cycling Sierra Nevadas

On Thu, 23 Jun 2016 23:42:33 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 6/23/2016 7:51 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jun 2016 12:00:40 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:


The vast majority of people will not ride any significant distance no
matter what. MUPs attract a "drive to the bike path" crowd, who will
ride five miles up, then turn around and ride back.

This won't change with any realistic amount of bike infrastructure. In
fact, in America, it won't change without some catastrophic changes in
society.

But in the meantime, those like you yelling "The roads are too
dangerous!!! You MUST have bike lanes and paths to be safe!!!" are not
helping. Your false fear mongering dissuades bicycling here and now.

Something I've always wondered about is the relationship between "bike
paths" and numbers of cyclists. Does building bike paths result in an
increase in the number of cyclists?

It is probably heresy but a couple of roads I ride over do have "bike
paths", i.e., a wider than usually a side walk, perhaps 10 or 15 feet
wide, with a sign depicting a bicycle, and while the number of
bicycles I see on a Sunday ride has increased in the past few years, I
can't remember ever seeing anyone ride on the Bike Path.

What you're describing sounds more like what's now termed a "cycle
track" in the U.S. They're all the rage among pie-in-the-sky advocates,
although they're very uncommon here (only about 200 miles of them in the
entire U.S.) Other relevant bike facilities are completely separate
Multi-User Paths (mostly on abandoned railroad beds) and simple
painted-stripe bike lanes in streets, next to the curb.

I think there's generally an observed increase in the number of people
riding on these things compared to on plain streets. That's not always
true, however. (One town I visit weekly has some very nice-looking bike
lanes, in which I've seen a total of about ten bikes in five years.) A
certain percentage of those users may be people who would otherwise have
simply ridden a parallel street, but are attracted to re-route because
of the facility, and so don't represent an actual increase.

But there's almost certainly a goodly number of people attracted to
bicycling by rail-trail MUPs and the like. However, almost all of those
are cyclists of the variety who drive to the path with their bike on
their car, ride out & back, then drive home.


I didn't mean people using the "bike path" but rather when bicycle
paths, meaning any special bicycle path, road, byway, etc., are built
do the total number of cyclists in that geographical area increase?

Given what appears to be the present "danger, danger" attitude toward
bicycles one might expect that given a safe highway that bicycle use
would increase dramatically.

Here bicycles don't seem to be considered particularly dangerous, and
I've never seen an article on the news about "bike crash". Not that it
might not have happened but I certainly haven't read about it.

But I think that, perhaps, here people may have a different view of
things. A few years ago a friend of my wife stepped off the bus and
was hit by a motorcycle that was passing the bus on the curb side, and
died the next day. We attended the wake and the comments I heard were
of the "she should have looked", or "why didn't she look" variety.

Our club ride the other night passed through a parking lot for one of
those paths. One car inched its way in and clogged things up while the
driver realized there were no parking spaces left. As one of my friends
noted "There's something wrong with America when too many people think
they have to drive to a place so they can ride their bike."

I see that occasionally here although to be honest it usually seems to
be a group hauling four of five bikes somewhere. I once stopped at the
junction of a lane and a main road and a pickup with two mountain
bikes on board stopped in front of me. Two guys jumped out to check
that the bikes were secure and spoke to me, the usual "Morning, how
you doing" sort of conversation. I asked the guys where they were
going and they were driving about 200 km. to ride in a race.

--
cheers,

John B.

On Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 9:19:46 AM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote:
http://ktla.com/2016/06/20/mountain-...ught-on-video/

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

http://www.outsideonline.com/1857186...hline-festival

On 2016-06-23 22:28, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jun 2016 23:42:33 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 6/23/2016 7:51 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jun 2016 12:00:40 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:


The vast majority of people will not ride any significant distance no
matter what. MUPs attract a "drive to the bike path" crowd, who will
ride five miles up, then turn around and ride back.

This won't change with any realistic amount of bike infrastructure. In
fact, in America, it won't change without some catastrophic changes in
society.

