Category: Biking Elsewhere

ASHEVILLE — A former Asheville firefighter will spend 120 days in jail for shooting at a bicyclist, narrowly missing his head with a bullet that pierced the man’s helmet.
Charles Alexander Diez, 42, pleaded guilty Thursday to assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, but testified during his sentencing hearing that he only fired a warning shot and didn’t intend to hurt Alan Ray Simons.
“I was the one who felt truly, truly threatened,” Diez told the court. “It was not my intention to shoot him.”
Simons described being confronted by the 17-year Fire Department veteran on the morning of July 26 as he was riding his bike along Tunnel Road with his 4-year-old son in a seat on the back and his wife on another bike.
He said Diez yelled at him from his car, claiming he was putting the boy’s life in danger by riding on the busy roadway.
“We were out for an enjoyable ride, minding our own business,” Simons said. “At any point, he could have left.
“When I got to his door, the gun was pointing at my chest. I turned to walk away, (and) the gun went off. He chose to pull the trigger.”
Superior Court Judge James Downs sentenced Diez to 15-27 months in prison, with all but four months suspended for 30 months. If he runs afoul of the law during that 30 months, the full sentence could be imposed. Diez will be subject to a curfew after his release and must complete an anger management course. He also was ordered to pay Simons $1,200 restitution to cover medical treatments for damage to his eardrum.
The presumptive sentence for someone convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill is 20-39 months under state sentencing guidelines.
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Continue reading “Former Asheville fireman gets 4 months for shooting at cyclist”

Patrick Watson, one of the cyclists victimized by Dr. Thompson in the now-famous LA road rage case, is asking cyclists to write to the DA (Mary Stone, mstone@da.lacounty.gov) in support of strong sentencing. You should especially write if you are a resident of LA County, and a constituent. But this case is of national importance, so all letters are encouraged.
Mr. Watson writes:
"As some of you have no doubt heard, the jury has reached a verdict in the Thompson case. The jury found the defendant guilty on all seven counts charged:
– Count 1: Reckless Driving Causing Specified Injury (victim: Ron Peterson)
– Count 2: Battery with Serious Bodily Injury (victim: Ron Peterson)
– Count 3: Battery with Serious Bodily Injury (victim: Christian Stoehr)
– Count 4: Reckless Driving (victims: Patrick Watson and Josh Crosby)
– Count 5: Assault with a Deadly Weapon (victim: Ron Peterson)
NOTE: The jury also found that the defendant had committed a Special Allegation of "Causing Great Bodily Injury"
– Count 6: Assault with a Deadly Weapon (victim: Christian Stoehr)
NOTE: The jury also found that the defendant had committed a Special Allegation of "Causing Great Bodily Injury"
– Count 7: Mayhem
If you are unaware of this case and the verdict I copied some links below for you to review.
The range for the defendant is anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison and the District Attorney is anticipating that the defense will submit a boatload of letters to the judge and/or the probation department on his client’s behalf. Please, if anyone from the community who has views on the sentencing you are also allowed to write the judge and/or probation officer.
As the defense will probably argue that no one else’s opinion is relevant to this defendant, the District Attorney will indicate that we are offering letters toward the issue of general deterrence, in other words, simply because the defendant was in his car does not change the blunt nature of the unmitigated assault on the cyclists and that drivers everywhere must become aware that they have to share the road. To that end, anyone who would like to contribute a letter or an e-mail may send it to the District Attorney’s office (below) or to the District Attorney herself, her e-mail address is also below. She will package all the letters and e-mails for us and submit them with her motion so the judge gets them all at once instead of a slow trickle. She plans to file the motion at the end of next week [Friday, November 20, Ed.] so it would be great if she had the letters/e-mails by then. And, yes, the more, the better.
Please address your letters appropriately, like we were able to touch on in court, which is that cyclists are not some alien breed of monsters that are claiming the streets, but regular people, fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, police officers, bankers, lawyers, doctors, teachers…. So, if anyone is writing a letter, it would be nice if you could begin with an identifying fact such as what your occupation is and that you are a motorist and a cyclist. I truly appreciate everyone’s commitment to this request and I hope you all feel the same as I do in making sure the defendant serves his appropriate time in prison for all 7 counts the jury found him guilty on and not just a slap on the wrist and probation. Please make your voice heard as I spent a great deal of my own personal time throughout this entire process and because I’m passionate about trying to make our community a better place to ride our bikes. Also, please forward on to your cycling community and make your voice heard throughout your area. This has resulted in National attention and the more letters from across the country the louder our voice will be heard."
For background on the case, Patrick also posted some links in another forum. https://forums.bicycling.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2181017265/m/4641029846
Write to DA Mary Stone here:
mstone@da.lacounty.gov
Or,
District Attorney’s Office
Attn. Mary Stone
11701 S. LaCienega
Los Angeles, CA 90045
Please spread the word!
Continue reading “Cyclist victim in LA road rage case seeks letters to DA”

