, you have to slow them down to the point that they can mix with people. Recent studies have shown that the maximum safe speed for motor vehicles on streets with pedestrians is 25 MPH. Any faster than that and the survival rate for the inevitable collisions between motor vehicles and pedestrians or cyclists just get’s unacceptably low. I mean people are rightfully appalled at a 91% survival rate for gunshots when motor vehicle collisions survivability rate goes under that at 23 MPH (90%).

Gee, why encourage people to make your downtown a desirable destination when you can turn it into a free parking wasteland. Parking Wars Play Out Differently in Two N.J. Cities One way gets sales and property tax money back to the city and the other lets car thieves have a choice of an open-air or covered market to select a vehicle from, assuming that anyone actually uses them for parking, because why stop and park when there’s nothing to see or do?

I wonder if this is because they don’t like bikes, or because they don’t like people spending money and generating sales tax dollars? Utah Appears Set to Ban Bicycles From Drive-Thru Lanes

Well this is interesting, a deputy threatening arrest for trespassing for riding a mountain bike on a posted mountain bike trail. Dust up over trail access in Oro Valley’s Honeybee trails

Gee, how DO you get people to ride bikes other than providing them with safe infrastructure that gets them from where they are to where they want or need to go? Four Ways to Inspire Bike Riders in Your Small Community

OK this is just as appalling as people getting shot. Mansfield Woodhouse car crash man walked away after injuring a cyclist He wrecked his car hitting parked cars and knocked a man down causing some injury when he pushed one of the parked cars into the man’s bicycle, then he wandered off because he “lost his passenger”? what was he on at the time? drugs, booze, massive amounts of beer?

Gee, why are huge vehicles with poor outward visibility that take up massive amounts of space when they turn killing people with no protection when they are forced to share the roads? TRL to study London’s HGV operations

Before and after court articles from the same Feed. Before New Milford man to be sentenced in cyclist death and after Lee gets eight years in cyclist’s death That’s 30 years of state supervision in all, with the first 8 in prison of he doesn’t mess things up, otherwise he gets to spend the full 25 in prison, then the 5 years of probation.

OK I an absolutely gobsmacked at this verdict. Van driver cleared of killing teenage cyclist in Kent also Texting van driver cleared of responsibility for death of 18-year-old cyclist He admitted he was trying to text but ran out of battery before he completed the text right before hitting the cyclist, and he was still found “not guilty”? And another view. SOMETHING’S NOT QUITE RIGHT HERE A detailed review of the wreck taken from the published testimony and court record.

At least there was a trial for that one even if the jury was composed of wannabe F1 drivers… One year on, ‘justice’ plea for cyclist dad who died in collision with car That’s right the plods won’t even send the case on to prosecutors.

This Irish cyclist may have missed seeing a pothole at night, but she didn’t miss the pothole! Pothole leaves cyclist with head injuries Interesting that the pothole was filled after the time of the wreck and before the cyclist was released from the hospital. 😛

No rush at all to build this memorial to a dead cyclist killed riding to ball practice, he died in 1983. Board OKs Stoughton pavilion for youngster killed riding bike That’s right he was killed by a motor vehicle while riding his bike July 21, 1983! Almost 32 years ago!

A LEO in AK wants to see how big a difference bike lights really make in drivers seeing cyclists do they really pay that much attention? JPD starts bike safety project

It turns out it is very hard to get people to change their commute once they have a set pattern they follow. The Problem With Paying People to Bike to Work Even when you pay people to bike, if they have already established the pattern of driving to work they will probably continue to drive unless besides paying to ride you also do something that strongly disincentives driving at the same time, like charging hourly rates for parking or putting in meters that need to be fed coins regularly.

This link is a bit out of position because it came in after midnight and I was not in the mood to scroll back up 1200 words and put it over by the rest of the CA stuff. YUCAIPA: Driver jailed in cyclist’s death That is one of if not THE harshest sentence I have ever seen anyone get for killing a cyclist, that I can remember. And they did not even have to prove BAC%. I have seen cyclist killer drivers with proven BAC% in the “you’re gonna die” range get lower maximum sentences than this guy’s minimum sentence before becoming eligible for parole.

