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The city should send him to prison, take a picture of him behind bars and emblazon it on a giant billboard somewhere on Penn Ave along with text reading, "This is what happens when you hit and run. Drive like a crazy person, and you go to jail."
I like this. I have an idea, why don't we take a pic of a mangled bike/motorcycle after a crash, put it right next to the pic of the guy's mugshot, and include the words "you have none of the physical protection of a vehicle...act like it"
Cover both opposite ends of the spectrum in one shot. The people who don't pay attention to their surroundings or worse those who don't care while operating cars/motorcycles/bikes.
I like this. I have an idea, why don't we take a pic of a mangled bike/motorcycle after a crash, put it right next to the pic of the guy's mugshot, and include the words "you have none of the physical protection of a vehicle...act like it"
Cover both opposite ends of the spectrum in one shot. The people who don't pay attention to their surroundings or worse those who don't care while operating cars/motorcycles/bikes.
great idea! let's start an ad campaign that implies that a guy who was by all accounts riding safely, making himself visible, doing everything right, wasn't doing those things when he was mowed down by a speeding, reckless, likely intoxicated (based on his long record of duis and reckless driving charges) driver who fled the scene. if only james price had been cycling safely, he might be alive today! except not.
seriously this is not a "but people on bikes do dumb stuff tooooooooo" situation. it just isn't. save it for a time when it is.
but hey, people manage to bring up general biking habits when a cyclist is chased down and stabbed, or run down while standing on the sidewalk, so i guess that's just the way it goes.
yea, its just 'terrible', but when they show the elderly parents, it takes on a heart-wrenching aspect.
im glad they got that guy - and, in a perverted way, im glad he has a history of DUI, and it wasnt someone with a clean record who maybe just had a moment of two of carelessnes, panicked and made a bad decision to flee. and, the DUI guy is not driving for a long time - well, we presume.
great idea! let's start an ad campaign that implies that a guy who was by all accounts riding safely, making himself visible, doing everything right, wasn't doing those things when he was mowed down by a speeding, reckless, likely intoxicated (based on his long record of duis and reckless driving charges) driver who fled the scene. if only james price had been cycling safely, he might be alive today! except not.
seriously this is not a "but people on bikes do dumb stuff tooooooooo" situation. it just isn't. save it for a time when it is.
but hey, people manage to bring up general biking habits when a cyclist is chased down and stabbed, or run down while standing on the sidewalk, so i guess that's just the way it goes.
Who's implying that Price was doing anything wrong? I'm not. That honestly isn't my intention in the least. My response, or any response mentioning the general biking habits is due to the fact that people like you want to make cyclists into some kind of persecuted minority, when you aren't. You are responsible for your own safety when you ride a bike or a motorcycle.
What do you hope to accomplish by blazoning the image of someone who killed a cyclist on a billboard. I suppose you think those "Watch for motorcycles" stickers are really helping to curb fatalities. I mean its as if the rider didn't die because he hit a 2 thousand pound vehicle at 50 mph, went flying like a ragdoll, and hit a tree. No CLEARLY its because no one saw him. Clearly Price didn't die because the other guy was drunk and Price was on an unprotected and riding a bicycle, but because the motorist just didn't SEE HIM. If only people would SEE the cyclists pedaling his smaller vehicle at half their speed during rush hour...If only human beings were capable of always processing every piece of information from the world around them and reacting with split second precision EVERY TIME?!?!
But unfortunately we don't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by groar
maybe we should also make billboards of rape victims with the slogan "you have a vagina (or rectum, to avoid being sexist), act like it."
My, aren't we clever. Yes, claming that cyclists share some responsibility in some of the accidents that claim their lives really is exactly like telling a rape victim that she was asking for it by 'dressing like that'. Actually your analogy wasn't even that accurate. You didn't even bother to compare two decisions that could lead to potential harm as I did above. You went straight to equating that the choice to ride a bike, and the nonchoice of having a sexual orifice (at least for the vast majority of vagina owners as a very tiny minority actually do choose to purchase theirs, and there's nothing wrong with that.) are both one in the same......
