webist

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/bicyc...ent_id=1733759

Andy Dreisch

"... struck by a drunk driver Saturday while walking with her husband in downtown Santa Fe."

The thread starter post, however, suggests that the person was hit while on the bike.

Not that being hit while walking is good news, of course, and I hope all ends well, and they of course should string up the drunken driver, but let's make sure we stick with facts here. It's bad enough, the number of bicycle accidents caused by drunken drivers.

webist

Perhaps I mistook the Ride the Rockies organizer as somehow bicycle related.

webist

Or, perhaps we are cyclists only when we are on our bike.

WaltH

Doesn't matter...that bozo will be back on the streets driving illegally within 30 days. What's he got to lose. Cops should be allowed to plant lead in his brain in the cell today. How sucky would it be to get tagged by a 10 time loser? 11 time loser next time.

Andy Dreisch

Settle down, webist ... just clarifying an ambiguous suggestion.

Spire

The article said it was the guyz 10th DWI, what was this guy still doing on the road? Says wonders for the legal system.

Andy Dreisch

How true. He s/b strung up and fed to the animals.

Feldman

There was a motorist fatality in Portland last week caused by a guy with a similar record--who admitted to police having several shots of whiskey plus crystal meth in him once he was apprehended! Drunk Drivers Are Not People!

orguasch

a one inch nail should be driving to his thick skull

Chris L

Exactly. It doesn't matter whether he killed a cyclist, pedestrian or even another driver. He should never be allowed to drive again. When is the legal system going to start valuing life over convenience?

John E

Incidents such as this reinforce my annual financial and time (letter-writing, etc.) commitment to M.A.D.D. This particular bozo needs permanent license revocation (with reciprocity in the other 49 states) and several years of hard time.

The Speaker Guy

My cynical view of the worls has advanced to this:

Only two criminal penalties: Death or parole.

There's hope for you, or there isn't.

We know the answer in this case.

Raiyn

Ummm This guy hasn't had a license since 1982 how do you propose we never allow him to drive agian when he obviously doesn't give a damn?
Life + One Year sounds like a good start to me. (life + anything = no parole)

Chris L

Confiscating his car might be a good place to start.

Alexey

About 3.000 were killed at WTC. The US society spent billions to rectify the situation.

At the same time about 50.000 are killed in traffic accidents every year in the US alone.

Much more die prematurely from pollution related diseases and hypodynamia.

No one cares about it.

John E

Thank you for putting everything in perspective, Alexey. The tragic crash of TWA Flight 800 triggered a major investigation of air safety, even though we lose three times as many people PER WEEK on our highways. The societies of the U.S. and many (most?) other countries lack the political will to deal effectively with bad drivers, and the carnage continues.

Alexey

Exactly. A car could be considered a weapon. I saw many times mischievous drivers, who drive on the brink of a crime. That evil grin could not be mistaken for anything else.

In case of a car used as weapon, murder is more difficult to prove, as the driver may say that he did not do it on purpose.

Besides the driving licence is very easy to obtain. So we can have mentally ill person, who drives the high powered vehicle.

All he needs to do is to swerve on the sidewalk.

MichaelW

Last week a drunk/drugged driver (previously disqualified, no tax or insurance) crashed into a bus queue, killing 2 women injuring some children, then driving off .

The police are not charging him with careless use of a car or dangerous driving, or even death by dangerous driving, but good old-fashioned manslaughter. This can carry a life sentance.
https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/england/2303521.stm

Closer to home, a local driver deliberately mounted the pavement, injured the man he was aiming at, and killed his friend. 8 year sentance for manslaughter rather than murder, because the man he tried to murder survived.

I dont understand the 4 year driving ban he recieved. Having used his car as a lethal weapon, he will be licenced to use it again within 10 years.
https://www.hastingstoday.co.uk/fullstory.asp?storyid=11

Also on that page, check out the "bike thief" story, just what we need.

Alexey

The gasoline cars are overweight and over-powered. There is however the viable alternative to the poisonous gasoline engine.

This new car can even win the commercial competition, as it is much cheaper to produce.

https://www.air-car.ag/code/index.htm

Andy Dreisch

Hey Alexey, let us know when you buy one of these. Since they're a viable alternative I suppose you shortly will. Tell us where you'll fill it up. I'm sure the infrastructure exists to support filling it up at your local gas station. And update your insurance forms for they're little more than thinly wrapped go karts.

Please do keep us informed of this latest viable alternative to the venerable internal combustion engine.

Alexey

Certainly, there are issues with these air-cars so far.

But there are serious issues with the combustion engine too.

The fact that combustion engine turned glittering cities into uninhabitable zones means nothing. Because nowadays only the commerce rules.

So there should be invented a commercially viable alternative to the combustion engine.

Here it is!

This car can run 200-300 km on one "fuelling". This car is cheap. It does not have (or need) a carburetor, injection system, fuel filters, acid battery for the starter, etc.

When you open the hood of this car, it is clean, as there is no nasty soot and burned grease in there. Because nothing burns inside!

The thing runs on the pressurized air. The tank 300 L and pressure is 300 Bar.

There is no widespread infrastructure of "quick" fuelling stations so far. The real solution would be to produce large tanks of pressurized air directly at the power plants, to avoid costly intermediate electricity.

But the main point here is the low price and reliability of this car. I hope it will work just as DVD replaced VHS, or as CD replaced the audio cassettes, etc.

Andy, I do not drive my car more than a month already. I commute only by bike and by walking.

Andy Dreisch

This thread was originally about a drunken driver. My parting point on this side topic: the overwhelming majority of population (which inhabits cities) apparently disagrees with your assessment.

Alexey

The drunken driver killed with the car.

My point is that the society gives too much power into the hands of such drunkards in the form of the overweight and over-powered cars.

If everyone in cities is so happy as you imagine, why people try to produce these air-cars, why they build bicycle trails across cities? Why the critical mass movement then?

It is true. The majority of population still measures success in life by the car driven: "You are what you drive."

Car has become an icon. If you try to watch a movie from 60s, every positive hero in those movies smokes. A cigarette had been an icon too at that time. It has changed by now.