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The University of Aalborg Study on Daytime Flashing Lights for Bicycles.
On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 13:57:48 +0700, John B.
wrote: On Thu, 23 Mar 2017 19:35:07 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote: I'm just trying to deduce or guess why there are no CF bicycle lights. I can get most everything else in CF but not lights. If the industry can produce CF water bottle cages, helmets, and bicycle pumps, why not lights? I suspect it is that thing called "demand". Practically every bike I see has a bottle cage on it and far less often do I see a light. That's because removable bicycle headlights are too easy to steal. So, the owner removes them before parking his bicycle. During the daytime, my headlight lives in my overflowing bicycle junk bag. The only time the general public is allowed to view my bicycle headlight is under cover of darkness. Of course, I rarely ride at night, giving the impression that I don't own a bicycle headlight. Given my speculation that a majority of the bicycling world follows a similar operating paradigm, the general impression would be that few riders own a bicycle headlight. However, I do agree that there is little demand for CF (carbon fiber) bicycle headlights. This is because few people buy CF bicycles just to win races. I suspect that the vast majority of CF bicycles are sold as a financial status symbol for the owner. Riding around town on a $4,000 and up machine is certain to gain the attention of other envious riders aspiring to own such an expensive machine. The problem is that one cannot show off such a machine at night, when nobody can see it. It must be shown during daylight hours when a bicycle headlight is not needed, thus explaining the lack of demand for CF headlights. Assuming a manufactory would accept my market analysis, the appropriate headlight would an "emergency" light, that would only make its appearance if the owner is caught after dark and without an audience. Wires would be aesthetically disgusting and detract from the spectacle. Therefore battery power would be acceptable. Light output should be on the dim side, so as not to blind anyone that might be impressed by the rolling status symbol. Temporarily clamping the light to aero handlebars might be awkward, but still possible. Of course, the price should be in line with the rest of the bicycle and seriously overpriced. But I suspect that with a intensive SAFEYTY! program it might be possible to change that. The problem with CF bicycles is that they tend to lack the structural integrity and safety margins needed to be genuinely safe. Judging by the numerous photos of CF stress and fatigue failures found online, riding near impending failure is considered normal. I've often suspected that this is to maximize the damage from a crash, thus inspiring a lucrative CF repair and frame replacement market. If riders were genuinely interested in safety, they would not consider a CF machine. I would guess(tm) that the prime motivations for purchasing a CF bicycle are high cost, sex appeal, looks fast even while standing still, very low mass, and speed potential. If I extended this list to include trivia, safety would be somewhere near the bottom. Calcium Carbide is also quite useful as a fishing tool. A screw top bottle or can, a bit of calcium carbide and a rock. Put the rock and the carbide in the bottle/can, add the cap, after punching a tiny nail hole in it, and drop in the lake. After a few minutes fish will start to float by. Belly up. I didn't know that was possible. If I ride my bicycle with an attached carbide lantern into a lake or river, will that also kill the fish? Kinda sounds like something that deserves a warning label on the lantern. When I went to the phone company and cancelled my account the nice young lady there asked me if I minded telling her why I wanted to cancel my account and I related my little story. She smiled and replied, "Yes, some people do notice" I had a similar experience with my Verizon cell phone bill. I had 3 of my friends on a "family plan" from Verizon. It saved them quite a bit of money on their cell phone bill, as long as the total number of minutes per month was under some maximum. Over the years, prepaid rapidly became cheaper, while monthly plans increased in cost. I finally noticed when I compared bills with a lady friend and discovered that I was seriously overpaying. Currently I am looking for a small talk only phone. I can buy a brand new phone for about $20 but I really want one of the tiny phones like Nokia used to sell. Remember when phones used to be advertised as small and petite? Well, if you want small and cute, try a Samsung Juke (SCH-u470) or https://www.google.com/search?q=samsung+juke&tbm=isch I wasn't terribly impressed with the range, battery life, construction, survivability, picture quality, and overall design, but they are small and cool looking. In public, it looks like you're talking into the palm of your upraised hand which attracts onlookers wondering "where's the phone?" -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
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#82
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The University of Aalborg Study on Daytime Flashing Lights forBicycles.
On 3/24/2017 11:35 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
... I rarely ride at night, giving the impression that I don't own a bicycle headlight. Given my speculation that a majority of the bicycling world follows a similar operating paradigm, the general impression would be that few riders own a bicycle headlight. Many lower-end bikes come with stickers saying "Never Ride at Night." Surely, such "Danger! Danger!" warnings affect people's behavior. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#83
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The University of Aalborg Study on Daytime Flashing Lights for Bicycles.
