Raged motorist strikes two cyclists

In article om, wrote:

Yes but sometimes they keep the whole lane at times when it puts
themselves and other motorists at risk when the drivers try to pass
them. Occasionally people really do need to loosen their helmets a
little and understand that they sometimes need to yield a few feet to
the drivers so they can pass them safely.

If I am taking the lane it is because the pass cannot be made safely, the
pavement is poor, and/or I am going as fast as traffic in front of me
and/or to my left.

I find myself to be a mobile pedestrian. I ride both sidewalks and
streets, will cut through this or that.
I generally don't stop for stop signs and traffic signals. Sometimes I
do have to assimilate and be part of the traffic and not a pedestrian,
usually at busy 4-way stops.

Dangerous and illegal style of riding.

I've rode side by side with bicycle cops going through traffic signals
and the like. For some it may not be feasible to follow every traffic
law. I don't know, I just never have.

And they say that cops driving/riding illegally is just fine... I stop
then I repass the cop after the light turns green.

As a pedestrian, I detest sidewalk riders.

Riders here generally have respect for pedestrians.

Bull****.

Around where I'm from police ride sidewalks and stress that they
encourage sidewalk riding if people don't feel comfortable riding the
streets but they also stress that if you annoy pedestrians that you
could get a ticket.

Cops are about the poorest source of information on bicycling there is.
Most of the ones I've encountered have their own made up ideas of what
the law is.

That's what it's about, peoples riding should never annoy or
inconvenience others to any markable level.

I am not going to ride sidewalks, jump curbs, and otherwise endanger
myself because some asshats driving cars don't understand nor follow the
vehicle code. Just because they are upset that they can't kiss up to the
rear bumper of the car in front of me or are too lazy to change lanes or
the other typical needs of driving in traffic are not reasons I should
have to ride in the dangerous manner you perscribe. (Look at the bicycle
crash types manual, you'll find ride-outs are the best way to get hit by
a car)

I live in a very hustle and bustle part of town and riding the streets
and stopping for stop signs and traffic lights isn't really possible.
You 'have' to ride sidewalks most of the time, it's just that simple..

No, it's your lack of skill. I've ridden through chicago's Loop and other
areas of staggering traffic volumes without difficulty and done so to the
letter of the vehicle code.

On Aug 21, 11:31 pm, Lobby Dosser
wrote:
"Bill Sornson" wrote:

Driving lids is pretty simple: since more people get head injuries in
cars (shocking!), then drivers should wear helmets, too. (Racers do,
of course.)


Are these groups great entertainment, or what?!

Sure!

Actually, they serve several purposes. Some people actually use them
to (surprise!) learn things. Others use them to make wisecracks.
Apparently, they work for both kinds of people.

- Frank Krygowski

On Aug 20, 6:33 pm, "Tom \"Johnny Sunset\" Sherman"
wrote:
lein aka Boomer the Cat aka WHO? wrote:



On Aug 20, 4:03 am, "Tom \"Johnny Sunset\" Sherman"
wrote:
lein wrote:
On Aug 19, 6:34 pm, wrote:
On Aug 19, 6:28 pm, "Curt" wrote:
Bicycle helmets scrub off some of the acceleration your brain undergoes when
your head hits something. That's all anyone ever claimed.
Baloney. Helmet promoters claim that helmets are wonderfully
effective ("85%!!!"). They claim that bike helmets save lots of
lives, and are very protective against debilitating brain injury.
They claim that unhelmeted cyclists are a great source of organs
harvested for transplants. They forced bike racers to wear helmets,
then they claim that since bike racers wear helmets, that ordinary
riders should.
And they claim that bicycling is so terribly dangerous that nobody
should ever ride a bicycle anywhere without a helmet.
All their claims, especially the last, are dishonest and false.
Too bad they don't pass a law requiring all bicycle riders to wear
motorcycle helmets.
A cyclist riding hard in summer in a full face helmet would likely
suffer heat stroke, possibly fatal.

Don't wear a full face, get one of those WWI German helmets with the
spike on top.

Like this:
http://www.buymotorcyclehelmets.com/assets/images/products/flatblacks...?



that works

wrote:


I've been around heavy equipment all my life and people adjust and
pass but sometimes it's just not safely possible to do so, so you pull
over as far as you can or pull over and let the cars pass or get
a traffic buildup behind you and people take risky moves to pass you.

My views come from not lawful city riding. It's from long distance
riders who on two lane roads ride with multiple riders ride side by
side taking the entire lane forcing drivers to take risks passing
them, where oncoming traffic and or other road hazards are or may be
present. I've seen times where the entire opposite lane was missing
after a gully washer, where you had just passed riders where they
wouldn't move over.

People like to equate groups of bicyclists with a single heavy equipment
operator. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. Getting a recreational pack of
bicyclists to pull over so you can pass is just not going to happen.

