bikes are too fast for sidewalks, and too slow for traffic lanes

On Jul 17, 10:29*am, " wrote:

Statistically speaking, most murderers are people who know the victim
well or at least have some personal connection. *Truly random murders
are fairly rare.

Agreed, but a big part of the non-personal attacks are muggings. *I
think that "thugs" would be less likely to be pulling guns on
strangers a larger portion of the population was known to be carrying
weapons themselves.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Carrying a concealed weapon is not easy to do for a cyclist, and then
drawing first would be even more difficult. Cagers already have a
weapon in their hand: their vehicle.

On Jul 17, 11:30*am, Doug Smith W9WI wrote:
On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:28:24 -0700, KingOfTheApes wrote:
Witnesses told police they saw a suspect run down a street in the
mostly residential neighborhood.

The shooter took a ring of keys from Babcock, according to MYFOX
Toledo.

Judging from these two lines, this looks a LOT more like robbery than road
rage. *

The dangers on the road come in many ways. Anyone can get behind the
wheel and get away with light sentences when they kill innocents. But
if these predators were riding bikes instead of cars, they wouldn't be
as dangerous.

Once again, my intention is NOT to keep cyclists from the roads, but
to change the laws --or lack of laws-- that make cycling unnecessarily
dangerous. In the UK at least you've got better traffic laws if not
better bike facilities.

Woman pleads guilty after killing cyclist with her car

UTICA, N.Y. (AP) - A 23-year-old Utica woman pleaded guilty to
striking and killing a bicyclist with her car in September.

Jodi Marris pleaded guilty yesterday to second-degree vehicular
manslaughter and driving under the influence of drugs in the death of
48-year-old Peter Zacek Junior. She admitted she'd mixed prescription
medication and marijuana before the crash.

Marris says she was returning from visiting her boyfriend in the Lewis
County Jail when she noticed her driving beginning to swerve. She
continued to drive until she struck Zacek as he rode his bike along
the highway. She says she never saw him until after she hit him.

She faces no more than two to six years in prison when she's sentenced
in September.

http://www.fox44.net/Global/story.as...&nav=menu660_1

On Jul 17, 2:47*pm, KingOfTheApes wrote:
On Jul 17, 10:29*am, " wrote:

Statistically speaking, most murderers are people who know the victim
well or at least have some personal connection. *Truly random murders
are fairly rare.

Agreed, but a big part of the non-personal attacks are muggings. *I
think that "thugs" would be less likely to be pulling guns on
strangers a larger portion of the population was known to be carrying
weapons themselves.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Carrying a concealed weapon is not easy to do for a cyclist, and then
drawing first would be even more difficult. Cagers already have a
weapon in their hand: their vehicle.

1) Carrying concealed on a bicycle is easy, unless you're insistent on
skin-tight clothing. A baggy shirt and a good holster accomplishes
wonders.

2) The situation in question here involved the cyclist stopped,
arguing with a man on foot and getting shot & robbed. Not really
relative to car vs. gun combat.

On Jul 17, 3:53*pm, " wrote:

Carrying a concealed weapon is not easy to do for a cyclist, and then
drawing first would be even more difficult. Cagers already have a
weapon in their hand: their vehicle.

1) Carrying concealed on a bicycle is easy, unless you're insistent on
skin-tight clothing. *A baggy shirt and a good holster accomplishes
wonders.

2) The situation in question here involved the cyclist stopped,
arguing with a man on foot and getting shot & robbed. *Not really
relative to car vs. gun combat.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I've thought we didn't know that. Anyway *I* had an incident that
would have called for a gun if I had one, or for law and order on our
roads...

I was riding causeway "X" with my girlfriend, taking the lane, two
lanes in each direction, nearly no traffic, signs say bikes must be
walked along bridges' sidewalks, 3 bridges ranging from 200 to 900
feet... First incident: Policeman waves me off the road
(indifference)... Second incident, down the road, no bridge: Guy in
SUV blasts the horn (road rage), I have second thoughts about taking
the lane... Third incident, riding against the curb, back on the
bridge: Yet another guy in SUV insistently blows the horn (without me
knowing what it means), I give him the finger, and he stops (road rage
escalation). He threatens to get off the car (he's much stronger than
me, plus he's in a 3 ton vehicle), and I try to get out of the
situation. He says he was trying to help me (he's playing vigilante)
by having me safely walk the bike on the sidewalk. We argue, he spits
at my face and takes off. Luckily no guns on either side. I don't
react to get his license plate, and wouldn't have made a difference
anyway. I never go for the puppet, but for the puppeteer...

