Cyclist dies after 19 years in coma caused by drunk driver
 

Cyclist, who has been in a coma for NINETEEN years, dies as his family offer their forgiveness to the drunk driver, 40, who killed him

"'I said, "You know David’s free, and now so are you. It’s over. You don’t have to think about it," ' Barbara Scannell, 88, told The Boston Globe on Saturday."
:rolleyes:

Anyone familiar with the accident 19 years ago?

Just curious, and nothing more.

I vaguely remember that you seem to start a number of threads relating to cyclist involved accidents and fatalities. Do you do a nightly search for these?

Nope. Do you do nightly search for anything?

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...Section_Bottom
There is some infor at that link.

I just did a search last night and found that the percentage of cyclists killed while NOT riding their bikes on roadways, and the number of swimmers who do NOT venture into open waters and get killed by sharks is EXACTLY the same! WOW!

I am always amazed at how some folks here on A&S are perpetually surprised that cycling in traffic gets people killed. I have never seen the connection between cyclists hit by cars and "safety", since the very act of cycling with cars is not very safe anywhere I know of.

I, like FBinNY, always wonder about folks who hunt these stories down.

Oh yeah Mr Smartypants? What about this then?

http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/...7landshark.png

You're not the only ones, nor is it unique to BF. A motorcycle forum I used to frequent had a sub forum just for incidents, with the cravat that one had to be personally involved in, or personally witnessed the actual and incident to post about it.

Actually, mine was a straight question. I don't care about why people find these stories, but wonder how they find them. For example, the one that started this thread was in the Daily Mail (UK), not exactly regular reading in NYC. So I was simply curious whether people were actively looking for these kinds of stories, or how they happened to find them so often.

lol

I know that the stories I tend to post are either local, or are in this state... and that I know about them due to local news reports. I post them in hopes that through discussion we all may learn something about how to avoid those situations.

There was one particular motorcycle forum I used to frequent that had a "Memorial" forum for people that died riding motorcycles. It was pretty depressing as it was updated on a daily basis.

Nice one! But I think that shark has retired.

The problem with gleaning news off the internet is its often inaccurate, sensationalized, and lacking any useful information, leading to speculation based on personal bias.

And this would differ from any other way to get news exactly how? In fact, considering pre-internet, news would travel even more by strictly word of mouth, leading to even more inaccuracy and exaggeration. At least now everyone has access to the original reportage. Seems like you are either retro-grouching about the internet or suggesting that people would be better off having less freedom and access to information.

There was no need for a search, it was at the top of the webpage on BostonGlobe.com a couple days ago. It follows a tragic fatal accident three weeks ago, several articles about the fatal accident and an editorial from the Globe and several letters - a fairly important topic for the Globe these last few weeks.

All that said, I do wonder about the reporter who tracked it down.

I think you missed the whole point, separating firsthand experiences from randomly gleaned "news". The former having personal perspective, the latter being third party gossip.

Where did you read the "firsthand experiences"? The Bike Forums are not on the Internet?

I'm not sure what your point is then. Are you really suggesting that no one should form any opinions about anything except what they experience in person? No one should read any news or talk to anyone else about events they didn't personally witness? It's an extreme position, but if that's what you mean, the internet still has nothing to do with it as compared to any other way people "glean" news. Also, I'm sure that you don't consider any reading, hearing of, or watching news "randomly gleaning" when you yourself do it, only when other people do it? And good journalism (when it happens) is a far cry from "third party gossip". In fact, if done correctly, it can be better than first-hand experience. As you point out, firsthand experience carries personal perspective. That's a double-edged sword. There's no shortage of psychological proof that our brains distort information that we consume, and emotional experiences (which are more likely when you see something in person versus reading about it) can radically affect someone's perspective. Our whole cognitive pattern for making memories relies on associating new information with existing information stored in our brains, so who we are and what we currently think massively affects what we remember. When we replay a memory in our head, our brains extract the little bits that were stored, and confabulate the rest, kind of like the "dramatic re-enactment" you see on news/documentaries. You are suggesting that you get the "truth" when you witness something, when it's proven again and again that this is far from the case. There's an entire sub-genre of narrative that tells the same event from multiple perspectives (often called "Rashomon effect" after the film by Akira Kurosawa) because it's such a common thing that our own biases radically distort how we perceive and remember what transpires right in front of us. Reading multiple news accounts of an event and applying critical thinking separate from personal emotional attachment one way or another can often help one arrive at a much closer approximation of the truth.

Basically you're taking cheap pot shots with reasonable-sounding nonsense about "internet" and "gossip" when there no substance to anything you are saying.

I don't see the usefulness of the OP posting "another cyclist dead" articles but spare us the self-righteous country fried wisdom BS.

I'll keep it real simple for you....I like how another forum separates personal experiences from gleaned news stories, IE. Personal experiences belong in A&S, gleaned news stories belong in politics and religion, or foo as appropriate. Simple enough for you, or must you read into it, to put on a show?

Edit, Yes I acknowledge it was a mistake on my part to assume it would be understood that I was referring to posting in A&S, not B&F as a whole.

So you badly communicate in order to score a few snark points...and you are apparently insisting on some arbitrary standard for the forums that you just made up yourself? It's almost entirely irrelevant that your one true wish is that other people would stick to personal experiences only in A&S. You are free to not submit any new posts based on "internet gossip", which is apparently everything that didn't happen 10 feet in front of your eyeballs. You are free to not comment on others who do post about—gasp! clutch your pearls everyone!—a news article. You are pretty safe from any criticism or reproach if you simply choose not to participate in those discussions. But give it a rest with the "I'm superior to people who read internet news"...sheesh

OK, an example of how another internet forum handles posts of questionable usefulness is unworthy of consideration, anyone who doesn't march in lockstep with your opinion is irrelevant, go it. Feel free to enjoy your natural superiority.

You brought up the motorcycle forum, and I don't recall anyone responding one way or another. So I'm really not sure where you got that. But then you felt necessary to contribute this

As if reading news on the internet was some kind of dangerous thing (compared to getting your news any other way) and/or that only people like you were qualified to do it.

Actually, no. In fact the opposite.You are the one insulting anyone who doesn't agree with your made-up regulations about forum posts. I rather think that people should be free to post a variety of content, including things I wouldn't post myself or even things I might think are silly. Because I believe that giving people freedom to do things outside of what makes me comfortable is healthy and necessary. You are the one who would stamp out people who have a different criteria for acceptable content than you. In fact you are advocating restricting the A&S forum. I'm all for keeping it open. I want people who don't march in lockstep with me. I don't want people who want to shut down a free range of expression because they happen to not care for it or are uncomfortable with it...that's you.

I resent that. I achieved superiority through hard work.

:thumb:

Telegram.........uh........candygram!

OK, whatever, its obviously a big deal to you, and need to shout my opinion down hard. I disagree, nuff said?