Wayne

On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:17:52 GMT, Lobby Dosser
wrote:

Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net wrote:

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:07:58 -0700, (Paul Berg)
wrote:

~

News report from KGW-TV (Portland, Oregon) - August 20, 2007

Johnny Eschweiler stood quietly during his first court appearance.

Police say the 46-year-old intentionally rammed his SUV into a
bicyclist during a case of road rage.

....
Police said Eschweiler was frustrated with Ramsdell for not sharing
the road.

Heh! Really poor Impulse Control. Guys like that ought not to be
driving at all.

And just how would you propose making that happen?

His mother, wife or girlfriend could take away his car keys.

But if he Cannot control his impulses, then the only outcome is to
accept that he Will do something stupid, sooner or later, and deal
with the consequences.

On Aug 22, 7:58 am, wrote:
On Aug 21, 11:31 pm, Lobby Dosser
wrote:

"Bill Sornson" wrote:

Driving lids is pretty simple: since more people get head injuries in
cars (shocking!), then drivers should wear helmets, too. (Racers do,
of course.)

Are these groups great entertainment, or what?!

Sure!

Actually, they serve several purposes. Some people actually use them
to (surprise!) learn things. Others use them to make wisecracks.
Apparently, they work for both kinds of people.

- Frank Krygowski

99.573% of the time they are the SAME people.

wrote:
On Aug 21, 7:07 pm, Festivus wrote:
wrote:

That's where you're going astray. You say "Perhaps no study can show
definitively that they do." If that's the case, why on earth promote
them? It would make exactly as much sense to strongly promote four
leaf clovers or St. Christopher medals!

Because there is no reasonable causal connection between four leaf
clovers and head injuries. Surrounding the affected organ with a
crushable cover has, at least in theory, some value.


Let's discuss another study: Scuffham, P.A., et. al., "Trends in
Cycle Injury in New Zealand under Voluntary Helmet Use," Accident
Analysis & Prevention, Vol 29, No. 1, pp. 1-9, 1997.

And that study is just as fatally flawed as all of the others because it
does not have a proper control group and cannot tease out confounding
variables.

What if -
Increased helmet availability increases the likelihood that
inexperienced riders will get on the bike (and subsequently suffer a
worse accident than a seasoned rider)?

Increased helmet use increases risky behavior? This effect is even
mentioned by name on the web site YOU provided.

You don't have to rebut these individually. They merely illustrate the
point that these studies may or may not measure the effect they mean to
describe. Meanwhile, it is trivial to find evidence of the fact that in
controlled laboratory experiments, helmets offer some level of
protection to the enclosed head.

I do understand statistical analysis. To have a truly sound conclusion,
you need to give helmets to randomly selected members drawn from the
same population of riding skills and habits. You have to be diligent in
collecting data on all incidents in those groups, not through the biased
selection mechanism of emergency room visits. Ideally, you subject
members of both groups to Real World head impacts of varying degree and
type, then take them to the ER without telling the doc if they were
wearing a helmet or not. You have to monitor and regress away
confounding variables if you can even identify them.

I don't blame anyone for not having done this study.

Bjorn Berg f/Fergie Berg and All the Ships at S wrote:
On Aug 22, 7:58 am, wrote:
On Aug 21, 11:31 pm, Lobby Dosser
wrote:

"Bill Sornson" wrote:

Driving lids is pretty simple: since more people get head
injuries in cars (shocking!), then drivers should wear helmets,
too. (Racers do, of course.)

Are these groups great entertainment, or what?!

Sure!

Actually, they serve several purposes. Some people actually use them
to (surprise!) learn things.

Lobby learned that Frank thinks that his "life's work" (plastic bike hats)
is as important as cancer research and treatment! LOL

Illuminating, indeed...

Bill Sornson wrote:
Driving lids is pretty simple: since more people get head injuries in cars
(shocking!), then drivers should wear helmets, too. (Racers do, of course.)

I'd be glad to, after the police here abandon their policy of assuming that
any car driver wearing a helmet (or a racing harness) intends to engage in
street racing.

Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net wrote:

On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:17:52 GMT, Lobby Dosser
wrote:

Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net wrote:

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:07:58 -0700, (Paul Berg)
wrote:

~

News report from KGW-TV (Portland, Oregon) - August 20, 2007

Johnny Eschweiler stood quietly during his first court appearance.

Police say the 46-year-old intentionally rammed his SUV into a
bicyclist during a case of road rage.

....
Police said Eschweiler was frustrated with Ramsdell for not sharing
the road.

Heh! Really poor Impulse Control. Guys like that ought not to be
driving at all.

And just how would you propose making that happen?

His mother, wife or girlfriend could take away his car keys.

But if he Cannot control his impulses, then the only outcome is to
accept that he Will do something stupid, sooner or later, and deal
with the consequences.


IOW, you Don't Know.