R.I.P. Jim Price (aka. "biker_billy", "sydney", "Boudreaux")

A very sad note that Jim Price was struck and killed a couple of days
ago. He was a frequent poster on several forums and famous for his
incredible knowedge of bicycles and for his very sharp wit. The
story is that Jim (63 yrs old) was in a bike lane and struck by a 17 yr
old driver who was attempting to text message and drive at the same
time. This is very sad loss for the cycling world.

My condolences to his family. Rest in peace, Jim. You will be
missed.

Please see a message from his daughter:
http://forums.bicycling.com/thread.j...47561&tstart=0

"spin156" wrote:

A very sad note that Jim Price was struck and killed a couple of days
ago. He was a frequent poster on several forums and famous for his
incredible knowedge of bicycles and for his very sharp wit. The
story is that Jim (63 yrs old) was in a bike lane and struck by a 17 yr
old driver who was attempting to text message and drive at the same
time. This is very sad loss for the cycling world.

My condolences to his family. Rest in peace, Jim. You will be
missed.

Please see a message from his daughter:
http://forums.bicycling.com/thread.j...47561&tstart=0

Now THIS sucks.

If you knew Jim in one of his online personas ... then you *knew* Jim.

Controversial, condescending, right far more often than wrong, and
immutable in his style

Sorry, Kids, but I *relish* the "HANG UP!" sign in my back window....

Fare thee well, Jim. You'll be missed .....

A mile today for the fallen.
--
Live simply so that others may simply live

spin156 wrote:
A very sad note that Jim Price was struck and killed a couple of days
ago. He was a frequent poster on several forums and famous for his
incredible knowedge of bicycles and for his very sharp wit. The
story is that Jim (63 yrs old) was in a bike lane and struck by a 17
yr old driver who was attempting to text message and drive at the same
time. This is very sad loss for the cycling world.

My condolences to his family. Rest in peace, Jim. You will be
missed.

Please see a message from his daughter:
http://forums.bicycling.com/thread.j...47561&tstart=0

Wow, someone just posted a very matter-of-fact article about this in rbm
(which was the point of his post -- that the article was TOO
matter-of-fact). I don't he (or I, for that matter) recognized the victim's
name.

Damn sad story; R.I.P. indeed...

This story has moved onto the national news:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/26/tex....ap/index.html

Jim's daughter, Kimberlee, has put up a bunch of posts on
bikeforums.net and cyclingforums.com (and probably more) using Jim's
logins and discussing her
father's life and his death. As you can see from the CNN article,
Jim's wife,
Shirley, is being very forgiving of the young driver. Considering
how high his
profile was on all of these forums, it's all kind of surreal. I'm
going to miss this
guy. He added more than a little spice to this broth we are in.

-- Bill

CEarly wrote:

and he chose to fool with his cell phone will driving.
It's *STRICTLY* forbidden here and huge fines are given. Only hands free
calling is allowed here. I'm amazed this is considered to be normal in the
US.

Greets, Derk

"spin156" wrote in message
ups.com...
This story has moved onto the national news:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/26/tex....ap/index.html

Jim's daughter, Kimberlee, has put up a bunch of posts on
bikeforums.net and cyclingforums.com (and probably more) using Jim's
logins and discussing her
father's life and his death. As you can see from the CNN article,
Jim's wife,
Shirley, is being very forgiving of the young driver. Considering
how high his
profile was on all of these forums, it's all kind of surreal. I'm
going to miss this
guy. He added more than a little spice to this broth we are in.

-- Bill


So, the CNN article says the kid on the cell phone who couldn't control
his truck is being considered for a misdemeanor charge that might result in
1 year in the slammer. Big deal. As long as we Americans continue to view
killing cyclists with our vehicles as not particularly loathsome,
prosecutions for vehicular homicide will continue to be weak.

Typically, a spokesperson for the local sheriff tries to minimize the
severity of the driver's act with, "We do not believe it was an intentional
act..." The driver chose to drive, which involves the inherent
responsibility to do so safely and not kill other people, and he chose to
fool with his cell phone will driving. The root causes for Jim Price's
death were choices made by this driver. It wasn't an unavoidable
"accident". It was manslaughter. Killing a cyclist probably isn't what the
driver set out to do that day, but his criminal negligence and lack of
responsibility should net him much more than a misdemeanor prosecution. He
screwed his life up, but at least he's still alive. Jim Price isn't and
that's entirely the fault of this driver.