But in the meantime, those like you yelling "The roads are too
dangerous!!! You MUST have bike lanes and paths to be safe!!!" are not
helping. Your false fear mongering dissuades bicycling here and now.

Something I've always wondered about is the relationship between "bike
paths" and numbers of cyclists. Does building bike paths result in an
increase in the number of cyclists?

It is probably heresy but a couple of roads I ride over do have "bike
paths", i.e., a wider than usually a side walk, perhaps 10 or 15 feet
wide, with a sign depicting a bicycle, and while the number of
bicycles I see on a Sunday ride has increased in the past few years, I
can't remember ever seeing anyone ride on the Bike Path.

What you're describing sounds more like what's now termed a "cycle
track" in the U.S. They're all the rage among pie-in-the-sky advocates,
although they're very uncommon here (only about 200 miles of them in the
entire U.S.) Other relevant bike facilities are completely separate
Multi-User Paths (mostly on abandoned railroad beds) and simple
painted-stripe bike lanes in streets, next to the curb.

I think there's generally an observed increase in the number of people
riding on these things compared to on plain streets. That's not always
true, however. (One town I visit weekly has some very nice-looking bike
lanes, in which I've seen a total of about ten bikes in five years.) A
certain percentage of those users may be people who would otherwise have
simply ridden a parallel street, but are attracted to re-route because
of the facility, and so don't represent an actual increase.

But there's almost certainly a goodly number of people attracted to
bicycling by rail-trail MUPs and the like. However, almost all of those
are cyclists of the variety who drive to the path with their bike on
their car, ride out & back, then drive home.


I didn't mean people using the "bike path" but rather when bicycle
paths, meaning any special bicycle path, road, byway, etc., are built
do the total number of cyclists in that geographical area increase?


It does increase ridership and reduces accident risk. One example out of
many:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bic...tml#statistics

Moreover, business also increases:

http://spm.ei.columbia.edu/files/201...-Lanes.sc_.pdf

Quote "For instance, the 9th avenue bike lane is correlated with an
increase in retail sales in local businesses by 49%, while there was
only a 3% growth in other local businesses throughout Manhattan".


Given what appears to be the present "danger, danger" attitude toward
bicycles one might expect that given a safe highway that bicycle use
would increase dramatically.

Here bicycles don't seem to be considered particularly dangerous, and
I've never seen an article on the news about "bike crash". Not that it
might not have happened but I certainly haven't read about it.


I can't imagine your news outlets being that callous about such accident.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/...illed-thailand


But I think that, perhaps, here people may have a different view of
things. A few years ago a friend of my wife stepped off the bus and
was hit by a motorcycle that was passing the bus on the curb side, and
died the next day. We attended the wake and the comments I heard were
of the "she should have looked", or "why didn't she look" variety.


That is callous :-(

Nobody needs to anticipate a motorcycle roaring along on the sidewalk.


Our club ride the other night passed through a parking lot for one of
those paths. One car inched its way in and clogged things up while the
driver realized there were no parking spaces left. As one of my friends
noted "There's something wrong with America when too many people think
they have to drive to a place so they can ride their bike."

I see that occasionally here although to be honest it usually seems to
be a group hauling four of five bikes somewhere. I once stopped at the
junction of a lane and a main road and a pickup with two mountain
bikes on board stopped in front of me. Two guys jumped out to check
that the bikes were secure and spoke to me, the usual "Morning, how
you doing" sort of conversation. I asked the guys where they were
going and they were driving about 200 km. to ride in a race.


A race is different but the issue of people trucking bikes to a
trailhead can be handled. This is why I adamantly opposed paving a long
rail trail out here to the tune of about $50M. Instead, I suggested to
use that money to first built bike paths to that trail and most of all
along the main thoroughfare through town and into the next towns.

