I got a ride home last night from a meeting at church. It wasn’t the rain that was the concern as much as it was the lightning, and other drivers. Rain really degrades the performance of reflectors which are my primary source of conspicuity for the rear of Blue. I think I might have mentioned I have a couple of square feet of reflectors on the back between the old license plates, the mailbox reflectors, and the reflective (formerly blinky) vest I wear. I have a large taillight that awaits a battery charger for the NiMH battery I built, the build for which awaits parts. Also the guts of the formerly blinky vest will be used to make arm bands to attach to a vest with more reflective material and either safety orange or safety lime color to replace the police-surplus dark blue with safety lime reflective vinyl stripes. It works with the reflective stripes but a different color will work better. So anyway getting back to the original topic of this paragraph, the reason I took the ride home was not so much to stay dry as to avoid getting hit by bad drivers or lightning which got really bad a few minutes after I got home, or when I would have been about half-way home riding. I have no spells or anything that will protect me from lightning while I’m on the bike.
Why FL is (still 7 years running) the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike. Police: Driver not charged after hitting cyclist Cyclist hit from behind but the tail light might have been obscured so the driver is absolved of fault or charges. I covered this wreck back on the day it happened…
Media is having a hard time keeping up on the cyclists getting hit in AZ. 2 cyclists injured in accidents One wreck was a right cross by a driver not paying attention to the other vehicle in the same lane, the other was a right-turning driver not looking in the direction of travel. First wreck, the cyclist had no time to react as the weapon vehicle was not fully past before turning and the cyclist would have had no warning about the impending turning movement. The only thing that would make this wreck avoidable or prevent it would be laws that right hooks were automatically the fault of the driver and those laws were strictly enforced. Now as for the second wreck, the driver was not watching for traffic, pedestrian or cyclist, in the direction she was travelling when she made the turn. Whoever would have been in that crosswalk would have been hit.
Update on a wreck a year ago in ME. $10,000 reward offered in search for driver who hit, seriously injured Lisbon cyclist The driver came over into the shoulder of the road to “buzz” the cyclist, this was not a wreck that could have been avoided by a cyclist.
Another wreck with multiple cyclists injured. 3 teens riding bikes injured in collision with motorcycle in northwest Iowa The motorcyclist was travelling too fast for conditions and laid the bike down to avoid killing the cyclists, resulting in serious injuries but no fatalities, so I think he achieved his intent. From the report the cyclists were doing everything right, including riding on a low-traffic road.
An IL cyclist was doing everything right and still go hit. Lincolnshire biker hit by car in Lake Bluff Intersection wreck, intersection protocols to avoid. The wreck took place an intersection between segregated bicycle infrastructure and surface streets with a separate signal phase for the bike infrastructure which the cyclist was obeying, so it’s not like there needs to be anything done with the physical infrastructure here. Recycle the vehicle, and if the victim dies from the wreck let the driver watch the recycling from the inside of the vehicle.
WI sees another cyclist injured by a motor vehicle. Boy injured in bicycle crash Intersection wreck with a cyclist not watching for traffic when riding out of an alley. Notice more attention paid to not wearing a helmet than not watching for cross traffic when leaving the alley. Intersection wreck, intersection protocols to prevent which includes stopping and looking when going through an intersection where cross traffic doesn’t stop.
A wreck in NJ. Bicyclist struck, killed by tractor-trailer in Brick This wreck makes no sense. This is the most vicious right hook I have ever read about. Intersection wreck, use intersection protocols to avoid and get cyclists off main highways to prevent. Another link Truck hits, kills bicyclist on NJ road; rider knocked over, then run over
A wreck in DE with no details aside from a picture of the scene. Man riding bicycle hit by car in Newark The bicycle in this wreck does not appear to be seriously damaged from the single picture from the scene. All I can tell otherwise from the picture was intersection wreck, therefore intersection protocols to avoid. And get the infrastructure right to keep bicycles and cars separated where appropriate, or slow motor vehicles down to safe speeds where they have to mix. this intersection looks to be either inside or at the boundary of an area where bicycles would have to share the roads with motor vehicles so this would be an area that needed a slow speed limit (20 km/h) I used to live in such an area when I was a child where every street in the residential area had a 15 MPH speed limit. Apparently the people in charge of doing Navy Housing back in the 1960s and ’70s had a better understanding of motor vehicles than planners in TX in the 1980s where the speed limits are twice as fast.