Now suppose I had a gun: What should I have done? Isn't it better that
they built more bike facilities, and taught drivers to respect
cyclists? There was a policeman with the speed gun nearby (collection
time). I bet if they sent undercover policemen on bikes, the way
policewomen do hookers, none of that would have happened, or at least
it would be a step in the right direction, right? But they argue
there's no funds for that...

I went back to this bridge a few days ago and the sidewalk is so
narrow that is completely unrideable, and perhaps even unwalkable with
a bike. One step wrong and you fall into traffic. The police set up
these signs for no good reason, and any vigilante out there can feel
the need to fill the void. Never again back on that causeway which is
one major way to get to stores as well as parks with my bike. Now I
just drive or avoid the area altogether. And other major roads are
closed for me as well due to heavy (and chaotic) traffic.

Only law out there is the Law of the Jungle. Take meditation or take a
gun. Or go on the Internet and make a lot of noise about it. That's
the best weapon the monkey's got --besides the banana.

WHY THE BANANA REVOLUTION?
http://webspawner.com/users/bananarevolution

Tim McNamara wrote:
...
Statistically speaking, most murderers are people who know the victim
well or at least have some personal connection. Truly random murders
are fairly rare.

No, random murders are by far the most common. However, the murderers
prefer the term "collateral damage" to murder.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
"People who had no mercy will find none." - Anon.

On Jul 17, 7:58 pm, Tom Sherman
wrote:
catzz66 wrote:
This is an exception, but I have generally decided not to reply to this
guy's threads. What possible good could come from cross posting to
rec.bicycles.misc, alt.planning.urban, rec.bicycles.soc,
rec.bicycles.rides, uk.rec.cycling?

CROSS-POSTED FLAME WAR!!!

If you find a pile of cow manure by
the side of the road and stir it up, you still just have a stirred up
pile of cow manure.

But the smell will be greater if the crust of the cow "pie" is broken to
reveal the soft, steaming interior.

Cow **** is better than bull ****.

(I'm working on a quotation book)

On Jul 17, 7:54*pm, Tom Sherman
wrote:
Tim McNamara wrote:
...
Statistically speaking, most murderers are people who know the victim
well or at least have some personal connection. *Truly random murders
are fairly rare.

No, random murders are by far the most common. However, the murderers
prefer the term "collateral damage" to murder.


They also prefer the term "liberation" instead of "invasion"...

Orwell called it "newspeak," right?

On Jul 17, 6:20 pm, catzz66 wrote:
This is an exception, but I have generally decided not to reply to this
guy's threads. What possible good could come from cross posting to
rec.bicycles.misc, alt.planning.urban, rec.bicycles.soc,
rec.bicycles.rides, uk.rec.cycling? If you find a pile of cow manure by
the side of the road and stir it up, you still just have a stirred up
pile of cow manure.

Monkeys throw **** when they get mad, that's why we have to consider
cows quite civilized.

Good thing the Internet allows for civilized conflict resolution.

"Don't tease the monkey" T-shirt...

http://www.zazzle.com/don_t_tease_th...55204051654433

On Jul 18, 1:04*pm, KingOfTheApes wrote:
"Don't tease the monkey" T-shirt...

http://www.zazzle.com/don_t_tease_th...55204051654433

"A civilized society cannot let the law of the jungle rule its roads;
if we want to ensure fairness, government must act to protect the
weak."

And why should we protect the monkey, not the lion? Because then the
lion will eat the monkey, stupid. And that keeps the other monkeys
terrorized, which is not what we want. We want them to come out,
right?

Here's a smart comment on the subject...

"The purpose of the police power is to protect public health, safety,
and welfare. When it comes down to cars vs. bicycles, the latter need
greater protection than the former -- after all, cars kill more
Americans than guns do, whereas beds kill more Americans than bikes
do.

That's why places which truly embrace bicycling as a valid (and safe)
mode of transportation have laws that aren't fair: bicycles get more
rights than cars. In many northern European countries, the driver is
always at fault in a bicycle-car crash. Some municipalities even
completely exempt bicycles from many road regulations (like one-way
traffic flow) -- since such regulations are often intended to regulate
cars (in the one-way example, that street might be too narrow for two
cars to pass but plenty wide for two bikes to pass).

A civilized society cannot let the law of the jungle rule its roads;
if we want to ensure fairness, government must act to protect the
weak.

The #1 reason that people cite for not bicycling more often is that
they feel that biking is unsafe. It isn't, really -- in fact, not
bicycling degrades your life expectancy more than bicycling -- but it
can be made much safer through good policies, enforced fairly."

Posted by PCC | June 25, 2008 8:30 PM

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.c..._hierarchy.php