|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#41
|
|||
|
|||
Dave Mount wrote:
On Wed, 01 Sep 2004 16:05:42 GMT, "S o r n i" wrote: Thirty of the 142 people on these flights were interviewed by the FBI, including 22 of the 26 people (23 passengers and 3 private security guards) on the Bin Ladin flight. Many were asked detailed questions. None of the passengers stated that they had any recent contact with Usama Bin Ladin or knew anything about terrorist activity. ROTFLMAO Oh, so that's all right then. You snipped the claim that this was refuting. ("PArticularly if by "bin Laden" you mean the Saudi bin Laden family who are such good and loyal friends of Dubya that they were allowed to flee the country after 9/11 while just about everything else was grounded...") It isn't true. Bill "I know it doesn't please you to read facts" S. |
Ads |
#42
|
|||
|
|||
On Wed, 01 Sep 2004 16:45:40 GMT, "S o r n i" wrote:
You snipped the claim that this was refuting. ("PArticularly if by "bin Laden" you mean the Saudi bin Laden family who are such good and loyal friends of Dubya that they were allowed to flee the country after 9/11 while just about everything else was grounded...") What I wrote had nothing to do with any claim. It was purely laughing at the idiocy of allowing people to leave the country just because they didn't *say* they were terrorists. Rather like the way they somberly ask you if you are intending to commit any acts of terrorism when you enter the US. Now, why didn't *that* one catch the 9/11 terrorists, I wonder? Dave "You won't catch teorrorists by asking them if they're terrorists" Mount |
#43
|
|||
|
|||
On Wed, 01 Sep 2004 16:45:40 GMT, "S o r n i" wrote:
You snipped the claim that this was refuting. ("PArticularly if by "bin Laden" you mean the Saudi bin Laden family who are such good and loyal friends of Dubya that they were allowed to flee the country after 9/11 while just about everything else was grounded...") What I wrote had nothing to do with any claim. It was purely laughing at the idiocy of allowing people to leave the country just because they didn't *say* they were terrorists. Rather like the way they somberly ask you if you are intending to commit any acts of terrorism when you enter the US. Now, why didn't *that* one catch the 9/11 terrorists, I wonder? Dave "You won't catch teorrorists by asking them if they're terrorists" Mount |
#44
|
|||
|
|||
Wed, 01 Sep 2004 11:19:33 -0400,
, Badger_South wrote: The key phrase, for me, is 'this encourges the same behavior' So why add this dreck? ...towards other bikers, or towards yourself should you encounter the cager in the future. Scud jockeys give each other all the encouragement and reinforcement they need to continue their loathsome detestable ways. The skanky asswipes who threaten and menace cyclists behave the same toward other drivers too. -- zk |
#45
|
|||
|
|||
Wed, 01 Sep 2004 11:19:33 -0400,
, Badger_South wrote: The key phrase, for me, is 'this encourges the same behavior' So why add this dreck? ...towards other bikers, or towards yourself should you encounter the cager in the future. Scud jockeys give each other all the encouragement and reinforcement they need to continue their loathsome detestable ways. The skanky asswipes who threaten and menace cyclists behave the same toward other drivers too. -- zk |
#46
|
|||
|
|||
I slightly disagree. In my experience, most drivers have very few
encounters with bikers. I've been driving for 35 years and have rarely encountered a biker on the road... I guess it depends on where you live. New York is a heavily populated city - and its suburbs, especially here on Long Island, are pretty crowded, too. My "little" town (population 20,000) is definitely an automobile community. There are no bike lanes, no bike paths, and drivers have very little patience for cyclists who try to share the road with them. To survive a bike ride to the local Dunkin' Donuts means being an extremely vigilant cyclist with a good sense of what the average auto driver is thinking at any given time --especially now that one out of every three cars in our town is driven by someone with a cell phone to his/her ear virtually all the time. All this said, there is no room for bicyclists who fly around town with the attitude that they can go anywhere and do anything they please and, as long as they make it to the other side of the road, they are OK. I watched a kid get knocked at least 10 feet into the center of a very busy four lane turnpike the other day. The driver was simply waiting at a red light. He wasn't on the phone, wasn't talking to a passenger, and wasn't sipping a Starbuck's. The light turned green, a young teenager who was zipping along the sidewalk on the wrong side of the road made an uninformed decision about his ability to beat all the cars through the intersection, the driver tapped his gas pedal, and the next thing you know, cars are skidding and swerving all over the road to avoid crushing the kid's head. The driver did nothing wrong. The kid was coming from the wrong direction, on the wrong side of the road, but he probably didn't know any better. It could have changed his life forever - and it certainly could have changed the driver's life forever. Not to sound cold or unsympathetic to people who get injured on bicycles, but I resent that my life as a driver can be altered in a split second by a poorly trained