Bike Girl is happy. She's happy because someone who used his car as a weapon has been convicted.
Dr. Christopher Thompson admitted to racing down Mandeville Canyon in Brentwood, California in his car July 4th of 2008 at about 45 miles per hour. The road is a popular winding 5 mile climb. The speed limit is 30. Two cyclists, both very experienced, were also headed down the hill, going between 29 and 30 miles per hour. Thompson, who was speeding, decided that the cyclists were not going fast enough. They exchanged words, Thompson pulled in front of them and slammed on the brakes.
One cyclist's face went through Thompson's rear windshield and the other cyclist flipped over and badly hurt his shoulder. Thompson told the responding police officer he did it to teach the cyclists a lesson.
Bike Girl would like to point out that these cyclists did absolutely nothing wrong. Below is the applicable part of the California Vehicle Code.
21202. (a) Any person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time shall ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway except under any of the following situations: ...
Now Bike Girl is not going to bother to include the rest of it because this part already shows the cyclists were perfectly fine riding in the middle of the road. If they are riding at a speed of normal traffic, which one assumes would be law abiding traffic, they do not need to move as close as practicable to the right hand curb or edge of the roadway. Normal traffic is not allowed to go faster than 30, and the cyclists were going between 29 and 30.
Bike Girl wishes that more drivers were educated about the rules of the road. She thinks if they knew this short vehicle code provision, there would be less animosity between traffic modes. However, Bike Girl knows there will always be jerks on the road, like Doctor Christopher Thompson.
Thompson faces 10 years in state prison for the 6 felonies and 1 misdemeanor he was convicted of.
Read more about the case here
Showing posts with label jerks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jerks. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Bike Girl Needs A Pep Talk
Today on Bike Girl’s commute to work, a driver looked right into her eyes at a stop light and told her that her life was not worth a 1 second delay. Bike Girl asked how much that moment would cost her, and guessed the amount was less than five cents. She then asked if a human being’s life is worth five cents. This middle aged female driver said no.
This exchange took place just after the woman in her snazzy gold sedan merged into Bike Girl with no turn signal, nearly smashing into her front wheel, less than 5 feet from a red light, where the driver had to stop, still straddling the lanes.
“Lady, you were in the middle of the road,” the woman said. This is true. Bike Girl was in the middle of the right lane on a 5 lane road with construction on the tiny shoulder. The middle of the far right lane is exactly where Bike Girl should have been.
Bike Girl, like any cyclist, endures a lot of abuse from drivers, and she endures it on a regular basis. She endures it with a smile and a wave, and occasionally a yell of, “aaaaah!” Bike Girl also makes a conscious effort to obey the rules of the road. She even uses hand signals to turn in a town where drivers seem to believe their signals, speed limits, and even license plates are optional.
But today’s stony-faced, gray-haired, female driver found Bike Girl’s breaking point. Her blunt response that she would rather kill Bike Girl than be 1 second late sent our usually fearless protagonist to the curb, sobbing for 40 minutes.
Bike Girl sobbed because she’s tired of fighting. She’s tired of risking her life to get to work. She’s tired of memorizing license plate numbers of truck drivers who hit-and-run her and laugh. She’s tired of explaining the law to confused police officers. She’s tired of hearing that making her commute safer is infeasible. She’s tired of politicians who can get credit for being bike-friendly without actually doing anything to improve the bike-ability of their district.
Today an emergency room doctor is on trial for intentionally slamming on the brakes in front of two experienced cyclists and sending them to the ER.
Today a beautiful child is an orphan because of a truck driver’s inattention, and that truck driver is home with his family.
Somewhere a cyclist will be killed and journalists will ask if that cyclist was wearing a helmet. They will be shocked to hear that the cyclist died despite wearing that magical piece of styrofoam.
Please help fight this fight. Because while Bike Girl loves to ride, today, Bike Girl is tired of fighting.
If you want to fight, you can start by reading this.
This exchange took place just after the woman in her snazzy gold sedan merged into Bike Girl with no turn signal, nearly smashing into her front wheel, less than 5 feet from a red light, where the driver had to stop, still straddling the lanes.
“Lady, you were in the middle of the road,” the woman said. This is true. Bike Girl was in the middle of the right lane on a 5 lane road with construction on the tiny shoulder. The middle of the far right lane is exactly where Bike Girl should have been.
Bike Girl, like any cyclist, endures a lot of abuse from drivers, and she endures it on a regular basis. She endures it with a smile and a wave, and occasionally a yell of, “aaaaah!” Bike Girl also makes a conscious effort to obey the rules of the road. She even uses hand signals to turn in a town where drivers seem to believe their signals, speed limits, and even license plates are optional.
But today’s stony-faced, gray-haired, female driver found Bike Girl’s breaking point. Her blunt response that she would rather kill Bike Girl than be 1 second late sent our usually fearless protagonist to the curb, sobbing for 40 minutes.