On Friday, March 24, 2017 at 1:36:54 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/24/2017 11:35 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: ... I rarely ride at night, giving the impression that I don't own a bicycle headlight. Given my speculation that a majority of the bicycling world follows a similar operating paradigm, the general impression would be that few riders own a bicycle headlight. Many lower-end bikes come with stickers saying "Never Ride at Night." Surely, such "Danger! Danger!" warnings affect people's behavior. -- - Frank Krygowski Or maybe they just forgot to add a line saying "...without using an approved bicycle light or reflectors". Without the warning not to ride at night the bicycle manufacturer and the store are both open to being sued when some idiot without lights or even reflectors rides at night on a dark road and gets hit. Cheers |
#84
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The University of Aalborg Study on Daytime Flashing Lights for Bicycles.
On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 11:18:58 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot
wrote: On Friday, March 24, 2017 at 1:36:54 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 3/24/2017 11:35 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: ... I rarely ride at night, giving the impression that I don't own a bicycle headlight. Given my speculation that a majority of the bicycling world follows a similar operating paradigm, the general impression would be that few riders own a bicycle headlight. Many lower-end bikes come with stickers saying "Never Ride at Night." Surely, such "Danger! Danger!" warnings affect people's behavior. -- - Frank Krygowski Or maybe they just forgot to add a line saying "...without using an approved bicycle light or reflectors". Without the warning not to ride at night the bicycle manufacturer and the store are both open to being sued when some idiot without lights or even reflectors rides at night on a dark road and gets hit. Cheers Years ago I bought a Greg LeMond frame and built up a road bike. The frame came with small, arrow shaped decals near the dropouts, saying "Failure to tighten this bolt may cause loss of the wheel". Together with the "Never ride at night" decals that Frank mentions and your warning about being sued, it probably demonstrates the level of intelligence that others perceive bicyclists to have. After all, they have to be told repeatedly, over and over again, to always wear those helmets that will save their lives, to use the asphalt melting bright lights, that tiny little flashing lights will make them 32% safer. Good Lord! Can these people be bright enough to be out alone? Riding on public roads? Perhaps if we could limit bicycle riding so that it takes place only on approved pathways, never at night, and only under the supervision of a trained supervisor we could stop the carnage on the roads caused by these two wheeled killers. -- Cheers, John B. |
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The University of Aalborg Study on Daytime Flashing Lights forBicycles.
On 3/24/2017 8:11 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 11:18:58 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot wrote: On Friday, March 24, 2017 at 1:36:54 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 3/24/2017 11:35 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: ... I rarely ride at night, giving the impression that I don't own a bicycle headlight. Given my speculation that a majority of the bicycling world follows a similar operating paradigm, the general impression would be that few riders own a bicycle headlight. Many lower-end bikes come with stickers saying "Never Ride at Night." Surely, such "Danger! Danger!" warnings affect people's behavior. -- - Frank Krygowski Or maybe they just forgot to add a line saying "...without using an approved bicycle light or reflectors". Without the warning not to ride at night the bicycle manufacturer and the store are both open to being sued when some idiot without lights or even reflectors rides at night on a dark road and gets hit. Cheers Years ago I bought a Greg LeMond frame and built up a road bike. The frame came with small, arrow shaped decals near the dropouts, saying "Failure to tighten this bolt may cause loss of the wheel". Together with the "Never ride at night" decals that Frank mentions and your warning about being sued, it probably demonstrates the level of intelligence that others perceive bicyclists to have. After all, they have to be told repeatedly, over and over again, to always wear those helmets that will save their lives, to use the asphalt melting bright lights, that tiny little flashing lights will make them 32% safer. Good Lord! Can these people be bright enough to be out alone? Riding on public roads? Perhaps if we could limit bicycle riding so that it takes place only on approved pathways, never at night, and only under the supervision of a trained supervisor we could stop the carnage on the roads caused by these two wheeled killers. -- Cheers, John B. I've mentioned this case before here on RBT. My very good friend's company was sued after an underage thief was killed crossing an Interstate (pedestrians and cyclists prohibited) with a freshly stolen bicycle. The open QR front wheel fell out when he came up out of the ditch onto a traffic lane. The attorney for the mother of said miscreant argued that while Schwinns in his store had "do not ride at night" stickers and also "do not ride without properly securing wheel quick release" stickers, the brand in question lacked both. The jury opined that the bicycles we imported were nonconforming to 'accepted industry standards'. -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
#86
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The University of Aalborg Study on Daytime Flashing Lights for Bicycles.