So far that's gone nowhere. Therefore, people keep trucking their bikes.
Commuters often truck theirs to the beginning of the bike path in the
valley and then continue the rest of their commute in the saddle.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 1:11:45 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/22/2016 12:28 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2016-06-22 08:08, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/22/2016 10:38 AM, Joerg wrote:


My main concern is the bicycle infrastructure. If it ain't there I ain't
comin'.

Then, in my experience, you're missing almost all of the best bicycling
territory in the U.S.


Everyone has a different opinion about what "best" means. I have never
enjoyed and likely will never enjoy cycling on roads where there is the
constant din and smell of internal combustion engines. For me, a
combination of nice MTB trails and good cycling infrastructure is
"best". Our region comes very close to that ideal, with the exception of
a lack of bike paths and lanes in the immediate vicinity but 10mi east
that all changes for the better.

Not surprisingly the vast majority (almost all) cyclists I know think
the same way.

If your only choices are between trails (MTB or MUP) and roads with
constant traffic, perhaps you live in the wrong area.

In the rural areas of the midwest, there are hundreds of small two-lane
roads, with alternative choices frequently closer than a mile apart.
The state highways among those will have some traffic, but even those
are often far quieter than your "constant din and smell."

Example: I led a 40 mile club ride Saturday despite being sick. Since
I wasn't feeling well, I re-routed from five miles on a very quiet but
hilly road to a flat, parallel state route. I'd estimate we got passed
by maybe 30 cars. Oh, and two big trucks, with both truckers waiting
patiently until there was room to pass in the opposing lane.

Most of the rest of the ride was on beautiful, small-scale roads,
including two that passed through the middle of farm yards. On some
roads, there might be one car passing us every three miles or so.

It's not all that way, of course; and I'm competent and comfortable on
busier roads. But I wander and seek out such quiet roads for recreation
rides, and there are literally hundreds in my riding territory.

--
- Frank Krygowski

More and more in the SF Bay Area the backroads are being covered with traffic that seems to have no real place to go. Even when it would be faster to drive down a wide open road to the freeway and take that you will see people trying to "go places" on these backroads and hence speeding well above a safe speed.

Last week I was on these backroads and had a car passing me every 15 seconds even on blind turns. You would think that the law of averages would catch up with them but so far I haven't seen or more importantly been involved in these insane driving practices.

You HAVE to make drivers afraid to break the law and the police refuse to do that. They shut their eyes to even dramatically bad driving.

On 2016-06-23 15:40, DATAKOLL MARINE RESEARCH wrote:
http:http://www.outsideonline.com/1857186...hline-festival


One guy walking barefoot with beer in hand :-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Sat, 25 Jun 2016 07:23:13 +0100, Phil W Lee
wrote:

John B. considered Fri, 24 Jun 2016 12:28:43
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Thu, 23 Jun 2016 23:42:33 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 6/23/2016 7:51 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jun 2016 12:00:40 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:


The vast majority of people will not ride any significant distance no
matter what. MUPs attract a "drive to the bike path" crowd, who will
ride five miles up, then turn around and ride back.

This won't change with any realistic amount of bike infrastructure. In
fact, in America, it won't change without some catastrophic changes in
society.

But in the meantime, those like you yelling "The roads are too
dangerous!!! You MUST have bike lanes and paths to be safe!!!" are not
helping. Your false fear mongering dissuades bicycling here and now.

Something I've always wondered about is the relationship between "bike
paths" and numbers of cyclists. Does building bike paths result in an
increase in the number of cyclists?

It is probably heresy but a couple of roads I ride over do have "bike
paths", i.e., a wider than usually a side walk, perhaps 10 or 15 feet
wide, with a sign depicting a bicycle, and while the number of
bicycles I see on a Sunday ride has increased in the past few years, I
can't remember ever seeing anyone ride on the Bike Path.

What you're describing sounds more like what's now termed a "cycle
track" in the U.S. They're all the rage among pie-in-the-sky advocates,
although they're very uncommon here (only about 200 miles of them in the
entire U.S.) Other relevant bike facilities are completely separate
Multi-User Paths (mostly on abandoned railroad beds) and simple
painted-stripe bike lanes in streets, next to the curb.