Bike Girl sobbed because she’s tired of fighting. She’s tired of risking her life to get to work. She’s tired of memorizing license plate numbers of truck drivers who hit-and-run her and laugh. She’s tired of explaining the law to confused police officers. She’s tired of hearing that making her commute safer is infeasible. She’s tired of politicians who can get credit for being bike-friendly without actually doing anything to improve the bike-ability of their district.
Today an emergency room doctor is on trial for intentionally slamming on the brakes in front of two experienced cyclists and sending them to the ER.
Today a beautiful child is an orphan because of a truck driver’s inattention, and that truck driver is home with his family.
Somewhere a cyclist will be killed and journalists will ask if that cyclist was wearing a helmet. They will be shocked to hear that the cyclist died despite wearing that magical piece of styrofoam.
Please help fight this fight. Because while Bike Girl loves to ride, today, Bike Girl is tired of fighting.
If you want to fight, you can start by reading this.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Bike Girl Figures It Out
Bike Girl likes to keep an open mind, so she's been known to click over from time to time to see what sort of comments are being made about the recent Mandeville Canyon Incident. The most frequent complaint was that cyclists don’t obey the law and should therefore not be entitled to protection under it.
As a smug form of protest, Bike Girl has been obeying the law to the letter, both on her bike and when driving her car. She has noticed two things.
1. Obeying all traffic laws on her bicycle does not change the way drivers react to her, though it does give her a smug sense of self-righteousness.
2. Obeying all traffic laws in her car seems to make other car drivers even more frustrated with her than when she rides her bicycle.
While neither finding was surprising, when juxtaposed against the comments on the Mandeville Canyon incident, Finding Number 2 was slightly hilarious.
Bike Girl set out to quantify the phenomenon of law-breaking drivers by counting the number of drivers who turn without signaling, speed, and roll through red lights and stop signs. But in the middle of her extremely scientific survey, Bike Girl was astonished to see a fellow cyclist roll through a red light right in front of her.
The dangerous move did not do the Reckless Cyclist much good, because the smugly law-abiding Bike Girl was able to quickly catch up to her. When Bike Girl pointed out to the Reckless Cyclist's misdeed, she merely replied, "Oh well."
This took Bike Girl aback. This is a very similar response to one frequently given by Reckless Drivers! Bike Girl put her survey on hold to Ponder this. She rode home, smugly obeying all traffic laws, and put on her Pondering Cap.
Bike Girl decided the only way to find an explanation was through the use of Math. Bike Girl knows that according to the Transitive Property, if a = n, and b = n, then a = b. Therefore:
If Reckless Drivers = Jerks
And Reckless Cyclists = Jerks
Then Reckless Drivers are really the same as Reckless Cyclists!
This also implies that Jerks can either drive cars OR ride bikes! Yet for some reason, cyclists are all characterized as Reckless, whereas all drivers are not. No one says, "We cannot improve infrastructure for drivers because they speed." Yet, there is hesitation by many drivers to accept the rights of cyclists.
As a smug form of protest, Bike Girl has been obeying the law to the letter, both on her bike and when driving her car. She has noticed two things.
1. Obeying all traffic laws on her bicycle does not change the way drivers react to her, though it does give her a smug sense of self-righteousness.
2. Obeying all traffic laws in her car seems to make other car drivers even more frustrated with her than when she rides her bicycle.
While neither finding was surprising, when juxtaposed against the comments on the Mandeville Canyon incident, Finding Number 2 was slightly hilarious.
Bike Girl set out to quantify the phenomenon of law-breaking drivers by counting the number of drivers who turn without signaling, speed, and roll through red lights and stop signs. But in the middle of her extremely scientific survey, Bike Girl was astonished to see a fellow cyclist roll through a red light right in front of her.
The dangerous move did not do the Reckless Cyclist much good, because the smugly law-abiding Bike Girl was able to quickly catch up to her. When Bike Girl pointed out to the Reckless Cyclist's misdeed, she merely replied, "Oh well."
This took Bike Girl aback. This is a very similar response to one frequently given by Reckless Drivers! Bike Girl put her survey on hold to Ponder this. She rode home, smugly obeying all traffic laws, and put on her Pondering Cap.
Bike Girl decided the only way to find an explanation was through the use of Math. Bike Girl knows that according to the Transitive Property, if a = n, and b = n, then a = b. Therefore:
If Reckless Drivers = Jerks
And Reckless Cyclists = Jerks
Then Reckless Drivers are really the same as Reckless Cyclists!
This also implies that Jerks can either drive cars OR ride bikes! Yet for some reason, cyclists are all characterized as Reckless, whereas all drivers are not. No one says, "We cannot improve infrastructure for drivers because they speed." Yet, there is hesitation by many drivers to accept the rights of cyclists.
Even with her Pondering Cap on, Bike Girl cannot find any Math that explains this phenomenon.
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