We have far too much of a "forgive and forget - let's get back to driving"
attitude in this country regarding killing other people with our vehicles,
and it needs to change. We've got stronger laws for killing other people
than the specially weakened ones that tend to get used when vehicles are
involved. Let's use them! Maybe it will start to change the mindset that
killing someone with your vehicle is somehow less serious than doing it with
a baseball bat.

I hope the initial shock of Jim's death wears off soon and his surviving
family members seek redress in a civil suit. The driver's parents need to
feel some pain for allowing their minor child to pilot that truck, knowing
he had a cell phone and probably being the signatories for the service
agreement for it. Why is a 17-yr old kid so important that he needs a cell
phone to use while driving alone anyway?

As many have expressed: Rest in peace, Jim

Cal

In article ,
Derk wrote:

CEarly wrote:

and he chose to fool with his cell phone will driving.
It's *STRICTLY* forbidden here and huge fines are given. Only hands free
calling is allowed here. I'm amazed this is considered to be normal in the
US.

Almost everyone focuses entirely upon the mechanics of
cellular telephone usage by operators of motor
vehicles. This is not the main problem. The main
problem is that the motor vehicle operator removes
attention from his surroundings and activities to
devote his attention to the mvo's relationship with the
person at the other end of the telephone connection. We
are all very social and very interested in our
relationships.

Another thing to consider is that the other party to
the conversation is not in the motor vehicle, so the
other party is free to provoke the mvo, to hurt the
mvo's feelings, and otherwise render him unfit to
operate a motor vehicle. The party on the other end is
free to do things he would never consider were he a
passenger in the motor vehicle.

One resultant that I see very often is a mvo in the
fast lane slowing and slowing and slowing, and when I
finally get around it see that it is engaged in a
telephone conversation.

--
Michael Press

"Michael Press" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Derk wrote:

CEarly wrote:

and he chose to fool with his cell phone will driving.
It's *STRICTLY* forbidden here and huge fines are given. Only hands free
calling is allowed here. I'm amazed this is considered to be normal in
the
US.

Almost everyone focuses entirely upon the mechanics of
cellular telephone usage by operators of motor
vehicles. This is not the main problem. The main
problem is that the motor vehicle operator removes
attention from his surroundings and activities to
devote his attention to the mvo's relationship with the
person at the other end of the telephone connection. We
are all very social and very interested in our
relationships.

Another thing to consider is that the other party to
the conversation is not in the motor vehicle, so the
other party is free to provoke the mvo, to hurt the
mvo's feelings, and otherwise render him unfit to
operate a motor vehicle. The party on the other end is
free to do things he would never consider were he a
passenger in the motor vehicle.

One resultant that I see very often is a mvo in the
fast lane slowing and slowing and slowing, and when I
finally get around it see that it is engaged in a
telephone conversation.

--
Michael Press


True. Obviously, distraction is the problem, regardless of the reason for
it. Here, the reason was dicking around with a cell phone on the part of a
mimimally experienced driver. Result: death (unfortunately, not the
driver's)

Cal

Derk wrote:
CEarly wrote:

and he chose to fool with his cell phone will driving.
It's *STRICTLY* forbidden here and huge fines are given. Only hands free
calling is allowed here. I'm amazed this is considered to be normal in the
US.

Some individual states in the US have similar laws, but personally I
think they miss the main message of the safety studies that have been
done. All the studies I've seen that compared hands-free vs. regular
cellphone use found that both resulted in greatly increased risk
compared to driving without any cellphone use. The main problem is not
that the driver's hand is in use on the phone, but that his mind and
attention are engaged there rather than on his driving. The situation
is quite different from normal conversation with a passenger who is
present in the car and can see when the driving situation is more
critical and their possibly heated discussion should be suspended.

The cellular industry has cleverly joined with legislators in creating
laws that allow only hands-free devices as a way to forestall more
restrictive rules that would restrict all phone use while driving.
This allows the cellular companies to continue to increase sales and
even to gain additional profits from sales of the hands-free
accessories. And of course it's a popular approach with many
legislators who themselves rely on their cellphones while driving.

Derk wrote:
CEarly wrote:

and he chose to fool with his cell phone will driving.
It's *STRICTLY* forbidden here and huge fines are given. Only hands free
calling is allowed here. I'm amazed this is considered to be normal in the
US.

Study after study have shown that driving with a cell phone, hands free
or not, increases your risk of a mishap as much as driving drunk. Hands
free units make NO difference.

-paul