I think there's generally an observed increase in the number of people
riding on these things compared to on plain streets. That's not always
true, however. (One town I visit weekly has some very nice-looking bike
lanes, in which I've seen a total of about ten bikes in five years.) A
certain percentage of those users may be people who would otherwise have
simply ridden a parallel street, but are attracted to re-route because
of the facility, and so don't represent an actual increase.

But there's almost certainly a goodly number of people attracted to
bicycling by rail-trail MUPs and the like. However, almost all of those
are cyclists of the variety who drive to the path with their bike on
their car, ride out & back, then drive home.


I didn't mean people using the "bike path" but rather when bicycle
paths, meaning any special bicycle path, road, byway, etc., are built
do the total number of cyclists in that geographical area increase?

Very rarely - the less experienced just change their route to include
the facilities - although the more experienced (road) cyclists may
well change their routes to avoid them!

Given what appears to be the present "danger, danger" attitude toward
bicycles one might expect that given a safe highway that bicycle use
would increase dramatically.

It's just become the standard excuse (neatly provided by so many
existing cyclists) for being lazy.

Here bicycles don't seem to be considered particularly dangerous, and
I've never seen an article on the news about "bike crash". Not that it
might not have happened but I certainly haven't read about it.

But I think that, perhaps, here people may have a different view of
things. A few years ago a friend of my wife stepped off the bus and
was hit by a motorcycle that was passing the bus on the curb side, and
died the next day. We attended the wake and the comments I heard were
of the "she should have looked", or "why didn't she look" variety.

That I find very strange, if the bus had stopped to allow passengers
on or off.\

Buses normally stop close to the curb but if there are two buses
stopped at the same stop or maybe if there aren't many passengers
getting on or off, the bus might stop a little way out from the curb,
which is what I expect happened.

Here, that motorcyclist would have been facing both a criminal
prosecution for Causing Death by Dangerous Driving (or maybe just
careless, if there was some extenuating circumstance) and a civil case
from the dependant relatives.

If they caught him he certainly would be facing a criminal charge,
maybe 10 years in the "gray bar hotel". But irregardless, my wife's
friend is dead.

As for civil charges I'm not sure whether the court would accept that.
I think that if he is found guilty he would go to jail and if found
innocent I don't believe that there could be any further legal claim
available as if "innocent" then how can one sue an innocent man?

Our club ride the other night passed through a parking lot for one of
those paths. One car inched its way in and clogged things up while the
driver realized there were no parking spaces left. As one of my friends
noted "There's something wrong with America when too many people think
they have to drive to a place so they can ride their bike."

I see that occasionally here although to be honest it usually seems to
be a group hauling four of five bikes somewhere. I once stopped at the
junction of a lane and a main road and a pickup with two mountain
bikes on board stopped in front of me. Two guys jumped out to check
that the bikes were secure and spoke to me, the usual "Morning, how
you doing" sort of conversation. I asked the guys where they were
going and they were driving about 200 km. to ride in a race.

That is clearly rather different - I wouldn't expect McLaren, Red
Bull, Mercedes or Ferrari to drive their F1 cars to races either!

Not so really. You drive 200 Km. to ride your bike in a race, or you
drive 25 km to ride your bike for recreation. the only difference is
the distance.

As for F1 cars, they aren't legal to drive on public roads, No lights
and I doubt greatly whether they can pass a "smog test". And, I
suspect that with their very low ride height they wouldn't be capable
of traveling on the bumpy roads I hear described here :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

On 6/25/2016 2:37 AM, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 25 Jun 2016 07:23:13 +0100, Phil W Lee
wrote:

John B. considered Fri, 24 Jun 2016 12:28:43
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Thu, 23 Jun 2016 23:42:33 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 6/23/2016 7:51 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jun 2016 12:00:40 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:


The vast majority of people will not ride any significant distance no
matter what. MUPs attract a "drive to the bike path" crowd, who will
ride five miles up, then turn around and ride back.

