Want another fatal collision involving a bicyclist this month that I think you'll have trouble sympathizing with? How about this Berkeley bicycle fatality? http://www.berkeleyside.com/2013/06/...0-in-berkeley/

Yeah, my mom always told me never to play on the freeway (except when she was really pissed and said, "Hey, why don't you go play on the freeway?"), but she never said anything about not trying to cross the freeway on my bike. In the dark? With a nice, lovely pedestrian overcrossing almost right overhead? Ok, ok, it is suicidal even in the daylight and whether or not there is a pedestrian overcrossing in plain view. This one is so bad, there had to be SOME mental issues involved, perhaps we should sympathize.

For some reason, it struck me as wrong when I turn on the morning news to check the weather, and I see the graphic headline, "Bicyclist Killed." I'm turning on my "Is this one that could have happened to me?" radar, and then they actually tell the story. He was trying to cross I-80 in Berkeley in the dark on a bicycle? Am I a snob because I have trouble thinking of this person as a bicyclist? A "Mentally Disturbed Person Killed" graphic followed by the story would get me sympathizing, whereas "Bicyclist killed" gets me thinking, "That's no bicyclist, that's a moron, a Darwin Award candidate." I shouldn't let the TV news choice of graphic (or the Berkeleyside choice of headline) affect whether I am sympathetic.