On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 08:35:18 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote: On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 13:57:48 +0700, John B. wrote: On Thu, 23 Mar 2017 19:35:07 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote: I'm just trying to deduce or guess why there are no CF bicycle lights. I can get most everything else in CF but not lights. If the industry can produce CF water bottle cages, helmets, and bicycle pumps, why not lights? I suspect it is that thing called "demand". Practically every bike I see has a bottle cage on it and far less often do I see a light. That's because removable bicycle headlights are too easy to steal. So, the owner removes them before parking his bicycle. During the daytime, my headlight lives in my overflowing bicycle junk bag. The only time the general public is allowed to view my bicycle headlight is under cover of darkness. Of course, I rarely ride at night, giving the impression that I don't own a bicycle headlight. Given my speculation that a majority of the bicycling world follows a similar operating paradigm, the general impression would be that few riders own a bicycle headlight. On the other hand, bicycle lights don't seem to be a necessity at all, at least not here. I often see people riding after dark, or perhaps more accurately before dawn, with no lights. Of course, these aren't those with the skin tight panties and the colorful jerseys, it is the ones with the hum-drum clothing who are going about their daily shopping chores. They also seem to ride on the "wrong side of the road", so they can see oncoming traffic I suppose, and usually not too far from the curb, undoubtedly so that the can hop off and run in an emergency. However, I do agree that there is little demand for CF (carbon fiber) bicycle headlights. This is because few people buy CF bicycles just to win races. I suspect that the vast majority of CF bicycles are sold as a financial status symbol for the owner. Riding around town on a $4,000 and up machine is certain to gain the attention of other envious riders aspiring to own such an expensive machine. The problem is that one cannot show off such a machine at night, when nobody can see it. It must be shown during daylight hours when a bicycle headlight is not needed, thus explaining the lack of demand for CF headlights. Assuming a manufactory would accept my market analysis, the appropriate headlight would an "emergency" light, that would only make its appearance if the owner is caught after dark and without an audience. Wires would be aesthetically disgusting and detract from the spectacle. Therefore battery power would be acceptable. Light output should be on the dim side, so as not to blind anyone that might be impressed by the rolling status symbol. Temporarily clamping the light to aero handlebars might be awkward, but still possible. Of course, the price should be in line with the rest of the bicycle and seriously overpriced. I suspect that a manufacturer might be inclined to accept your market analysis if you were to guarantee any losses that he might incur from following them :-) But I suspect that with a intensive SAFEYTY! program it might be possible to change that. The problem with CF bicycles is that they tend to lack the structural integrity and safety margins needed to be genuinely safe. Judging by the numerous photos of CF stress and fatigue failures found online, riding near impending failure is considered normal. I've often suspected that this is to maximize the damage from a crash, thus inspiring a lucrative CF repair and frame replacement market. If riders were genuinely interested in safety, they would not consider a CF machine. I would guess(tm) that the prime motivations for purchasing a CF bicycle are high cost, sex appeal, looks fast even while standing still, very low mass, and speed potential. If I extended this list to include trivia, safety would be somewhere near the bottom. There is no problem at all in building what would be essentially a bullet proof CF bicycle. After all, the latest Boeing transport has large sections of composite materials and I doubt that the insurers would accept the same excuses that the bicycleing fraternity accepts. Calcium Carbide is also quite useful as a fishing tool. A screw top bottle or can, a bit of calcium carbide and a rock. Put the rock and the carbide in the bottle/can, add the cap, after punching a tiny nail hole in it, and drop in the lake. After a few minutes fish will start to float by. Belly up. I didn't know that was possible. If I ride my bicycle with an attached carbide lantern into a lake or river, will that also kill the fish? Kinda sounds like something that deserves a warning label on the lantern. Nope, you need the bottle/can with the tiny hole in the lid and the rock ballast for it to work properly. My guess that if carbide lights were marketed today, in the U.S. they would have to be a yard high to include all the warnings. Good Lord! These things can explode; blow up!.... "are you some sort of terrorist?" When I went to the phone company and cancelled my account the nice young lady there asked me if I minded telling her why I wanted to cancel my account and I related my little story. She smiled and replied, "Yes, some people do notice" I had a similar experience with my Verizon cell phone bill. I had 3 of my friends on a "family plan" from Verizon. It saved them quite a bit of money on their cell phone bill, as long as the total number of minutes per month was under some maximum. Over the years, prepaid