oilman_15106

This link is to the story on one of our 50+ brothers killed while commuting to work in broad daylight. https://kdka.com/local/Bike.Pittsburg...2.1722025.html

He is one of 5 cyclists killed since the start of the cycling season. Pittsburgh is named a bike friendly place? WTF.

There has been plenty of blog about this and other "accidents" this year. My thoughts on this are the truck driver should be charged with criminally negligent homicide. What is the difference between running down a person on a bike and shooting someone? The Supreme Court allows sex offenders to be kept in prison past their sentence but has there been one sentence to a motorist who hit a cyclist?

I have left instructions to my wife that if this ever happens to me, she is to have our attorney file a negligent homicide civil suit for $5 million in damages regardless of the criminal charges. We need to ruin the life of the offending drivers as they have done to the families they have impacted.

The only way the message is that we have the same rights as cars/trucks is something dramatic needs done. Mandatory jail time for a driver who kills a cyclist. I am calling and writing my State Rep.

BlazingPedals

IMNSHO, LAB should look at more than bike paths and trails when designating 'bicycle-friendly' communities. No bicycling fatalities due to traffic would be a good start. Even better would be to look at local court cases for a pattern of cyclist-friendly rulings. This includes responding to complaints of motorist harassment, cops not harassing cyclists to get on the sidewalks or for delaying traffic, and cyclist-friendly court rulings.

I'm with you; a motorist saying they didn't see the cyclist shouldn't be a defense -- it should be taken as an admission that they weren't paying proper attention.

ahsposo 

In addition to the distracted drivers out there there are those unfortunates with no power in there miserable lives who see a cyclist as something weak they can intimidate. Reference the driver menacing the courier in the OP's attachment. They can be unemployed pick-up driving bubbas or BMW driving emergency room MDs.

Cycling and alternative transportation infrastructure is expensive and politically weak in the USA. Nobody wants to pay for it or be inconvenienced by having it in their roadway. The city near where I live just put in less than a mile of bike path on a wide, lightly traveled residential street that, as far as I'm concerned, was a waste of paint. It wasn't needed where they put it. However from the press and TV coverage you would think it was a major addition to the quality of life in this area. It doesn't connect to any of the other bike lanes that don't connect to each other. There is no "plan" to make moving on a bike through the city safe and convenient. They are obviously taking the least expensive and "easiest" places to "make bike friendly" and ignoring the real dangerous and difficult places.

rant/

Maybe this horror that is occurring in the Gulf is going to make us wake up and realize that it is time to end our dependence on petroleum and reconsider how we move around. BUT I SERIOUSLY DOUBT IT.

/rant

NOS88

This is indeed sad. I've wondered how I'll go. At times I think going while riding is ideal, but not like that.

ahsposo 

Then when I'm reading about the roadies stabbed in Jacksonville, FL in a thread posted on the 41 I see this:

A couple of things disturbed me about this.

What are you doing letting a guy on a beater pass you? Have you no pride?

Did he just rob the C-Store and was making a quick get away?

oilman_15106

On getting passed: we were just starting out from the C store and you know it takes a bit of time for a group to get in motion. We could have dusted the guy but with the gun thing, who knows. Don't know if he was fleeing the scene of a crime. He was on a 5 speed or something and pedaling like Lance.

ahsposo 

I was really just pulling your leg.

When I lived in NC I would run into this kid riding all sorts of home-built beater bikes. He was sort of hill-billy like - uncut hair (long, not styled or stylish, rough) cast-off looking clothes. First would see him on a tandem riding solo no seat for the stoker and obvious duct tape on his. Then on a home built chopper style bike. Then on a nasty bigbox store mountain bike. All over the place but mostly out NW of town where I guessed he lived. I would wave or speak to him as we passed each other on opposing paths and I remember he would mostly ignore me. Then one day he was out in front and I cranked it up to catch him. I just wanted to say hello (and catch him and then pass him) but at some point on my approach he became aware of me gaining on him and he just imperceptibly cranked it up and eventually left me spitting out chunks of my lungs and heart onto the side of the road.

DX-MAN

The J'ville story is another one like the post-Kornholer radio disaster, when a DC SUV rammed a cyclist, got out, cussed out the cyclist, and left. The story Westover told is another -- death threats and aggression with the car? Come ON!

I agree -- the LAB claims to be an advocacy organization, I think it's time for someone there to get a little militant.