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Old 12-30-08, 02:26 AM
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Square & Compas
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Sioux City, Iowa
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Originally Posted by cyclezealot
Wonder how solo Crawford county cyclists feel about the ban.. Besides the cones, how about a permanent sign warning of the danger. Does not Iowa get around to fixing the problem with the center seam.. Is the center seam issue prevalent through out all of Iowa.. That is certainly unacceptable... Insurance is not for pay outs. Getting insurance is not a solution. Once there's a loss, don't depend upon getting insurance at affordable rates...
Banning cycling through out all of Iowa is no solution.. Under those conditions , I'd be organizing a protest ride.. Can't the seam be filled in some how.. ?..
Lucky many of us don't live in Iowa . About time they fix the problem, if it is fixable. Are all Crawford county roads unusable for cyclists , can't they just ban the affected roads...
Looks like out of state cyclists won't be considering the Ragabi or other Iowa cycling events and will be going else where... Shame , Ragbai is a ride many of us had considered , but appears cyclists are unwelcome in Iowa. So, yes, if Iowa won't fix the problem in the long term; i'd be doing a real protest ride...

All cyclists in Iowa hate it, that's how we feel about it. We also hate the requirement to have an insurance policy. What needs to be done is to go back to the way it was before the accident happened where Ullrich was killed. No ban and no insurance requirement. What also needs to be done is to improve the roadways. Yes they can fix them, yes they can fill the seam in and it would still function as an expansion seam, they just won't. I do not buy for one second that the responsible governing bodies of public roadways are not able to maintain them to the standards they are supposed to. The problem is no one bothers to enforce the standards and as a result things fall by the wayside.

Crawford County is very anti-cyclist. Cyclists are welcome in Iowa, just not in Crawford County. In Dallas, Jackson and one other county that I can not remember the name of it is borderline. These 3 others had at one time either considered a ban or insurance requirement or had actually passed one, then repealed it. Iowa only has 99 counties. The state can not force the county's to do things. The way they govern their public roadways is up to the individual county.

The thing is the county was partially liable and responsible for this. They knew about it ahead of time from the report that RAGRBAI gave them on the road conditions, they choose not to act on it. Then when people did get hurt they send a deputy with signs and cones who then left his post. The reason is not known, but one that thing that is known it was NOT to respond to an emergency call.

This was the first time ever that I know of that a county got sued over a cyclists death because of a bad roadway. Yet at least 3 times a year all counties have some sort of suits filed against them by motorists and at least once a month the state of Iowa has a suit filed against it by motorists for bad roadway conditions that cause accidents/injury, etc.

Banning cyclists from one roadway will lead to more and more bans and restrictions. If that starts where does it end? That is what this whole thing is about really. If one county does this where does it stop? We almost had 4 total that jumped on the band wagon. If it was not for ISAC backing down there would have been a lot more. ISAC stands for Iowa State Association of Counties.

This is not the only nor the least of RAGBRAI's problems. Right now its future is in question and jeapordy. The host Brian Duffy was recently fired from the Des Moines Register. He was a columnist for the DMR. There is talk of the ride either ending all together or some other organization taking it over. This is mainly due to the economy. People can not understand how this can be when RAGBRAI is pretty self sustaining. I don't understand it either but what ever happens, happens. Of course a lot of this is rumor and speculation, so right now there is a lot that is unknown.
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