rapidly became cheaper, while monthly plans increased in cost. I finally noticed when I compared bills with a lady friend and discovered that I was seriously overpaying. Currently I am looking for a small talk only phone. I can buy a brand new phone for about $20 but I really want one of the tiny phones like Nokia used to sell. Remember when phones used to be advertised as small and petite? Well, if you want small and cute, try a Samsung Juke (SCH-u470) or https://www.google.com/search?q=samsung+juke&tbm=isch I wasn't terribly impressed with the range, battery life, construction, survivability, picture quality, and overall design, but they are small and cool looking. In public, it looks like you're talking into the palm of your upraised hand which attracts onlookers wondering "where's the phone?" Nope! None of that Korean made stuff. Nokia has promised to resurrect the 3310 and I will either wait for that or alternately buy a "classic", i.e. "old", Nokia. I will never forget the first person I ever saw talking on a hand phone using a "hands-free" (as they are referred to here). It was early in the morning and he was standing on the corner of Orchard Road, in Singapore, waving his arms and talking in a loud voice. I thought he was some sort of religious fanatic and hurried by without looking directly at him :-) -- Cheers, John B. |
#87
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The University of Aalborg Study on Daytime Flashing Lights for Bicycles.
On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 20:40:36 -0500, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/24/2017 8:11 PM, John B. wrote: On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 11:18:58 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot wrote: On Friday, March 24, 2017 at 1:36:54 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 3/24/2017 11:35 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: ... I rarely ride at night, giving the impression that I don't own a bicycle headlight. Given my speculation that a majority of the bicycling world follows a similar operating paradigm, the general impression would be that few riders own a bicycle headlight. Many lower-end bikes come with stickers saying "Never Ride at Night." Surely, such "Danger! Danger!" warnings affect people's behavior. -- - Frank Krygowski Or maybe they just forgot to add a line saying "...without using an approved bicycle light or reflectors". Without the warning not to ride at night the bicycle manufacturer and the store are both open to being sued when some idiot without lights or even reflectors rides at night on a dark road and gets hit. Cheers Years ago I bought a Greg LeMond frame and built up a road bike. The frame came with small, arrow shaped decals near the dropouts, saying "Failure to tighten this bolt may cause loss of the wheel". Together with the "Never ride at night" decals that Frank mentions and your warning about being sued, it probably demonstrates the level of intelligence that others perceive bicyclists to have. After all, they have to be told repeatedly, over and over again, to always wear those helmets that will save their lives, to use the asphalt melting bright lights, that tiny little flashing lights will make them 32% safer. Good Lord! Can these people be bright enough to be out alone? Riding on public roads? Perhaps if we could limit bicycle riding so that it takes place only on approved pathways, never at night, and only under the supervision of a trained supervisor we could stop the carnage on the roads caused by these two wheeled killers. -- Cheers, John B. I've mentioned this case before here on RBT. My very good friend's company was sued after an underage thief was killed crossing an Interstate (pedestrians and cyclists prohibited) with a freshly stolen bicycle. The open QR front wheel fell out when he came up out of the ditch onto a traffic lane. The attorney for the mother of said miscreant argued that while Schwinns in his store had "do not ride at night" stickers and also "do not ride without properly securing wheel quick release" stickers, the brand in question lacked both. The jury opined that the bicycles we imported were nonconforming to 'accepted industry standards'. My personal opinion is that U.S. courts have perpetrated some extremely illogical rulings on the population. An individual orders a cup of hot coffee. They are served a cup of hot coffee. They then accept and pay for the cup of hot coffee and carry it away. Subsequently they spill the hot coffee on themselves and it is determined that it was the people who brewed the coffee that were at fault. Now you tell the story about the chap that steals a bicycle and it is the seller who is at fault that he gets run over. Here we don't have jury trials which means that one has to convince a trained jurist that you are correct and I do not believe that they will accept the premise that not tightening the axle nuts on a bicycle sitting in your shop is the cause of a bicycle thief crashing. Nor that spilling hot coffee on yourself is someone else's fault :-) I suppose that ultimately someone will steal a bicycle and when caught with the stolen goods, tried, convicted and sentenced, will than sue the manufacturer of the bicycle since logically if "they" hadn't made the bicycle it couldn't have been stolen.... It is obvious that "reality" in the U.S. is significantly different than the rest of the world. -- Cheers, John B. |
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The University of Aalborg Study on Daytime Flashing Lights for Bicycles.
