Fifty Plus (50+) - Uh-oh...another car vs bicycle...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/06/car-smashes-into-cyclists-in-baldwin-hills-area-one-critically-injured.html

Texting driver? Perhaps. Hang up and drive!

Drunk AND looking at her phone.

Drunk AND looking at her phone.

Yeah. Obviously, she had important things to do. Driving wasn't one of them.

Texting while driving seems to have become the "new smoking". The more some people are told not to do it, they more they will do it, with an air of defiance, and
a "Nobody tells ME what to do!" school of thought.

Reminiscent of an incident here, where a "distracted" truck driver plowed into a motorcycle group ride stopped at a light. Several were killed. A co-worker was in the club, but not on the ride.

Texting while driving seems to have become the "new smoking". The more some people are told not to do it, they more they will do it, with an air of defiance, and
a "Nobody tells ME what to do!" school of thought.

Around here, it's illegal, so some people rather, then have the phone on the top of the wheel, where they can at least see part of the road, they have it down in their lap, so they concentrate on their lap instead of the road. IMNSHO, if the !@#$%^& text is that !@#$%^& important, then pull off then !@#$%^& road, to send it, otherwise leave it.

As for drunk driving, the penalties are no where near stiff enough, because people still do it. What I don't get, there was a program set up, probably close to 20 years ago, called RIDE, Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere, the police will set up a road block, stop every car, talk to the driver, if there is a suspicion or admittance of drinking, you have to breathe into a machine, with 3 lights, get a green it's have a nice day, yellow and your not allowed to drive for 12 hours, get a red, your going to the police station for a full Breathalyzer test, if you don't pass, your charged with a DUI. Okay, so it's routine, they do it a lot around Christmas, they still catch thousands of drivers every year in these checks. Are people really that !@#$%^& stupid?

sarals, Every year we have a charity ride in October that starts at 2 AM (I've ridden almost every year since 1985). Only by extra ordinarily good luck has nobody been involved in a car-bike accident, we have plenty of other accidents tho' as there are many cyclists not used to riding in dense packs.

Brad

Out on a ride the other day ,a ding dong female on a a bike was riding along texting on her GD phone,, Jeeze!!!
Bud

Last year in the Tampa area we had 8 bicycle fatalities within 6 months (from Jan to June). Not all being the fault of the automobile driver. Some of the riders that were killed were riding at night with dark clothing and no lights and/or reflectors, even though it is the law here in Florida that requires a front and rear bike light.

We had a memorial night ride for five of the fatalities to promote bicycle awareness and on that morning the sixth fatality happened when a car ran a red light and hit a cyclist broadside while she was on the sidewalk waiting to cross the road to get to work. The car hit her and ran her into a house on the same corner she was stopped at. The driver was texting her husband to tell him she was going to be late getting home.

We have to be the worst area in the US for bicycle safety but the city council and county commissioners have pledged to do something about it after one of our former governor's son (a retired Navy Admiral) was hit and killed on his morning ride by a driver in a hurry to get to work. I just hope they do something soon to make this a bicycle friendly city.

Unfortunately, we are an enabling society with laws and courts set up in such a way as to enable even the worst repeat offenders to continue to wreak havoc on our roadways. How many times do we read about un-licensed drivers involved in horrific accidents, only to later learn they had previously lost their license due to a DWI conviction.

Until we put some real pain into the guilty verdicts, this rampant outrage will continue. I would like to see material confiscation as punishment. You drive while drunk, your car gets confiscated and sold. It's a whole lot harder to drive without a car than without a license. How many cars does one need to buy to learn not to drink and drive? You talk or text on a cell phone while driving, your phone gets taken away. How many phones are you going to buy before you learn your lesson?

Until we wake up and get tough this vehicular slaughter will continue.

O.K. Now it's time to get off of my soapbox and allow this forum to return to it's regular programing. The preceeding rant is solely the opinion of one individual crotchety old poop whose daughter's four month old car got creamed from behind three days ago because some bimbo in a BMW couldn't be bothered to look out her windshield. :50:

EDIT: Just talked with my daughter. Her car was a 2005 Acura RSX Type S that she purchased in Feb of this year. She had been saving up for this purchase for the entire three years that she's been working in L.A. It was a low mileage, well maintained vehicle in her favorite color. This is a car that caught her eye back in 2005 at a local auto expo that she had attended. She had decided then and there to start saving up to buy one as soon as she graduated. I say was because it looks like they're going to total it as the damages already exceed $14,000!! I don't know who's more broken hearted, me or her. The ditz the plowed into her claims that she thinks maybe someone tapped her rear-end and she must have hit the gas insted of the brake!! That God my daughter was not on her Sport Bike instead of her car...I would have been posting this from some L.A. hospital, or worse. :mad:

How do you punish someone like that? When you think about how even non-serious injuries can significantly affect a lifestyle, how can the punishment ever be really fair. The driver gets 30-90 days, but the victims are punished for years. If a car hit me and I broke my leg, I'd want the guilty party to push me on my bike back and forth to work until I could pedal again.

