Bicyclist Fatalities in AZ 2009

On Dec 13, 10:59 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

To turn the question around: How soon do you want to trust an unknown
motorist to squeeze by with inches to spare, and not inadvertently
bump you off the road or worse?

As others have pointed out, this can occur while the cyclist is riding
in any position in the lane. Every time you are approached by faster
traffic you leave your life to some degree in the hands of the passing
driver. Riding at lane center (of all places) doesn't absolve you of
having to trust the drivers behind, far from it.

It is interesting that you bring up the spectre of sudden death by
close pass. What do you think accounts for a larger portion of cyclist
fatalities -- too-close passes or drivers completely failing to notice
the cyclist in front of them?

On Dec 13, 3:49*pm, RobertH wrote:
On Dec 13, 10:59 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

To turn the question around: *How soon do you want to trust an unknown
motorist to squeeze by with inches to spare, and not inadvertently
bump you off the road or worse?

As others have pointed out, this can occur while the cyclist is riding
in any position in the lane. Every time you are approached by faster
traffic you leave your life to some degree in the hands of the passing
driver. Riding at lane center (of all places) doesn't absolve you of
having to trust the drivers behind, far from it.

It is interesting that you bring up the spectre of sudden death by
close pass. What do you think accounts for a larger portion of cyclist
fatalities -- too-close passes or drivers completely failing to notice
the cyclist in front of them?

That's easy. A "too close" pass is never fatal. It can't be "too
close" unless it is completed. It's the "incomplete passes" that
create problems.
DR

DirtRoadie wrote:
On Dec 13, 3:49 pm, RobertH wrote:
On Dec 13, 10:59 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

To turn the question around: How soon do you want to trust an unknown
motorist to squeeze by with inches to spare, and not inadvertently
bump you off the road or worse?
As others have pointed out, this can occur while the cyclist is riding
in any position in the lane. Every time you are approached by faster
traffic you leave your life to some degree in the hands of the passing
driver. Riding at lane center (of all places) doesn't absolve you of
having to trust the drivers behind, far from it.

It is interesting that you bring up the spectre of sudden death by
close pass. What do you think accounts for a larger portion of cyclist
fatalities -- too-close passes or drivers completely failing to notice
the cyclist in front of them?

That's easy. A "too close" pass is never fatal. It can't be "too
close" unless it is completed. It's the "incomplete passes" that
create problems.
DR

The only exception is when a "too close" pass causes the cyclist to
panic, wobble, loose control and crash. The air currents associated
with large fast moving vehicles are sometimes enough to cause problems,
even to more experienced cyclists who do not panic just because of a
close call.

JS.

"RobertH" wrote in message
...
On Dec 13, 10:59 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

To turn the question around: How soon do you want to trust an unknown
motorist to squeeze by with inches to spare, and not inadvertently
bump you off the road or worse?

As others have pointed out, this can occur while the cyclist is riding
in any position in the lane. Every time you are approached by faster
traffic you leave your life to some degree in the hands of the passing
driver. Riding at lane center (of all places) doesn't absolve you of
having to trust the drivers behind, far from it.

It is interesting that you bring up the spectre of sudden death by
close pass. What do you think accounts for a larger portion of cyclist
fatalities -- too-close passes or drivers completely failing to notice
the cyclist in front of them?

Well here this season it was the latter. Not sure if that's typical
or not.

On Dec 13, 4:29*pm, James wrote:
DirtRoadie wrote:
On Dec 13, 3:49 pm, RobertH wrote:
On Dec 13, 10:59 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

To turn the question around: *How soon do you want to trust an unknown
motorist to squeeze by with inches to spare, and not inadvertently
bump you off the road or worse?
As others have pointed out, this can occur while the cyclist is riding
in any position in the lane. Every time you are approached by faster
traffic you leave your life to some degree in the hands of the passing
driver. Riding at lane center (of all places) doesn't absolve you of
having to trust the drivers behind, far from it.

It is interesting that you bring up the spectre of sudden death by
close pass. What do you think accounts for a larger portion of cyclist
fatalities -- too-close passes or drivers completely failing to notice
the cyclist in front of them?

That's easy. A "too close" pass is never fatal. It can't be "too
close" unless it is completed. It's the "incomplete passes" that
create problems.
DR

The only exception is when a "too close" pass causes the cyclist to
panic, wobble, loose control and crash. *The air currents associated
with large fast moving vehicles are sometimes enough to cause problems,
even to more experienced cyclists who do not panic just because of a
close call.

