When I went through Ft. Sam Houston when I was in the Army training to be a medic we referred to them as "quarter medics." As in "here's a quarter go call someone who is more qualified."

Hopefully there is at least one, but like you I would be surprised. Sadly, this is all too true.

And, I want to add, that I have nothing against medical doctors as a profession. A few of my close friends are doctors and a few years back I was living with four guys in their final year at Georgetown U. med school.

I just think it is crazy that doctors are put on pedestals as if they are that much more important than other highly skilled professionals. Yes, they are skilled. However, they shouldn't be given special treatment in court just because they can fix the human body. As a doctor shouldn't this dude Chris have realized how much harm an automobile can cause to the human body? It seems like he should be treated more harshly, not less!

Interesting ...

1) what are these Federal Regulations? Anybody know? Certainly, a bicycle with only a rear brake (as many have) can't achieve this level of braking. (Yes, I realize that Peterson's bike has front and back brakes.)
2) GPS data? Who had a GPS? The good doctor? One of the cyclists?

I actually had no idea...
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text...0.1.3.66.1.2.5

One of the injured cyclists had GPS on his bike at the time of the incident.

I am guessing on the Federal Regulations, but perhaps it is the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

as far as the GPS, the cyclists had it.

The GPS evidence is important, because it showed the cyclists were doing around 28 mph or so when the defendant passed them. The speed limit on the road is 30 mph, so they were not impeding traffic (or, I should say, traffic that is within the speed limit) in any respect.

Wow. 2 seconds means they stop from 30 mph in just 44 feet(ignoring reaction time of course-at least .5 seconds, usually more). I wonder if this is on a level highway.Weren't they going downhill-takes longer to stop going downhill.

I wouldn't be surprised to see him not get convicted. Apparently out there-W coast-there is a fair amount of anti bike feeling, and all the jurors are motorists.

Does it take a unanimous vote-all 12-to get a guilty verdict?? If it does, it could be tough to convict him.
Tomorrow the md gets questioned by the DA. This should be interesting.
Charlie

I want to see the dam expert get on a bike and going downhill at 28 mph, stop in 44 feet when a sudden obstruction is thrown in his path. Should be good for a few laughs and road rash to the expert.

Cars actually can stop quicker than a bike by a small margin, at least according to Bicycling Science, when each are traveling at the same speed. I believe that in actual practice, a bike can stop quicker because it takes marginally less time to move the fingers to the brakes and pull them than it does to take the foot off the gas, move it to the brakes, and push.

That point is irrelevant, of course, when the driver intentionally stops short in front of the bikes.

Not a W coast thing... but it is a Southern California thing... "no one walks in LA..." Remember also on the west coast is Portland OR.

And yeah, it does take all 12 to convict... and no doubt all 12 are motorists.

Tend to agree.

I really doubt anyone could do it that well, except someone with lots of training.

The margin isn't actually that small.

There's three factors that make cars able to stop faster --

1) bicycle braking is limited by the tendency of the bike to endo. Cars have no such problem, being longer and having a lower center of gravity. This is usually the biggest factor. Brake too hard on a bike, you crash -- and it sneaks up on you fast, so you can't even get too close to the limit.
2) the more rubber you have on the road per pound of weight, the more tire/ground traction you get. In practice, this figure works out to be approximately your tire pressure -- and cars have lower tire pressures (30 vs. 90 or more psi) so they have as much as 3x as much rubber on the road per pound. This doesn't make a huge difference, but it's significant. (Though on a bike, #1 usually prevents it from being an issue unless it's wet.)
3) on a longer wheelbase bike (tandem, recumbent perhaps) the bike may not be able to endo just by using the brake. But even so, if the front wheel were to ever skid, the bike would almost immediately fall over. So even in that case, you can't use the brakes close to their limits, because if you ever exceed those limits, you'll crash. In a car, if you exceed that limit, you skid a bit until you lighten up on the brake, or your ABS prevents it from happening in the first place.

Most passenger cars with reasonable tires can stop on dry pavement at around 1.0 g -- that's about where you run out of traction between road and tire. This guy's bike was measured at 0.66 g -- so a car can stop about 50% faster.

As for the reaction time, if I'm on my hoods, I find it hard to brake hard -- I have to get on the top bar (I have interrupter brakes up there) or into the drops to really brake hard and be able to properly modulate it. But this may just be me -- I have relatively short fingers. In any event, I can get into `maximum braking' mode in a car faster than I can on a road bike most of the time.

From the LA Times http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...0,846246.story
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A doctor charged with assault for allegedly slamming on his car brakes in front of two cyclists in Brentwood testified Wednesday that he never intended to hurt anyone but stopped his vehicle to photograph riders who were cycling dangerously.

Christopher Thompson, a veteran emergency room physician, said a group of cyclists flipped him off and yelled profanities when he overtook them last year as they rode three abreast down Mandeville Canyon Road, a narrow residential street that is popular with bike riders.

Thompson, 60, said he objected to cyclists blocking traffic by riding in tandem or running stop signs along Mandeville, where he has lived for more than two decades. He said many neighbors were concerned about the problems but had struggled to identify the scofflaws.

His voice shaking at one point, Thompson said he had never forgotten learning when he was 14 that a close friend had been run over and killed while riding a bicycle. He testified that he felt uncomfortable driving behind cyclists and would never try to injure one.

"I wake up every night . . . with this accident in my head," he told jurors, near tears. "I lived my life trying to help people and I injured people. And I'll never get over that."