-Gary

Agreed! Plus, be present for each and every one of my rehab sessions - as well as pay for them.

Unfortunately, DUI checkpoints are not particularly effective in the age of smartphones. Until recently, there were a variety of apps available that would alert drivers to the checkpoint locations. Even without them, bartenders have phone trees...word travels fast. A better solution is designated DUI officers whose primary function in the wee hours is to locate and arrest drunks...it's not as visible, but it works. IIRC, the top DUI officer in the US made between 450-500 DUI arrests in 2010. And he was just the top person in his dept's Traffic unit.

Unfortunately, we are an enabling society with laws and courts set up in such a way as to enable even the worst repeat offenders to continue to wreak havoc on our roadways. How many times do we read about un-licensed drivers involved in horrific accidents, only to later learn they had previously lost their license due to a DWI conviction.

Until we put some real pain into the guilty verdicts, this rampant outrage will continue. I would like to see material confiscation as punishment. You drive while drunk, your car gets confiscated and sold. It's a whole lot harder to drive without a car than without a license. How many cars does one need to buy to learn not to drink and drive? You talk or text on a cell phone while driving, your phone gets taken away. How many phones are you going to buy before you learn your lesson?

Until we wake up and get tough this vehicular slaughter will continue.

O.K. Now it's time to get off of my soapbox and allow this forum to return to it's regular programing. The preceeding rant is solely the opinion of one individual crotchety old poop whose daughter's four month old car got creamed from behind three days ago because some bimbo in a BMW couldn't be bothered to look out her windshield. :50:
Totally agre.

Around here, it's illegal, so some people rather, then have the phone on the top of the wheel, where they can at least see part of the road, they have it down in their lap, so they concentrate on their lap instead of the road. IMNSHO, if the !@#$%^& text is that !@#$%^& important, then pull off then !@#$%^& road, to send it, otherwise leave it.

As for drunk driving, the penalties are no where near stiff enough, because people still do it. What I don't get, there was a program set up, probably close to 20 years ago, called RIDE, Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere, the police will set up a road block, stop every car, talk to the driver, if there is a suspicion or admittance of drinking, you have to breathe into a machine, with 3 lights, get a green it's have a nice day, yellow and your not allowed to drive for 12 hours, get a red, your going to the police station for a full Breathalyzer test, if you don't pass, your charged with a DUI. Okay, so it's routine, they do it a lot around Christmas, they still catch thousands of drivers every year in these checks. Are people really that !@#$%^& stupid?

In my state of Massachusetts, the roadblocks go up on Holiday weekends, with summer holiday weekends being "the big ones". These roadblocks are run by either local police, or MA state police. Yes, they catch drunk drivers, but frequently, they simply get off with minimal penalties. And, should your driver's license get suspended or revoked, the penalty it a $100.00 fine. This is true whether it is your first offense, or your tenth. A Bill was filed a few years back, to toughen up these penalties, but it went nowhere. The only real good news is that drunk drivers get pulled from the roads for at least one night.

Police here will pull over people when they observe them texting and driving. What is interesting, is that when stopped, they always want to argue about it. "I was not texting!" And so forth and so on....:notamused:

Drunk AND looking at her phone.

Is there another report with the results of the investigation?

Broadcast reports from the scene suggested that officers also are looking into whether she might have been texting or been otherwise distracted. Her name has not been released.

Is there another report with the results of the investigation?

Its been almost a month since a popular juv/probate judge was killed in daylight while riding on a country road here and no news of the outcome. Hit and run driver later called police after arriving home. She thought she had hit a deer (riding a bike?). Maybe they're still studying phone records or analyzing sobriety tests. When/what/where is justice served?

Well http://www.truecrimereport.com/2010/11/martin_erzinger_morgan_stanley.phpis is old news

Recently in my neighborhood a college professor was hit by an unlicensed driver and the papers seem to be taking the driver's side since (apparently the SUV turned across traffic against a red light in front of the bike) the bike hit the side of SUV.

Yesterday down in Santa Cruz a driver was arrested for hit-and-run homicide, apparently while drinking, and it's been pointed out that his penalties are actually likely to be less than if he had remained at the scene (and the bicyclist may have possibly survived) -- in other words, the state of CA will actually pay you to kill cyclists, in an add sort of way

Outraged? Yes.

But first and foremost, be careful out there