Agreed. I was being a bit facetious.
And one of my personal "too close" experiences involved taking the
passenger side extended mirror of a pickup truck against the back of
my arm. I was climbing at probably 10ish mph and the truck was
probably doing the speed limit or better - 60ish mph. I was very
thankful that the encounter was not any closer than it was.

DR

On Dec 13, 3:49*pm, RobertH wrote:

It is interesting that you bring up the spectre of sudden death by
close pass. What do you think accounts for a larger portion of cyclist
fatalities -- too-close passes or drivers completely failing to notice
the cyclist in front of them?

Call this a preemptive quote. Our pal Frank is going to jump in and
say "Being noticed IS the reason for taking control of a lane."

In Krygowski's mind, if you are 5 feet from the road edge you are
visible, but at 3 feet you disappear.
DR

On 12/12/2010 7:55 PM, DirtRoadie WHO? ANONYMOUSLY SNIPES:
On Dec 12, 3:12 pm, "Duane wrote:
"Frank wrote in message

...
On Dec 12, 1:32 am, Dan wrote:

On Dec 11, 9:39 pm, T m Sherm n _""twshermanREMOVE\"@THI

$southslope.net" wrote:
On 12/11/2010 7:15 PM, DirtRoadie WHO? ANONYMOUSLY SNIPES:
So when Duane writes a paragraph saying that Quebec motorist will run
down from behind a cyclist on a pleasant country lane, I paraphrase
that as "Danger! Danger!"

Are you talking about the time that I told you that a motorist bumped me
from behind? I told you repeatedly that it was no big deal. My point was,
given a separate bike path parallel to the road, I would prefer to ride
there without traffic to worry about. To you this is a problem for some
reason. Of course, I'm a coward for that sentiment.

When James writes a paragraph mentioning his car-bike crash, and
claiming that every bicyclist he knows has frequent near misses, I
paraphrase that as "Danger! Danger!"

How can you argue with James' personal experience? Just because it's
different than yours, in a city where a motorist only sees 1 cyclist in a
half
hour? My experience is closer to his than to yours.

And pardon me in advance if I mis-remembered any details just then, or
who exactly said what. I'm doing all this by memory, not taking
copious notes. The point is both of those posters have contributed a
LOT of warnings to this discussion.

Nonsense.

Furthermore, when I gave data showing the dangers must not be extreme
(data on tremendous numbers ridden before bad events) nobody
acknowledged. James went on about the terrors of Melbourne. Duane is
still talking about choosing between the sidewalk and ... well, he
doesn't want me to repeat his words, because they've since become
offensive to him.

snip a lot more needless justification

And I remain astonished that a person can say "Riding properly is
quite safe, and people shouldn't be scared away from cycling," and be
continually attacked for that by other cyclists.

No one to my knowledge has ever criticized you in any way for saying
that. It's the rest of your patronizing, insulting crap that you start when
someone
disagrees with you that causes that reaction.

+ 1

If Frank had quit after simply saying "Riding is mostly pretty safe"
he probably could have saved everyone at lot of trouble.

But it is his lying, logical fallacies, misstating/misinterpreting
facts and what other people have said, condescension and insults
toward others (real or imaginary "others") and his all his general
smarminess that we (in his words) "attack."

It IS astonishing that he just doesn't get that.
Poor Frank! He's so misunderstood!
But maybe not:

http://anse.rs/gqlwK

Again, the anonymous troll who shows up insulting others and falsifying
quotes, complains about the behavior of others.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

DirtRoadie wrote:
On Dec 13, 4:29 pm, James wrote:
DirtRoadie wrote:
On Dec 13, 3:49 pm, RobertH wrote:

It is interesting that you bring up the spectre of sudden death by
close pass. What do you think accounts for a larger portion of cyclist
fatalities -- too-close passes or drivers completely failing to notice
the cyclist in front of them?

That's easy. A "too close" pass is never fatal. It can't be "too
close" unless it is completed. It's the "incomplete passes" that
create problems.
DR

The only exception is when a "too close" pass causes the cyclist to
panic, wobble, loose control and crash. The air currents associated
with large fast moving vehicles are sometimes enough to cause problems,
even to more experienced cyclists who do not panic just because of a
close call.

Agreed. I was being a bit facetious.

I could tell.