*WHOOSH!*
That sound you heard was the noise my post made as it went well above your head/capability to shelve your personal desire to have cyclists thought of as a persecuted minority.
Clearly, I must be a baby boomer who views bikes as something poor people ride in the third world, and prefer to conspicuously get my exercise at $300+ a month at a popular gym. I'm definately not someone in their late 20s who would love to commute to work via a bike, but prefers to forgo my right to share the road with the drivers in this area in favor of NOT winding up in the emergency room/missing out on seeing our daughter grow up.
*WHOOSH!*
I'm certainly not someone who has spent a lot of time on the roads in parts of the city that people who utilize bicycles to commute often frequent, have on more than one occasion in the last WEEK witnessed some of these riders almost eat it due to their own negligence, and observed that the fact that they didn't was the result of the alert motorists who took action to keep the two wheeled lemmings of our city out of harms way.
*WHOOSH!*
Feel free to explain to me why riding a bicycle at night, or on a road with a speed limit that far exceeds the cyclist's capacity to travel doesn't carry some inherent risks for the rider? If you're wondering I'm refering specifically to rt 8 which has all of the best things to kill a cyclist like an average speed traveled by the cars of between 50 and 60mph, plenty of blind curves, and heavy traffic. I will never understand why I see people riding bikes on that road, but all too often I do.
I've said it a many times on here: I would like nothing more than to commute to work on a bike. During the first few years of living in the city where it was either a 1 1/2 hour ride on the bus or a 2 hour/6 mile walk home from downtown to squirrel hill (via uptown and oakland when I lived in SQ Hill) it would have been fantastic to cut that commute in half while getting the same amount of exercise. More often than not I was walking, and walking does two things: sucks, and also leaves you open to getting run over if to a lesser degree. I didn't ride a bike because A. the people around here drive to kill, and B. I really don't like hospitals/physical therapy/all the not fun things that come with getting hit by a car.
After all that is said, I don't believe it was Price's fault, that he was killed...regardless of whether the driver was intoxicated, texting on his phone, looking to kill someone, or simply made a mistake. I do believe though that a little caution by EVERYONE, and a little more situational awareness by EVERYONE would go a long way towards preventing tragedies like this from occuring again. Maybe you believe that a 20 something girl who decides to play chicken on her bike with a 5,000lb Chevy Suburban has the right of way even though she's riding in oncoming traffic (saw that one in August on the North Side), but I tend to disagree.
My 3 yr old neice's 27 yr old dad was safely riding his motorcycle at night in Orlando this past St Patty's day. The driver of the car that he plowed into that killed him didn't have to be drunk, wreckless, or malicious to take his life. He just had to be human, imperfect by design, and made a simple left turn on his way home. You have no protection on a bicycle or a motorcycle, and yet you share the roads with heavier/faster machines with drivers who are prone to human error. It doesn't matter how often you throw up the pathetic little ghost bikes (and lets be honest those are only to promote your agenda as they are about the weakest form of memorial for a stranger that you could come up with) the riders still bear the greater responsibility because you take an infinately greater risk.
yea, its just 'terrible', but when they show the elderly parents, it takes on a heart-wrenching aspect.
im glad they got that guy - and, in a perverted way, im glad he has a history of DUI, and it wasnt someone with a clean record who maybe just had a moment of two of carelessnes, panicked and made a bad decision to flee. and, the DUI guy is not driving for a long time - well, we presume.
The laws toward those who drive while intoxicated, especially those who repeatedly are caught doing it, are far too lax if you ask me. That crime needs to carry a scarlet letter, not nearly as extreme as pedophilia, but with the same type of disgust towards the perpetrator if only lessened in severity.
...and yes, I say that as someone who has never driven drunk or buzzed. I'll walk and have walked through dangerous neighborhoods to get home before I take that risk.