And I’m done, no more links and I don’ wanna do this anymore today. 😦

Billed @€0.03, Opus the Poet

Trying to not get angry, and the Feed

I have been getting some stuff on the Feed that has been really setting my “bike advocate” alarms off big time on infrastructure issues especially in Canada. Things that are literal no-brainers somehow elude comprehension by politicians, one wonders how they manage to accomplish daily tasks such as keeping themselves clean and feeding themselves if they can’t comprehend such simple things as putting side guards on trucks to prevent pedestrians and cyclists from being crushed by the rear wheels of right turning trucks. When not pushing vulnerable road users away from certain death they double as aerodynamic aids to reduce fuel consumption, making them a double win: Save lives, Save Diesel, Save Money!

The other thing I’m angry about is the weather is not cooperating on my attempts to acclimate to colder weather by staying cold. Yesterday’s high was 83 and we are expecting similar today, and the A/C has kicked back on because the inside the house temp got over 78 last night. My calendar says this is the 14^th of freaking November! This is Dallas, not Honolulu! I wouldn’t have a problem with this if it would stay this way all winter, but it won’t. The probabilities are there will be an extended period of sub-freezing weather lasting at least 2 weeks. In other words long enough that you can’t just “tough it out”, but not long enough to justify multiple outfits of cold weather gear for varying conditions from chilly to near frozen-food-locker conditions or worse. So most of winter I’m either underdressed or overdressed for the cold, sometimes both in the same day. At least there is one funny thing about my winter riding, putting the ANSI safety lime T-shirt over the heavy winter jacket. Most of my winter clothing is military surplus, which means camouflage or drab greys and greens for the AF surplus stuff. Not a good choice for riding a bicycle around blind people. Wearing the bright T-shirt over that gives me a bit more conspicuity. And doing that makes me look slightly ridiculous, like a bright neon yellow-green Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Up first is a 2-for-one hit-and-run in the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike. Troopers searching for driver in fatal Vero Beach hit and run Two cyclists hit in a single wreck were hit from behind while riding on the paved shoulder. Hit-from-behind protocols to avoid, but what is really needed in FL is prosecution of drivers that 1) Hit and run and/or 2) Hit cyclists from behind. Prosecution with mandatory loss of vehicle if convicted of hit-and-run of any road user, with mandatory loss of vehicle if the driver is at fault for hitting a vulnerable road user like a cyclist or pedestrian.

A cyclist is hit and injured in a wreck in WA. Cyclist hit by car in Lewiston At this point the official report is not out yet, but comments to the link state that the cyclist was crossing in the crosswalk when the light changed and was hit by a driver pulling forward from the light. So most likely another stale green wreck where the cyclist didn’t clear the intersection and the drivers didn’t care to look in front of them before moving.

In L.A. CA officials are worried about an increase in car v bike wrecks. Rise in number of bicycle accidents has Burbank concerned Police are basing the increase on anecdotal reports of cyclists running red lights when most of the wrecks are hit-from-behind and many are hit-and-run…

Infrastructure! in the Great White North. Trucks can be made safer for cyclists, study shows As I pointed out at the beginning of this post, the side guards save cyclist and pedestrian lives, and save fuel, thereby saving money in two ways by directly reducing operating costs and indirectly reducing insurance costs. I don’t see what the problem with the regulation is. Perhaps allowing insurers to increase rates on trucks and trailers without the guards enough to cover a pedestrian or cyclist fatality per vehicle would get the trucking industry to change their tunes?

Two links to a truck hitting a cyclist in Enn Zed. Dunedin cyclist killed in collision with logging truck and Cyclist killed in central Dunedin This is so obviously a case of the motor vehicle turning over a cyclist I don’t understand why the driver isn’t in jail yet… And the cyclist was in the bike lane when hit!

Still in Enn Zed another cyclist is killed in a separate wreck. Another cyclist hurt on Auckland waterfront I think this is another link to the cyclist who (hit/was hit by) a car in the bike lane taking a cell phone call late last week.

Multiple links over the rising anger of bad infrastructure and even worse decisions about that infrastructure in London. Widow of cyclist killed at Bow roundabout warned TfL there would be another tragedy there and TfL ‘sorry’ after second Bow Roundabout cyclist death I bet they’re sorry that thinking a splash of blue paint would keep semi truck trailers from killing cyclists has been shown to be a fallacy. More London’s Tour du Danger attracts hundreds of riders to highlight blackspots The irony of that one is the wall of cyclists created by the “Tour” was actually safer than any single cyclist could be. Another link QC gets on his bike over road safety issues

And that’s all the news that gives me fits today.

Billed @$0.02, Opus