And one of my personal "too close" experiences involved taking the
passenger side extended mirror of a pickup truck against the back of
my arm. I was climbing at probably 10ish mph and the truck was
probably doing the speed limit or better - 60ish mph. I was very
thankful that the encounter was not any closer than it was.

Indeed, too close for comfort.

On occasion they've nipped passed too close in traffic, and I catch them
at the next set of lights, a good whack on the roof of their cage with
the flat of your hand sends a clear message to them. Often they look
dumbfounded as they don't know what they did wrong to deserve a wake up
call.

JS.

On 12/13/2010 7:40 AM, Duane Hébert wrote:
On 12/11/2010 4:23 PM, Tºm Shermªn™ °_° wrote:
On 12/11/2010 12:29 PM, Duane Hebert wrote:
"T�m Sherm�nT " wrote in
message ...
On 12/11/2010 8:29 AM, Duane Hebert wrote:
"T?m Sherm?n? " wrote in
message ...
On 12/10/2010 11:28 PM, DirtRoadie WHO? ANONYMOUSLY SNIPES:

Hmm. Given your fears, I suppose Quebec must have special Ground
Meat
Crews to scrape away all the dead cyclists!

- Frank Krygowski

**** you.

+1
DR

Good to see the maturity and civility of the group being preserved.

/sarcasm

Calling me a coward is bad enough but making light
of the dead cyclists here, some of which were friends
and all of which were persons, was a bit much.

And lying/libel is not a bit much?

Are you talking to me?


No, it is a different Frank-Basherâ„¢ who hides behind a pseudonym while
lying and committing libel by falsifying quotations. However, for some
reason, this immoral behavior draws much less ire than Frank Krygowski's
above board argumentation.


Sorry Tom but just because Frank hasn't used profanity doesn't make
his personal attacks any less irksome. As to your reference to DR,
I'm not exactly sure which of his comments you're referring to.

Look in this thread, and you will find multiple occasions where
"DirtRoadie" altered quotations - I pointed out several of them in
responses. No one else objects to this behavior, except for Phil W. Lee.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On 12/13/2010 7:48 AM, Duane Hébert wrote:
On 12/12/2010 12:26 AM, Tºm Shermªn™ °_° wrote:
On 12/11/2010 6:13 PM, DirtRoadie Who?:
On Dec 11, 4:50 pm, Phil W wrote:
considered Sat, 11 Dec 2010 09:17:20
-0800 (PST) the perfect time to write:

On Dec 11, 9:39 am, Frank wrote:
On Dec 11, 2:14 am, Phil W wrote:

But there IS a clear distinction between the use of "vehicles" which
is all encompassing, and "motor vehicles" which is not.
The statute you quote says you must conform to the requirements for
vehicles, but does not say that you must conform to those
requirements
for motor vehicles.
Sadly, (and maybe not surprisingly) English is a foreign language to
Americans, so maybe that's why their lawyers have difficulties in
understanding it.

It is amazing that such a simple point causes confusion, isn't it?

Only for those who have no grasp of how law is written and
interpreted. You would do well to do some reading about statutory
interpretation and how the result of an appellate decision
interpreting a term forecloses rehashing arguments about what the term
means.

Simple example:
Older laws are often referred to as "motor vehicle codes" and
contained references to "motor vehicles." As those evolved typically
they dropped the title "motor vehicle code" in favor of the more
complete and/or accurate "vehicle code" or "traffic code."

But sometimes the older term "motor vehicle" still lingers in sections
of law that were not completely revised or rewritten. But, as we have
seen, the newer laws typically provide that bicycles are subject to
the same rights and responsibilities as any other vehicle. So that,
and an appellate court saying "yes, the term 'motor vehicle' in that
section means bicycles, too," that's the end of it. "Motor vehicle"
means bicycles too.

You can legislate that horses are dogs, but it still doesn't make it
correct.

One does not find typically legislation that dictates the equivalent
of "horses are dogs." But much legislation says the equivalent of
"wherever the term 'dog' appears it shall be understood to include all
four legged animals, including horses."

Wrong is wrong, no matter what seniority of judge said it.

Yes, wrong is wrong and you are wrong.
YANAL. And have proven it.

Legal does not mean moral. Legal means what the authorities impose on
the people.


Laws are intended to be regulations agreed on by the majority with
respect for the rights of the minority, at least based on high school
civics class. When we start trying to legislate morality, things don't
usually work out very well. First issue being who gets to define morality?
[...]

In real life, laws are generally intended to protect the wealth and
privilege of the upper classes.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.