I'm always surprised at what the cars can hit and apparently not notice. Co-worker (daily long distance bicycle commuter so show some respect) was telling me about a neighbour pulling over (from his car, natch, honk-honk and guess what) to say that the neighbor's brother had been hit by a car and was in the ICU and might not make it.
Wow but I hate it when people in cars tell me about cars running over bicyclists. At least please get out of your car and let all the air out of it's tires before relaying the bad news, show some respect already. Anyways in this instance the person ran over the bicyclist, did not stop, got home, and had some regrets and turned herself in. Do you give that an A for effort? Me neither. I give it a D- and I consider that generous.
When I run over stuff with my bicycle I feel it everywhere pretty immediately (the night is bad for me on this score as I roll over rocks and bits of broken cars and am totally surprised and sometimes nearly fall off) but cars seem oblivious to even the fairly large stuff they go over like people and bicycles.
So if you see a black Porsche Cayenne driving around with a mountain bicycle in it's grill, please contact Garret Gibson, he wants his bicycle back. Also he wants justice for his injuries which I think is noble but pretty optimistic of him. In related news, if this is the new modus operandi for bicycle thieves in the bay area I have much to be concerned about.
And finally. Ever seen someone strolling along, perhaps in high heels even, trailing a long piece of toilet paper? You have? The car version of "I am trailing four meters of dirty toilet paper and have not noticed" looks like this Mustang (see how I brought us back to Mustangs?) and was snapped just this weekend past. Thanks to Contraption Captain for his photo enhancements. I love you darling!
There was just a big article in the LA Weekly about the huge number of hit and runs we have in Los Angeles.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.laweekly.com/2012-12-06/news/los-angeles-hit-and-run-epidemic-4000-dead-injured/
A big part of the problem here (as elsewhere) is that drunk drivers know that if they go home and sober up, they will face far less penalty for leaving the scene that they would for being caught drunk (which then can't be proved).
The main problem of course is that the police routinely do zero follow up on hit and runs and even when the driver is caught, treat it like a minor traffic infraction.
This was a fantastic article if you define fantastic as "I had vivid nightmares even when awake after reading it."
DeletePart of me wonders what rock I have been living under not to realize how bad things have become. Going home to wait your drunk off and get a lesser penalty? How do these people sleep at night?
I'm not sure why people fail to stop. It doesn't seem like there is much trouble for them when they do stop.
Idea I have: pull over drunk bicyclists and give them a $50 giftcard to amazon. We should *encourage* people to choose their bicycle over their car when they want to go out drinking.
If people are going to drink & ride, then we should at least get them into recumbent tricycles--less likely to fall over that way.
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