I AM A BICYCLIST AND A MOTORIST AND A WALKER AND I AM SICK AND TIRED OF RED-LIGHT RUNNERS AND SICK AND TIRED OF PEOPLE WHINING ABOUT HOW THEY DON'T LIKE RED-LIGHT CAMERAS ENFORCING THE LAW !!!! See this video--and keep in mind that it happened in Wisconsin's capital city and it was perpetrated by a lawmaker!!!! (the video may make you cringe....) bike collision
We can all get involved: www.stopredlightrunning.com/
I hope the bicyclist will be okay, but what's going to happen to the state lawmaker? I hope he gets sued and loses his license. How long will it take for the "hate-cyclist" crowd to blame the bicyclist?
(ps...For transparency and disclosure, CP's automobile had twice been photographed for running a red light in Annapolis. In both instances, CP was not driving and was not in the car. The person who was driving got royally chewed out by CP..I mean the riot act and everything...)
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5 Comments:
At the end of that video the reporter is saying 'the collision appeared to be the bicyclist's fault' how!? Even if the bicyclist doesn't have a proper lane of his own on the right of the bus how could anyone construe his victimization by a scofflaw to be his fault?
Such overzealous jumping to that conclusion permeates deep in our culture and it is blind to justice.
Secondly, that could be me, my sister, my mom, my dad before he was permanently injured, you, or countless others who risk their lives to do what we as a culture think we should, which is bike more and drive less. I have seen little attempt to truly accommodate that ideaology, but much lip service to how we need to.
The only people willing to risk actually doing so are those with a high tolerance for risk, which severly limits our ability to cultivate a bicycle travel culture in lieu of physical improvements in safety for us, which do not seem to be forthcoming. Was a cyclist hit on Bay Ridge Ave last week where our leaders flimflammed us out of bike lanes?
Yup. What you noticed is how media always has to inject controversy and "the other side" into every issue but could not even reach the lawmaker who did that.
Maybe the cyclists should have slowed down, looked both ways???? I dunno...
While it is clear that the SUV driver was at fault - he ran through the red light, in front of a bus that had started to move on their green light, nonetheless, it underlines the importance of being aware on the part of the cyclist. I am a cyclist and ride on the street regularly and am keenly aware of traffic. Right or wrong, people driving 3 ton battering rams are much bigger than me and are less nimble.
With that said, that cyclist made a stupid assumption that the intersection was clear to fly past that bus like that, knowing the light had just changed, while not being able to see traffic to the left of the bus (on which the camera was mounted). As a cyclist in traffic, you can never put yourself in a situation that you can't get yourself out of, or it is game over - at that point it does not matter if the vehicle driver is right or wrong.
I would advise cyclists to be less righteous and more careful. People in cars do a lot of stupid things, but so do people on bicycles, and guess who is going to win. Just the other day I had a guy on a bike ride out towards me on the crosswalk. I did not stop at the crosswalk, nor did I come close to him, and he started cussing at me because I did not stop. I yelled at him that if he wants to use the crosswalk and have cars yield to him, then he should get off his bike and walk it across as a pedestrian, otherwise he is considered a vehicle and should have yielded at the stop sign that he had - state law, go look it up.
If cyclists want to go around picking fights with cars, they will ultimately lose.
Chris M Thanks...very good points. Please fully identify yourself for future emails thanks
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