Thursday, April 30, 2009
Let's Cut the Cr%^ about Lane Position and Make a STINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How do you justify something like this? I salute his service. Let's not let him die in vain, regardless of differing views about helmets, or lane position, or other minor details. The guy might not have been riding in North Texas, but he easily COULD HAVE BEEN! I'll be watching this one...
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The driver was four years older than me. The cyclist was three years younger than me. Note the date of the news story. It gets a little personal...
Here is a "street view" from Google maps within a quarter mile of the tragedy:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=cherry+rd,+oakland+tn&sourceid=ie7&oe=utf8&ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=35.217225,-89.62374&spn=0.00105,0.002736&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=35.217297,-89.623767&panoid=l8ojw2wNozHtNZNMd1jXAg&cbp=12,72.80830601723571,,0,5
It sure sounds like a distracted driver drifting into the shoulder. In Texas, cyclists would be able to legally claim the lane because the right lane is less than 14 feet wide.
Regardless of lane position, the motorist failed in his duty to avoid the cyclists, and bears all of the responsibility for this death.
I don't understand. How is this case different from any of the many people who are killed by cars while cycling? Nothing personal, I don't understand most of what P.M. posts here either. Maybe I am missing something?
Stuart, many of my posts are coded messages... usually to myself, but often to The Resistance.
The road looks just like a lot of the ones I ride on. I imagine it looks like a lot of roads ChipSeal rides on. What makes it personal is that it's people my age in both parties, the cyclist is identified as a real person, if only as a "retired Navy Captain," the collision was unrelated to any action the cyclist might have been taking, and that's there's been no follow-up reporting in the 13 days since the collision.
Similarly haunting to me has been the death of Meredith Hatch in Grand Prairie in mid 2008. Nothing significant on that one since, other than a "memorial event." Google "Brandon Bain" and you won't be real satisfied. In that case, a local radio host asked "how many cyclists have to die before we get them off the roads?"
We walk a fine line between raging against a devolving culture of distracted drivers and inadequate justice for negligent homicide... and reinforcing a belief that cycling is dangerous to the point where the majority feels the "solution" is to get us off the roads.
I believe the way to fight this battle is to form a coalition of citizens who are sick of it... distracted, irresponsible drivers kill pedestrians, motorcyclists and other caged vehicle drivers, too. We have to find a frame that conveys that roadway safety is an issue for everyone.
There hasn't been any follow-up on Chastity Rettinger, either. But Bike Jax did a good writeup with a photo of her ghost bike.
Last Friday evening we past the scene of bike hit by a car on the Commerce Street bridge over the Trinity. Three police cars, another car, and a mangled bike in the gutter. Anyone know the fate of the cyclist?
@william
"Last Friday evening we past[sic] the scene of bike hit by a car on the Commerce Street bridge..."
On Christmas Eve, I walked past a pedestrian who was run over and killed by a DART bus near the West End TC and, later that same afternoon, passed a t-bone car crash near Arapaho and Jupiter in which an innocent driver was killed by a moron trying to escape the police. What is your point?
No fatality reports, and no news reports. Could have been anything from a gutter cyclist falling off his/her bicycle, which got run over (cyclist not seriously hurt), to a bicycle falling off a truck on the way to one of the West Commerce metal scrapping yards (my hunch).
A seriously injured cyclist always makes news, as it feeds the fear-mongers, which generates web-site hits.
velociped , the only "point" was curosity.
Not every question has a hidden agenda.
You might want to work on your posture -- I think that chip on your shoulder is making you slouch.
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