This won't change with any realistic amount of bike infrastructure. In
fact, in America, it won't change without some catastrophic changes in
society.

But in the meantime, those like you yelling "The roads are too
dangerous!!! You MUST have bike lanes and paths to be safe!!!" are not
helping. Your false fear mongering dissuades bicycling here and now.

Something I've always wondered about is the relationship between "bike
paths" and numbers of cyclists. Does building bike paths result in an
increase in the number of cyclists?

It is probably heresy but a couple of roads I ride over do have "bike
paths", i.e., a wider than usually a side walk, perhaps 10 or 15 feet
wide, with a sign depicting a bicycle, and while the number of
bicycles I see on a Sunday ride has increased in the past few years, I
can't remember ever seeing anyone ride on the Bike Path.

What you're describing sounds more like what's now termed a "cycle
track" in the U.S. They're all the rage among pie-in-the-sky advocates,
although they're very uncommon here (only about 200 miles of them in the
entire U.S.) Other relevant bike facilities are completely separate
Multi-User Paths (mostly on abandoned railroad beds) and simple
painted-stripe bike lanes in streets, next to the curb.

I think there's generally an observed increase in the number of people
riding on these things compared to on plain streets. That's not always
true, however. (One town I visit weekly has some very nice-looking bike
lanes, in which I've seen a total of about ten bikes in five years.) A
certain percentage of those users may be people who would otherwise have
simply ridden a parallel street, but are attracted to re-route because
of the facility, and so don't represent an actual increase.

But there's almost certainly a goodly number of people attracted to
bicycling by rail-trail MUPs and the like. However, almost all of those
are cyclists of the variety who drive to the path with their bike on
their car, ride out & back, then drive home.


I didn't mean people using the "bike path" but rather when bicycle
paths, meaning any special bicycle path, road, byway, etc., are built
do the total number of cyclists in that geographical area increase?

Very rarely - the less experienced just change their route to include
the facilities - although the more experienced (road) cyclists may
well change their routes to avoid them!

Given what appears to be the present "danger, danger" attitude toward
bicycles one might expect that given a safe highway that bicycle use
would increase dramatically.

It's just become the standard excuse (neatly provided by so many
existing cyclists) for being lazy.

Here bicycles don't seem to be considered particularly dangerous, and
I've never seen an article on the news about "bike crash". Not that it
might not have happened but I certainly haven't read about it.

But I think that, perhaps, here people may have a different view of
things. A few years ago a friend of my wife stepped off the bus and
was hit by a motorcycle that was passing the bus on the curb side, and
died the next day. We attended the wake and the comments I heard were
of the "she should have looked", or "why didn't she look" variety.

That I find very strange, if the bus had stopped to allow passengers
on or off.\

Buses normally stop close to the curb but if there are two buses
stopped at the same stop or maybe if there aren't many passengers
getting on or off, the bus might stop a little way out from the curb,
which is what I expect happened.

Here, that motorcyclist would have been facing both a criminal
prosecution for Causing Death by Dangerous Driving (or maybe just
careless, if there was some extenuating circumstance) and a civil case
from the dependant relatives.

If they caught him he certainly would be facing a criminal charge,
maybe 10 years in the "gray bar hotel". But irregardless, my wife's
friend is dead.

As for civil charges I'm not sure whether the court would accept that.
I think that if he is found guilty he would go to jail and if found
innocent I don't believe that there could be any further legal claim
available as if "innocent" then how can one sue an innocent man?

Our club ride the other night passed through a parking lot for one of
those paths. One car inched its way in and clogged things up while the
driver realized there were no parking spaces left. As one of my friends
noted "There's something wrong with America when too many people think
they have to drive to a place so they can ride their bike."