Thompson's testimony marked the first time he has spoken publicly about his actions in the moments before the July 4, 2008, crash. The incident outraged cyclists and highlighted tensions between bike riders and residents along the road.

One of the cyclists was propelled through the rear windshield of the doctor's luxury car, breaking his front teeth and nose and leaving his face scarred. The second cyclist was thrown to the ground and suffered a separated shoulder.

Thompson is charged with mayhem, reckless driving, assault with a deadly weapon -- his car -- and other charges that together carry a possible prison sentence.

Prosecutors allege that the emergency room doctor acted deliberately and has a history of dangerous run-ins with cyclists on the same road.

Thompson denied threatening cyclists and said he never slammed on his brakes during the July 2008 incident.

He said he stopped to take a photograph for members of his homeowners association in the hopes they could contact cyclist groups to warn about riding dangerously.

"We've been dealing with this ongoing problem for years and it's impossible to do anything without being able to identify anyone," he told the court.

Immediately after the crash, Thompson said, one of the cyclists rejected his help but he nevertheless watched to assess the condition of the injured riders.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary Stone questioned Thompson's account, noting that a police officer testified that the doctor said soon after the crash that he had slammed on his brakes in front of the cyclists "to teach them a lesson." Thompson denied making the remark.

Stone played a 911 call in which Thompson told an operator that the cyclists had yelled a profanity at him. "I slammed on my brakes," he told the operator. "They went into me. There are two injuries."

Also on the call, Thompson could be heard telling someone, "Get your bike out of the road."

When the operator asked whether the injuries were serious, Thompson replied: "Not really. But they'll tell you that."

Thompson testified that he was not trying to downplay the injuries but was explaining as a doctor that they were not life-threatening.

jack.leonard@latimes.com
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Two questions of interest for the DA (which they will probably think of on their own):
1. Where was the doctor's camera? Did he take any pictures? Why not? If his intent was to take pictures and he had a camera, it would seem that he would want to document the scene, and that would be almost automatic if he had his camera in his hand.
2. As a doctor, what was his basis for determining that the injuries were "not life threatening?" Had he examined the injured riders? How closely had he approached the injured riders? In his professional practice in the ER, was it his custom to draw conclusions regarding patients' conditions before examining them?

It seems to me that the doctor has been instructed how to act by his attorney, which is typical, but his attempts sound almost laughable. He seems to be in a very deep hole, and every time he opens his mouth the hole gets deeper.

A doctor or an aspiring novelist? It takes skill to make up such BS. If he wanted pictures, wouldn't common sense tell him to drive a couple miles ahead ahead, stop, and wait to take pictures? Also, how is riding abreast at the speed limit dangerous?

Someone might take offense and slam their brakes in front of you?

It sounds like his attorney did good job coaching his testimony.

The doc knows how to lie on the stand, he saw our President do it in the 90's. I predict the defense attorney will rip the riders to shreds (for certain this is not the first time they chased down a driver, if they say it is, the jury will brand them liars). And with no cyclists on the jury (and no educated people, thanks to our jury system's weak points), this doc has a great chance of walking....

Uh, there was no "chasing down the driver." And there was a third cyclist, who witnessed this, who was not involved.

But indeed the jury, no doubt are all motorists, who perhaps themselves have felt cyclists "don't belong on the road."

Yes, the system makes sure that any minorities that are relevant to the trial are under-represented on the jury.

Though while many motorists may think that cyclists don't belong on the road, most just keep it to themselves, knowing that society has decided otherwise. And most people who will yell at a cyclist would never think of actually causing them to strike their car and get hurt.

And while most people aren't cyclists, I imagine most know a cyclist, and wouldn't like the idea of somebody in a car attacking their cycling friend just for riding.

What he did is grossly over the top, even to most motorists. As long as the prosecutor can't convince people that it wasn't simply an accident, he should be convicted -- even if the jury doesn't like sharing the roads with cyclists. We shall see -- it could indeed go either way, like any trial could.

Well remember, you are supposed to be tried by a jury of your peers.

If the defense was going to 'rip the riders to shreds,' that would have already happened. They've already testified and been cross examined by the defense.

Was there evidence that the cyclist 'chased down' the driver? I missed that.

The fact that the Dr actually got an expert, tells me that he's spending big $$$ in a (vain?) bid to save his hide.

But speaking of which, when it comes to rear-end crashes, what exactly IS the law? Reason I ask is that in a typical rear-end crash, the cause is almost always the rear person's fault for following too closely and/or speeding. Of course, exceptions probably do exist, but are they spelled out by statute?

Excellent point about driving ahead and waiting if he was truly going to take pictures. Emotion sells and it's possible the defendant's testimony affected the jury, but the DA has plenty to cross with. Jack Leonard's suggestions are spot on.

Competent voir dire should have at least reduced the chances of having a highly biased 'motorist' juror on the trial, but jurors have been known to shade their answers depending on whether they want on or off the jury. If I was prosecuting, I'd be more concerned about pro physician bias, than pro motorist.

This text in the paper is flat out coo-coo: "Christopher Thompson, a veteran emergency room physician, said a group of cyclists flipped him off and yelled profanities when he overtook them last year as they rode three abreast down Mandeville Canyon Road, a narrow residential street that is popular with bike riders."

I've been riding a long time and have been yelled at numerous times. I think half of the times have been friendly, by friends driving by after work, but the words all mumble together and I can't tell what they're saying.

But I've never, ever seen cyclists yell at cars as the drive by. That's absurd.:(:o:rolleyes: The only way it could happen, in my mind, is if the cager buzzed them dangerously. I hope the prosecuting attorney notices the inconsistency in this.