or irresponsible cyclist. And, unfortunately, most of the cyclists in my community are exactly that. As I said earlier, this being a pretty bustling suburb, I see these guys, literally, every day. It wouldn't matter to me as much if dangerous bicycling was something that only popped up every once in a while. Anyway, my point in the original post was that I think we should understand that, among the many jerky, road-raging drivers out there, there are also lots of people like me who are wound just a little bit tight when we get behind the wheel and have to try to second-guess what the bicycles around us will do next. I can't assume any other cyclist is going to ride the way I do when I'm on the bike. And I can't assume that every bicyclist understands what it takes to operate a car. So when I'm driving and I see a cyclist do something that looks to be dangerous or stupid, chances are I might slip into a momentary rage, too. I might honk my horn or yell some kind of obscenity with my windows rolled all the way up. Then it goes away, and by that time, the cyclist may have caught up to me, as was the case with the guy who started this thread. And by this point, I may have lost my urge to confront him, knowing that nothing I can say or do will get through to him. That doesn't make me a baby or a wimp, and it doesn't, by any means, make him right. |
#47
|
|||
|
|||
I slightly disagree. In my experience, most drivers have very few
encounters with bikers. I've been driving for 35 years and have rarely encountered a biker on the road... I guess it depends on where you live. New York is a heavily populated city - and its suburbs, especially here on Long Island, are pretty crowded, too. My "little" town (population 20,000) is definitely an automobile community. There are no bike lanes, no bike paths, and drivers have very little patience for cyclists who try to share the road with them. To survive a bike ride to the local Dunkin' Donuts means being an extremely vigilant cyclist with a good sense of what the average auto driver is thinking at any given time --especially now that one out of every three cars in our town is driven by someone with a cell phone to his/her ear virtually all the time. All this said, there is no room for bicyclists who fly around town with the attitude that they can go anywhere and do anything they please and, as long as they make it to the other side of the road, they are OK. I watched a kid get knocked at least 10 feet into the center of a very busy four lane turnpike the other day. The driver was simply waiting at a red light. He wasn't on the phone, wasn't talking to a passenger, and wasn't sipping a Starbuck's. The light turned green, a young teenager who was zipping along the sidewalk on the wrong side of the road made an uninformed decision about his ability to beat all the cars through the intersection, the driver tapped his gas pedal, and the next thing you know, cars are skidding and swerving all over the road to avoid crushing the kid's head. The driver did nothing wrong. The kid was coming from the wrong direction, on the wrong side of the road, but he probably didn't know any better. It could have changed his life forever - and it certainly could have changed the driver's life forever. Not to sound cold or unsympathetic to people who get injured on bicycles, but I resent that my life as a driver can be altered in a split second by a poorly trained or irresponsible cyclist. And, unfortunately, most of the cyclists in my community are exactly that. As I said earlier, this being a pretty bustling suburb, I see these guys, literally, every day. It wouldn't matter to me as much if dangerous bicycling was something that only popped up every once in a while. Anyway, my point in the original post was that I think we should understand that, among the many jerky, road-raging drivers out there, there are also lots of people like me who are wound just a little bit tight when we get behind the wheel and have to try to second-guess what the bicycles around us will do next. I can't assume any other cyclist is going to ride the way I do when I'm on the bike. And I can't assume that every bicyclist understands what it takes to operate a car. So when I'm driving and I see a cyclist do something that looks to be dangerous or stupid, chances are I might slip into a momentary rage, too. I might honk my horn or yell some kind of obscenity with my windows rolled all the way up. Then it goes away, and by that time, the cyclist may have caught up to me, as was the case with the guy who started this thread. And by this point, I may have lost my urge to confront him, knowing that nothing I can say or do will get through to him. That doesn't make me a baby or a wimp, and it doesn't, by any means, make him right. |
#48
|
|||
|
|||
On Wed, 01 Sep 2004 18:20:52 GMT, "NYRides"