My response, or any response mentioning the general biking habits is due to the fact that people like you want to make cyclists into some kind of persecuted minority, when you aren't.
Can't agree. Cyclists are indeed a persecuted minority. You can't argue with me on the "minority" part, but you could possibly argue "persecuted". I would say we are persecuted by about 5% of auto drivers. Not sure if that qualifies.
Also, I don't care how careful and good you are. Cyclists are no doubt second class citizens on the road. Wish there were more of us. If there were, there would be less roadwork needed and less fat people. Just healthier in every way.
Anyway, this thread shouldn't be highjacked. Someone died out there and hopefully this repeat offender will pay for what he did. I am not sure what the correct punishment is. I think it would be best to do lots of community service of the victims family's choice, but who knows what the outcome will be.
Clearly Price didn't die because the other guy was drunk and Price was on an unprotected and riding a bicycle, but because the motorist just didn't SEE HIM.
It is not at all clear that the driver wasn't drunk. Given that he drove away after knowing he hit somebody, I'd think the odds are strongly in favor of some sort of impaired driving. The penalty for hit and run is, by design, high enough that nobody who figures they have a chance in court will do it. Also, drunk people sometimes don't even see other cars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Q-tip motha
You went straight to equating that the choice to ride a bike, and the nonchoice of having a sexual orifice (at least for the vast majority of vagina owners as a very tiny minority actually do choose to purchase theirs, and there's nothing wrong with that.) are both one in the same......
Everybody has, and maybe is, an *******.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Q-tip motha
Feel free to explain to me why riding a bicycle at night, or on a road with a speed limit that far exceeds the cyclist's capacity to travel doesn't carry some inherent risks for the rider? If you're wondering I'm refering specifically to rt 8 which has all of the best things to kill a cyclist like an average speed traveled by the cars of between 50 and 60mph, plenty of blind curves, and heavy traffic.
You've managed to shift from "speed limit" to "average speed" without even noting (or knowing) that by your own figures one of those is nearly twice as high as the other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Q-tip motha
...the riders still bear the greater responsibility because you take an infinately greater risk.
That's an absurd standard that only a corporate defense lawyer could love. ("We could have checked that the food wasn't tainted, but the people eating it took an infinitely greater risk and so they should take the responsibility.")
It is also an absurd risk calculation given the number of people who get killed while driving and riding in cars. The U.K. has better figures for comparing biking to other forms of transportation, so I'm using those. It may be worse here, but it certainly isn't impossible to get better if they can do it there. From these figures, cycling is quite a bit safer than motorcycling even on a per kilometer basis. Compared to cars, on a per kilometer basis, cycling is ten times as dangerous. Which, given how much farther people go in cars does not seem very different. See this table. Death, transportation, and travel (UK)
wow, holy freakout. i still think that holding up someone who was killed while cycling safely as an example to tell people to cycle safely... is dumb, and kinda mean?
or maybe the message you want to send is "don't ride bikes on the road"? hey, that's a way less crazy conclusion to jump to than all the ones you jumped to about what i said! yeah i definitely said that cyclists should be able to just ride straight into cars and never get hurt. it's telling that my 2 short posts compelled you to write many, many paragraphs telling me what i said and what i believe. believe me, what i said is what i meant, and there was not some weird agenda or implication that you are old(??) in there.
while i admit my analogy was tacky, it is still apt. having a vagina is not a choice; neither is being vulnerable on a bike. it's what people do given their vulnerability- riding on the road or going to a frat party in a short skirt or whatever, that brings on the victim blaming.
while i believe that everyone needs to be careful, i believe that the people with more power to harm need to be more careful. as a driver, i watch out for cyclists and pedestrians. as a cyclist (and believe it or not, i rarely cycle on the road), i watch out for pedestrians. you believe the people with less power need to be more careful. that's just something we are not gonna ever agree on.
Last edited by groar; 10-18-2012 at 09:53 PM..
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