More on the wreck in AR where the cyclist was killed in an Interstate highway that was the only way across the Mississippi river. Family mourns, questions death of cyclist killed on approach to I-55 bridge As I had surmised the cyclist had used the bike/ped crossing but had not reached the exit where he could get off the highway yet.
Infrastructure! from west Texas. Cyclists Feeling Unsafe on Basin Roads, Increased Traffic and Fatal Wrecks to Blame Note that a cyclist was hit while riding on the sidewalk to try to stay away from cars. I tell you they are handing out licenses to just about anyone that can prove citizenship here in TX. Not to the ones that can prove they can drive, just the ones that can prove they are here legally.
Chicago is also having infrastructure issues but what they have is orders of magnitude better than what we have in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell, and orders of magnitude worse than they get in the Netherlands. Protected Bike Lanes and the Demand for Cyclist Education
An infrastructure article from Oz. Dooring fears prompt bike lane rethink Bike lanes entirely within the door zone leads to death by door prize, whodathunkit? I notice that in very few cases were the relevant authorities willing to remove car space to make riding a bicycle safer. In many cases the bike lanes were just made narrower to allow doors to be opened without impinging on the marked bike lane.
Infrastructure from Berlin by way of Chicago. Berlin bicycling: an interview with bike blogger Wolfgang Scherreiks
LifeStyle as a cyclist makes routine 300 mile bike rides in a single day. Cumberland County bike rider travels more than 300 miles a day There are people in RBENT (my club) that do the same thing but don’t get their names in the paper for it, but then their bikes are a sight more comfortable than the Cannondale ridden by this guy. Most of the club rides recumbents.
And those are all the links that gave me fits today.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
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What? Starting a post before noon? And the Feed
I know it’s amazing that I am actually home and starting to filter the Feed and do the post and it’s not even noon yet. After the events of this week this seems like I have an eternity to work with here. In reality I have to go grocery shopping and attend a church board meeting, so I will have to rush a bit to get this done.
A pinball wreck in CA sends a cyclist to hospital.
Cyclist injured in Santa Clarita crash Nothing on who hit whom first, at this point I don’t even think LEO knows what happened. At any rate pinball wreck is essentially unavoidable as there are too many random components to take into account. Get the infrastructure right to prevent a similar wreck.
Still in CA a cyclist is injured and LEO are sitting on the details. Bicyclist injured in crash Nothing on the mode, just that the cyclist had a back injury from the wreck (which ain’t hard to do). Intersection wreck assume that intersection protocols will help avoid or mitigate the outcome of the wreck, and that infrastructure will prevent it.
A Seattle pedestrian is assaulted with a motor vehicle. Police: Driver rams pedestrian for telling her to hang up and drive I would say that is also the kind of driver to “nudge” a cyclist she thought was “impeding” her on the road. I wonder if the SPD is actively looking for the Honda with expired tags?
An SC town has a spate of cyclist not at fault wrecks, so this media outlet tries to blame cyclists for not following the law. 3 deadly bicycle crashes in July spotlight laws on Grand Strand After mentioning the numerous “Bikes may use full lane” signs around town they still found a way to blame the cyclists for getting hit…
A media outlet in CO jumps on the “helmets first” “bicycle safety” bandwagon. Keeping kids safe while bike riding
Infrastructure in FL still going nowhere and cyclists are getting riled up about it. Critical Mass: It’s Time for Miami Police and Motorists to Respect Bike Riders
A cyclist in far West Canuckistan is given a ticket for parking her bike in the bike rack (no I’m not making a bad joke). Office building installs bike racks, tickets cyclists who use them
Drivers will hate you for riding a bicycle even if you’re the most considerate cyclist in the world. Law of the jungle
Last link, a cyclist finds boy parts off the side of a bike path. Coroner to examine human remains found near Montebello bike path I have found body parts in the street before, but I saw them being removed from the body they had been attached to during the wreck. This would be worse.
And that actually does it, all the links that gave me fits (about bicycles, there were a lot more that gave me fits that had nothing to do with bicycles, particularly the one about marketing tampons to 12YO girls) and it is just barely 1500.
Billed @€0.02, Opus
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Tagged anti-bike blatherings, blind driver syndrome, blind drivers, can you top this, cycling life, cyclist injured, cyclist killed, Dead cyclists, Don't read the comments, good news, hit from behind, hit-and-run, infrastructure, lawyer blatherings, miscellaneous ramblings, pinball wreck, red light runner, signs of the apocolypse, smart LEO, smart politicians, Something smells, stupid cyclist, stupid drivers, stupid LEO, stupid politicians, waste of human skin, windshield perspective