wrote: Not to sound cold or unsympathetic to people who get injured on bicycles, but I resent that my life as a driver can be altered in a split second by a poorly trained or irresponsible cyclist. And, unfortunately, most of the cyclists in my community are exactly that. As I said earlier, this being a pretty bustling suburb, I see these guys, literally, every day. It wouldn't matter to me as much if dangerous bicycling was something that only popped up every once in a while. Anyway, my point in the original post was that I think we should understand that, among the many jerky, road-raging drivers out there, there are also lots of people like me who are wound just a little bit tight when we get behind the wheel and have to try to second-guess what the bicycles around us will do next. I can't assume any other cyclist is going to ride the way I do when I'm on the bike. And I can't assume that every bicyclist understands what it takes to operate a car. So when I'm driving and I see a cyclist do something that looks to be dangerous or stupid, chances are I might slip into a momentary rage, too. I might honk my horn or yell some kind of obscenity with my windows rolled all the way up. Then it goes away, and by that time, the cyclist may have caught up to me, as was the case with the guy who started this thread. And by this point, I may have lost my urge to confront him, knowing that nothing I can say or do will get through to him. That doesn't make me a baby or a wimp, and it doesn't, by any means, make him right. Right, but in a way, you -know- to expect this behavior and are less susceptible to it. It's certainly not 'right', but if you're surrounded by dumb kids in bikes, then that's your milieu, and you are more-or-less prepared, or should be. Not to sound preachy, but it's just another thing you have to add to your mental checklist, and be thankful that you're more attentive than most. If it is that bad though, maybe the people in your suburb should get more police patrols so they can look at the problem? -B |
#49
|
|||
|
|||
On Wed, 01 Sep 2004 18:20:52 GMT, "NYRides"
wrote: Not to sound cold or unsympathetic to people who get injured on bicycles, but I resent that my life as a driver can be altered in a split second by a poorly trained or irresponsible cyclist. And, unfortunately, most of the cyclists in my community are exactly that. As I said earlier, this being a pretty bustling suburb, I see these guys, literally, every day. It wouldn't matter to me as much if dangerous bicycling was something that only popped up every once in a while. Anyway, my point in the original post was that I think we should understand that, among the many jerky, road-raging drivers out there, there are also lots of people like me who are wound just a little bit tight when we get behind the wheel and have to try to second-guess what the bicycles around us will do next. I can't assume any other cyclist is going to ride the way I do when I'm on the bike. And I can't assume that every bicyclist understands what it takes to operate a car. So when I'm driving and I see a cyclist do something that looks to be dangerous or stupid, chances are I might slip into a momentary rage, too. I might honk my horn or yell some kind of obscenity with my windows rolled all the way up. Then it goes away, and by that time, the cyclist may have caught up to me, as was the case with the guy who started this thread. And by this point, I may have lost my urge to confront him, knowing that nothing I can say or do will get through to him. That doesn't make me a baby or a wimp, and it doesn't, by any means, make him right. Right, but in a way, you -know- to expect this behavior and are less susceptible to it. It's certainly not 'right', but if you're surrounded by dumb kids in bikes, then that's your milieu, and you are more-or-less prepared, or should be. Not to sound preachy, but it's just another thing you have to add to your mental checklist, and be thankful that you're more attentive than most. If it is that bad though, maybe the people in your suburb should get more police patrols so they can look at the problem? -B |
#50
|
|||
|
|||
"NYRides" wrote in message .net...
Sadly, I think the "other thing" that many people have going on in their lives is an underlying frustration with bicyclists who constantly ignore the rules of the road and are frequently a menace to drivers as they weave in and out of traffic, ride on the wrong side of the road, and blow through traffic lights. It is true that unruly cyclist give everyone a bad name. But in this case, the OP was not (at least did not say he was) breaking traffic laws. Peeling-out, unecessary horn-honking, aggressive lane changes are all hallmarks of road-ragers especially if the cyclist does not impede the travel of the car in any real way. I don't think that road-ragers have a special thing for cyclists. Slow, or temporarily stopped cars bring similar responses out of them. The difference is that the cyclist is in a vastly more vulnerable situation than a car. As I said before, road-ragers have some personal conflict going on that is unrelated to traffic. No one flys into a blood rage at a stranger over trivial traffic issues unless something much deeper is bugging them. The typical advice that authorities give to potential victims of road rage applies to cyclists too: 1) Don't provoke/escalate a confrontation by responding aggressively 2) Diffuse the situation by backing off, create distance, get out of the way |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
off road or on road tyre | Skunk | UK | 14 | July 21st 04 07:55 PM |
Last Chance Road | [email protected] | Rides | 2 | June 3rd 04 03:01 AM |
Last Chance Road | [email protected] | Rides | 1 | April 29th 04 02:38 AM |
on road and off road | Richard Goodman | UK | 15 | December 16th 03 04:03 PM |
Sierra Nevada - Tioga/Sonora Pass | [email protected] | Rides | 1 | November 3rd 03 07:52 AM |