On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 13:36:50 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote: Many lower-end bikes come with stickers saying "Never Ride at Night." Surely, such "Danger! Danger!" warnings affect people's behavior. I suspect that buyers are immune to such nonsense. Such stickers are everywhere. I've been involved in a few too many product liability suits. Part of what has become almost ritual is the final decision or settlement includes a requirement that the manufacturer attach a warning label to the product so that future users can take evasive action. Sometimes it's an insert with the product, which these days is mostly warnings and repudiation of responsibility documents. I forgot who's headlight or flashlight had the warning label "Do not look into lamp while in use" or something like that. Instead of discouraging me from buying this light, I deduced that anything bright enough to require a warning label must really be super bright. In other words, warning labels can sometimes be used to sell the product. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
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The University of Aalborg Study on Daytime Flashing Lights for Bicycles.
On Saturday, March 25, 2017 at 1:16:17 AM UTC-4, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 20:40:36 -0500, AMuzi wrote: On 3/24/2017 8:11 PM, John B. wrote: On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 11:18:58 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot wrote: On Friday, March 24, 2017 at 1:36:54 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 3/24/2017 11:35 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: ... I rarely ride at night, giving the impression that I don't own a bicycle headlight. Given my speculation that a majority of the bicycling world follows a similar operating paradigm, the general impression would be that few riders own a bicycle headlight. Many lower-end bikes come with stickers saying "Never Ride at Night." Surely, such "Danger! Danger!" warnings affect people's behavior. -- - Frank Krygowski Or maybe they just forgot to add a line saying "...without using an approved bicycle light or reflectors". Without the warning not to ride at night the bicycle manufacturer and the store are both open to being sued when some idiot without lights or even reflectors rides at night on a dark road and gets hit. Cheers Years ago I bought a Greg LeMond frame and built up a road bike. The frame came with small, arrow shaped decals near the dropouts, saying "Failure to tighten this bolt may cause loss of the wheel". Together with the "Never ride at night" decals that Frank mentions and your warning about being sued, it probably demonstrates the level of intelligence that others perceive bicyclists to have. After all, they have to be told repeatedly, over and over again, to always wear those helmets that will save their lives, to use the asphalt melting bright lights, that tiny little flashing lights will make them 32% safer. Good Lord! Can these people be bright enough to be out alone? Riding on public roads? Perhaps if we could limit bicycle riding so that it takes place only on approved pathways, never at night, and only under the supervision of a trained supervisor we could stop the carnage on the roads caused by these two wheeled killers. -- Cheers, John B. I've mentioned this case before here on RBT. My very good friend's company was sued after an underage thief was killed crossing an Interstate (pedestrians and cyclists prohibited) with a freshly stolen bicycle. The open QR front wheel fell out when he came up out of the ditch onto a traffic lane. The attorney for the mother of said miscreant argued that while Schwinns in his store had "do not ride at night" stickers and also "do not ride without properly securing wheel quick release" stickers, the brand in question lacked both. The jury opined that the bicycles we imported were nonconforming to 'accepted industry standards'. My personal opinion is that U.S. courts have perpetrated some extremely illogical rulings on the population. An individual orders a cup of hot coffee. They are served a cup of hot coffee. They then accept and pay for the cup of hot coffee and carry it away. Subsequently they spill the hot coffee on themselves and it is determined that it was the people who brewed the coffee that were at fault. Now you tell the story about the chap that steals a bicycle and it is the seller who is at fault that he gets run over. Here we don't have jury trials which means that one has to convince a trained jurist that you are correct and I do not believe that they will accept the premise that not tightening the axle nuts on a bicycle sitting in your shop is the cause of a bicycle thief crashing. Nor that spilling hot coffee on yourself is someone else's fault :-) I suppose that ultimately someone will steal a bicycle and when caught with the stolen goods, tried, convicted and sentenced, will than sue the manufacturer of the bicycle since logically if "they" hadn't made the bicycle it couldn't have been stolen.... It is obvious that "reality" in the U.S. is significantly different than the rest of the world. -- Cheers, John B. The OLD lady bought the coffee, set it between her legs as she sat on the front passenger seat of the stopped car in the drive-thru lane. Then she removed the lid of the coffee. The driver drove forwards which caused the very hot coffee to spill and scald her in a very sensitive region of her anatomy. IMHO, the fault was due to three people, #1, the woman for putting the hot coffe between her legs and then removing the lid, #2, her son for putting the car into motion whilst his mother had the opened coffee cup between her legs and lastly #3, the store for selling what the courts determined was OVERLY hot coffee. Cheers |
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The University of Aalborg Study on Daytime Flashing Lights forBicycles.
