My lump has a name now, and the Feed

I got a suggestion in the e-mail for a name for my lump, which I have been comparing to a GOP presidential candidate. The suggested moniker is “Chris Christie”. Whaddya think? Now as to why there was no post yesterday I just could not muster up anything to say. I wanted to write, but just could not come up with anything I wanted to share. Sorry if I disappointed anyone.

And before I forget, I hope you had a happy Star Wars Day (May the 4^th).

Up first is Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Photographic proof of bikes in Hollywood, ride LA with Phil Gaimon, and transvestites on bikes

The Big Story today is someone has been disrupting travel on Oz by putting tacks in the bike lane. Stop the tacks: Kew Boulevard cyclists say enough is enough and Angry cyclists fed up with tack attack on Yarra Boulevard Why has this not been treated as a terrorist’s attack on infrastructure? And the culprit(s) have been busy, re-tacking the route between the 11PM sweeping and the start of the protest ride against the tacks. The expense of all those tacks means that if there is a single suspect he probably has access to a lot of money, or he lives very simply to afford the endless mounds of tacks he spreads on the streets. And why call a blowout an “explosive decompression”?

It’s hard to believe that it has already been a year since a bicycle tourist was stabbed to death in a random attack. Festival honors cyclist killed on ride to Florida last year and Festival honors cyclist killed on ride to Florida last year Same headline from two different stories. Apparently the killer was off his meds or something because there was just no provocation for the attack, he just walked up to the victim while he was talking on a cell phone and stabbed him.

Another Southern killer of cyclists faces court in AL. Parker pleads not guilty in criminally neglect homicide case He hit 3 cyclists, if it wasn’t “criminal neglect” it was on purpose and he was undercharged. If this case was in TX he would have been charged with Felony DUI and since there was a death the prosecutor could seek the death penalty.

Riding season starts in Upstate NY after a very bad winter for the roads. Potholes or not, Rockland bicycle season hits high gear This sounds like fun.

Getting the word out on NYC’s pedestrian right of way law. Families For Safe Streets Demands Accountability From Bus Drivers Look before you turn.

Trying to get NYC drivers to slow down is a never-ending struggle. Jarring New Vision Zero Ad Tries To Make Drivers Less Sociopathic

Sometimes it feels like a war out there, and I’m not the only one who noticed. Bikes vs Cars: why it’s war between cyclists and drivers on city streets They have: light armored vehicles that would be classified as WMD if they were deployed against soldiers in wartime. We have: cameras and styrofoam hats. I don’t like this war…

Lifestyle in MI. ‘Ghost bike’ removed by city, replaced by activists

Lifestyle in IN. Mayor’s Ride kicks off National Bike Month events

More lifestyle this time from NE. Blood Drive Honors Former Millard Educator Killed While Biking Put some of that good cyclist’s blood in circulation.

There is something I want to say very badly about this link, but I will take the high road and not do it. President Bush’s 2015 W100K bike ride: Healing the invisible wounds of war

And those were all the links I had to share today…

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet.

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Another report from the Front, the Feed

One of the sites I read regularly is At War With the Motorist which describes the trials and tribulations that poor drivers are forced into by the ubiquity of bicycle infrastructure in the UK. The point being of course that there is next to no bicycle infrastructure in the UK and the majority of what is there is placed for the convenience of drivers, not cyclists. If there is a war going on the drivers have us outnumbered, out materielled, out infrastructured, and out gunned both physically and politically. The war goes badly my comrades…

The war goes so badly that the enemy is killing our youngest recruits while still in training. Just a few miles west of where this blog is headquartered, a little girl was killed while riding a bicycle. Bicycle rider killed at Arlington apartments identified The little girl was killed while riding in the parking lot in front of where she lived. This is a children’s play area, why can’t people drive like they have sense in a children’s play area?

Moving to the pacific NW of the US, a driver is arrested in a hit-and-run of a cyclist. Updated: Man Arrested in Fatal Austell Hit and Run Incident Yep, typical. Wait long enough for any intoxicants to be flushed or metabolized from the body then report you hit “something”. That way you can claim you weren’t intoxicated and that you never saw anything out on the road. The problem in this case was that the wreck was witnessed by people that had no problem being able to see the cyclist and who had a good view of the wreck. I’m sure LEO in this case will find some reason to let the guy off the hook somehow.

A SoCal cyclist is hit from behind by a driver that could not manage to stay in a single lane who then left the scene. Hit-and-Run Crash Kills Bicyclist on Highway 101 I think we can safely assume the driver was under the influence of some kind of intoxicant or asleep when this happened. Anyway to avoid hit-from-behind protocols might have helped avoid the wreck, and a rear facing HD video camera might have gotten a clear shot of the vehicle, driver, and the license plate. Someone needs to make a camera that has a shock activated shutoff that stops recording 5 minutes after the wreck so that LEO can identify the perps in hit-and-run against cyclists, and the courts need to accept the video record as evidence in cases against hit-and-run drivers. EDIT: After posting this I got news that this may have been deliberate. Encino cyclist killed in Leucadia; local TV speculates an attempted vehicular serial killer could be at work with links to reports of other similar wrecks with identical vehicles.

Another account of the arrest of the LB Fire Captain who hit-and-run a cyclist. Long Beach Fire Captain Accused Of Drunk Hit-And-Run Free On Bail I’m still trying to wrap my head around why no charges have been officially filed yet. I mean he was followed from the scene by witnesses who identified him as the driver of the vehicle that hit a cyclist IN THE FREAKING BIKE LANE and was drunk at the time, so why no charges yet? Are they having a hard time counting that high before completing the list of charges?

Up to the Great White North, a cyclist is severely injured by infrastructure that was not up to standards. Biker badly injured after yacht club accident The helmet broke which means that it failed to function, but the cyclist also had spinal injuries that were much worse than his head injuries. Basically the helmet failed in use, but the injured parts would have been injured anyway because they were not protected by even a properly functioning helmet. My helmet protects against facial injuries, but it costs a whole bunch and was designed for use by Downhill MTB riders and BMX, not regular road use.

Still in the Great White North but in West Canuckistan, a bike-ped bridge is taken out of service by corrosion. It could be a manic Monday on the Blue Bridge So what’s happening is about 2000 bicycle crossings a day will be moved onto the car side of the bridge, plus an even greater number of pedestrians, with the majority of these crossings taking place during rush hour. This could get interesting in the Chinese Curse sense of the word.

In Oz a weekend so full of wrecks that a cyclist hitting a parked car is only a small paragraph in a huge report. Six dead, numerous injured during horrific weekend on SEQ roads OK back-channel on this one, there is a possibility that the cyclist was forced into the parked car by another vehicle not letting him move over, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet.

Moving on to “Lifestyles of the Bicyclic and Famous” the Tour Of Battenkill is coming up shortly. Tour of the Battenkill a big draw If you’re in the area this is a really fun race to watch.

And last link is to a charity ride that raises money for cyclists hit by people who are uninsured or underinsured, or for cyclists who are injured without a vehicle involved. Off and riding: Tour de Ed bike ride continues its help for cyclists The ride was begun to help the victim of a hit-and-run wreck but has since expanded to help more cyclists.

And that’s all the news that gave me fits this morning.

Billed @$0.02, Opus