I see that occasionally here although to be honest it usually seems to
be a group hauling four of five bikes somewhere. I once stopped at the
junction of a lane and a main road and a pickup with two mountain
bikes on board stopped in front of me. Two guys jumped out to check
that the bikes were secure and spoke to me, the usual "Morning, how
you doing" sort of conversation. I asked the guys where they were
going and they were driving about 200 km. to ride in a race.

That is clearly rather different - I wouldn't expect McLaren, Red
Bull, Mercedes or Ferrari to drive their F1 cars to races either!

Not so really. You drive 200 Km. to ride your bike in a race, or you
drive 25 km to ride your bike for recreation. the only difference is
the distance.

As for F1 cars, they aren't legal to drive on public roads, No lights
and I doubt greatly whether they can pass a "smog test". And, I
suspect that with their very low ride height they wouldn't be capable
of traveling on the bumpy roads I hear described here :-)


I am not an attorney but my understanding is that one may be
found either guilty or not guilty. 'Innocent' is not a choice.

The standard for criminal guilt is 'beyond a reasonable
doubt' and examples abound of men found not guilty
criminally who were later found liable in civil court where
the standard is 'preponderance of evidence', a lower bar.

An actual attorney might correct me if I'm mistaken.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

1 April, 1971

I not aware of an actual attorney here giving actual legal advice

but I'll fill in

www.bikepacking.net/tripreports

http://bikepackersmagazine.com/calif...et/tripreports

well no….either depends on who you are where you are and if there is a victim, intentional or accidental, one or multiple victims, is the jury friendly, funneled into sentencing, probation, fine plus community service..
One guilty ‘party’ may get 5 years

A second for the same exact offense receive 100 hrs community service with a fine.

The third walks.

The fourth is fatally beaten over a period of several days.

The fifth gets a book n film offer moves to Polynesia.

so whose guilty ?

the innoscent win the case then owe the lawyer .5 mill n is beaten by goons from the loser.

the loser gets a book n film,,,,,

On Saturday, June 25, 2016 at 5:18:09 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/25/2016 2:37 AM, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 25 Jun 2016 07:23:13 +0100, Phil W Lee
wrote:

John B. considered Fri, 24 Jun 2016 12:28:43
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Thu, 23 Jun 2016 23:42:33 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 6/23/2016 7:51 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jun 2016 12:00:40 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:


The vast majority of people will not ride any significant distance no
matter what. MUPs attract a "drive to the bike path" crowd, who will
ride five miles up, then turn around and ride back.

This won't change with any realistic amount of bike infrastructure. In
fact, in America, it won't change without some catastrophic changes in
society.

But in the meantime, those like you yelling "The roads are too
dangerous!!! You MUST have bike lanes and paths to be safe!!!" are not
helping. Your false fear mongering dissuades bicycling here and now.

Something I've always wondered about is the relationship between "bike
paths" and numbers of cyclists. Does building bike paths result in an
increase in the number of cyclists?

It is probably heresy but a couple of roads I ride over do have "bike
paths", i.e., a wider than usually a side walk, perhaps 10 or 15 feet
wide, with a sign depicting a bicycle, and while the number of
bicycles I see on a Sunday ride has increased in the past few years, I
can't remember ever seeing anyone ride on the Bike Path.

What you're describing sounds more like what's now termed a "cycle
track" in the U.S. They're all the rage among pie-in-the-sky advocates,
although they're very uncommon here (only about 200 miles of them in the
entire U.S.) Other relevant bike facilities are completely separate
Multi-User Paths (mostly on abandoned railroad beds) and simple
painted-stripe bike lanes in streets, next to the curb.

I think there's generally an observed increase in the number of people
riding on these things compared to on plain streets. That's not always
true, however. (One town I visit weekly has some very nice-looking bike
lanes, in which I've seen a total of about ten bikes in five years.) A
certain percentage of those users may be people who would otherwise have
simply ridden a parallel street, but are attracted to re-route because
of the facility, and so don't represent an actual increase.