On 3/25/2017 1:31 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Saturday, March 25, 2017 at 1:16:17 AM UTC-4, John B. wrote: On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 20:40:36 -0500, AMuzi wrote: On 3/24/2017 8:11 PM, John B. wrote: On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 11:18:58 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot wrote: On Friday, March 24, 2017 at 1:36:54 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 3/24/2017 11:35 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: ... I rarely ride at night, giving the impression that I don't own a bicycle headlight. Given my speculation that a majority of the bicycling world follows a similar operating paradigm, the general impression would be that few riders own a bicycle headlight. Many lower-end bikes come with stickers saying "Never Ride at Night." Surely, such "Danger! Danger!" warnings affect people's behavior. -- - Frank Krygowski Or maybe they just forgot to add a line saying "...without using an approved bicycle light or reflectors". Without the warning not to ride at night the bicycle manufacturer and the store are both open to being sued when some idiot without lights or even reflectors rides at night on a dark road and gets hit. Cheers Years ago I bought a Greg LeMond frame and built up a road bike. The frame came with small, arrow shaped decals near the dropouts, saying "Failure to tighten this bolt may cause loss of the wheel". Together with the "Never ride at night" decals that Frank mentions and your warning about being sued, it probably demonstrates the level of intelligence that others perceive bicyclists to have. After all, they have to be told repeatedly, over and over again, to always wear those helmets that will save their lives, to use the asphalt melting bright lights, that tiny little flashing lights will make them 32% safer. Good Lord! Can these people be bright enough to be out alone? Riding on public roads? Perhaps if we could limit bicycle riding so that it takes place only on approved pathways, never at night, and only under the supervision of a trained supervisor we could stop the carnage on the roads caused by these two wheeled killers. -- Cheers, John B. I've mentioned this case before here on RBT. My very good friend's company was sued after an underage thief was killed crossing an Interstate (pedestrians and cyclists prohibited) with a freshly stolen bicycle. The open QR front wheel fell out when he came up out of the ditch onto a traffic lane. The attorney for the mother of said miscreant argued that while Schwinns in his store had "do not ride at night" stickers and also "do not ride without properly securing wheel quick release" stickers, the brand in question lacked both. The jury opined that the bicycles we imported were nonconforming to 'accepted industry standards'. My personal opinion is that U.S. courts have perpetrated some extremely illogical rulings on the population. An individual orders a cup of hot coffee. They are served a cup of hot coffee. They then accept and pay for the cup of hot coffee and carry it away. Subsequently they spill the hot coffee on themselves and it is determined that it was the people who brewed the coffee that were at fault. Now you tell the story about the chap that steals a bicycle and it is the seller who is at fault that he gets run over. Here we don't have jury trials which means that one has to convince a trained jurist that you are correct and I do not believe that they will accept the premise that not tightening the axle nuts on a bicycle sitting in your shop is the cause of a bicycle thief crashing. Nor that spilling hot coffee on yourself is someone else's fault :-) I suppose that ultimately someone will steal a bicycle and when caught with the stolen goods, tried, convicted and sentenced, will than sue the manufacturer of the bicycle since logically if "they" hadn't made the bicycle it couldn't have been stolen.... It is obvious that "reality" in the U.S. is significantly different than the rest of the world. The OLD lady bought the coffee, set it between her legs as she sat on the front passenger seat of the stopped car in the drive-thru lane. Then she removed the lid of the coffee. The driver drove forwards which caused the very hot coffee to spill and scald her in a very sensitive region of her anatomy. IMHO, the fault was due to three people, #1, the woman for putting the hot coffe between her legs and then removing the lid, #2, her son for putting the car into motion whilst his mother had the opened coffee cup between her legs and lastly #3, the store for selling what the courts determined was OVERLY hot coffee. You emphasize the word 'old' and yet most teenagers have learned that hot coffee is hot. Maybe 'old' is not such a critical factor here. -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
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