But there's almost certainly a goodly number of people attracted to
bicycling by rail-trail MUPs and the like. However, almost all of those
are cyclists of the variety who drive to the path with their bike on
their car, ride out & back, then drive home.


I didn't mean people using the "bike path" but rather when bicycle
paths, meaning any special bicycle path, road, byway, etc., are built
do the total number of cyclists in that geographical area increase?

Very rarely - the less experienced just change their route to include
the facilities - although the more experienced (road) cyclists may
well change their routes to avoid them!

Given what appears to be the present "danger, danger" attitude toward
bicycles one might expect that given a safe highway that bicycle use
would increase dramatically.

It's just become the standard excuse (neatly provided by so many
existing cyclists) for being lazy.

Here bicycles don't seem to be considered particularly dangerous, and
I've never seen an article on the news about "bike crash". Not that it
might not have happened but I certainly haven't read about it.

But I think that, perhaps, here people may have a different view of
things. A few years ago a friend of my wife stepped off the bus and
was hit by a motorcycle that was passing the bus on the curb side, and
died the next day. We attended the wake and the comments I heard were
of the "she should have looked", or "why didn't she look" variety.

That I find very strange, if the bus had stopped to allow passengers
on or off.\

Buses normally stop close to the curb but if there are two buses
stopped at the same stop or maybe if there aren't many passengers
getting on or off, the bus might stop a little way out from the curb,
which is what I expect happened.

Here, that motorcyclist would have been facing both a criminal
prosecution for Causing Death by Dangerous Driving (or maybe just
careless, if there was some extenuating circumstance) and a civil case
from the dependant relatives.

If they caught him he certainly would be facing a criminal charge,
maybe 10 years in the "gray bar hotel". But irregardless, my wife's
friend is dead.

As for civil charges I'm not sure whether the court would accept that.
I think that if he is found guilty he would go to jail and if found
innocent I don't believe that there could be any further legal claim
available as if "innocent" then how can one sue an innocent man?

Our club ride the other night passed through a parking lot for one of
those paths. One car inched its way in and clogged things up while the
driver realized there were no parking spaces left. As one of my friends
noted "There's something wrong with America when too many people think
they have to drive to a place so they can ride their bike."

I see that occasionally here although to be honest it usually seems to
be a group hauling four of five bikes somewhere. I once stopped at the
junction of a lane and a main road and a pickup with two mountain
bikes on board stopped in front of me. Two guys jumped out to check
that the bikes were secure and spoke to me, the usual "Morning, how
you doing" sort of conversation. I asked the guys where they were
going and they were driving about 200 km. to ride in a race.

That is clearly rather different - I wouldn't expect McLaren, Red
Bull, Mercedes or Ferrari to drive their F1 cars to races either!

Not so really. You drive 200 Km. to ride your bike in a race, or you
drive 25 km to ride your bike for recreation. the only difference is
the distance.

As for F1 cars, they aren't legal to drive on public roads, No lights
and I doubt greatly whether they can pass a "smog test". And, I
suspect that with their very low ride height they wouldn't be capable
of traveling on the bumpy roads I hear described here :-)


I am not an attorney but my understanding is that one may be
found either guilty or not guilty. 'Innocent' is not a choice.

The standard for criminal guilt is 'beyond a reasonable
doubt' and examples abound of men found not guilty
criminally who were later found liable in civil court where
the standard is 'preponderance of evidence', a lower bar.

An actual attorney might correct me if I'm mistaken.

You're right -- O.J. being an example.

-- Jay Beattie.

You're right -- O.J. being an example.

take Whitey B .... when ? after 20 years of wiretaps n bugs ?

or Bin Laden.

expect Al Bagdaddy's termination Nov 1

papers around giving a statistical sweet spot for ideal guilt or not guilt.....outside that fairness rules.

basic English Law, a system we chronically scream against.

Wisconsin ? we expect WI generally having a wide sweetspot. MOOOOOO ....

but there's Warbucks in Milwaukee...

yawl know the electric railroad pre Musk ?