[Baltimore Spokes: fairly impressive benefits of the plan.]
[Dutch] Cabinet finalises kilometer tax plan
Monday 16 November 2009
The Netherlands is set to become the first country in Europe to replace road tax with a kilometer charge for all motorists, over 10 years since the idea was first put forward.
If the legislation is passed by parliament, motorists will start paying tax on every kilometer they drive, which the government hopes will reduce traffic jams and pollution.
On Friday, ministers agreed that the tax will be three cents a kilometer when the charge is introduced in 2012, rising to 6.7 cents by 2018 – for the greenest cars . But if revenues generated by the tax are not in line with expectations, the tax can be adjusted, the transport ministry said.
Rush hour
The tax will be higher during the rush hour and for more polluting vehicles.
To make sure motorists are not worse off, road tax will be scrapped and the purchase tax on new cars will be reduced. Some 60% of drivers will be better off, the government claims.
The transport ministry said on Friday it expected fatal accidents will fall by 7% and carbon emissions would be down by 10%. Traffic jams will be halved and the amount of kilometres driven will go down by 15%.
Each car on the roads will be fitted with a GPS device which will use satellites to monitor where and when the car is driven and send the information to a central billing point.
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Continue reading “Per mile car tax + rush hour surcharge”

By Bob Glissmann – WORLD-HERALD
It’s a two-way street.
Bicyclists need to follow the rules of the road. Drivers need to acknowledge cyclists’ right to be on the road.
Usually, the two groups peacefully coexist. When they don’t, most encounters end with a stern look, a few choice words or an extended middle finger, not physical violence.
The curb-side clash between Omahans Benjamin Brownlow, 24, and Edward L. Palmer, 56, ended with cyclist Brownlow getting slapped upside the head. That led, last week, to Palmer’s guilty plea to a misdemeanor assault charge.
Tensions between cyclists and drivers aren’t new or limited to Omaha’s streets. As more cyclists hit the road for recreation or to commute to and from work, they’re encountering drivers who may be leery of — or even hostile toward — the cyclists.
But biking advocates say that familiarity breeds comfort, not contempt; they say studies have found that the more bicyclists hit the streets, the more drivers adapt to their presence.
The League of American Bicyclists, quoting the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey, said 0.55 percent of Americans use a bicycle as the primary means of getting to work. That’s up 36 percent from the first survey in 2005 and 43 percent since the 2000 Census.
This year’s Bike Omaha Challenge, overseen by Activate Omaha, an exercise advocacy group, showed that 693 bike commuters in town logged more than 129,000 miles between mid-May and mid-August.
While far short of top rider Jerry Francis’ 3,039 miles, Brownlow, who doesn’t own a car, came in ninth in the challenge with 1,322 miles.
Brownlow says his run-in with Palmer occurred on Memorial Day when he was riding south on 50th Street between Dodge and Leavenworth Streets. Palmer was a front-seat passenger in a minivan that started honking at Brownlow from behind.
Brownlow said he gestured for the minivan to pass him, but Palmer started screaming obscenities from the van’s passenger side and yelling that Brownlow didn’t have a driver’s license, didn’t pay taxes and was supposed to be on the sidewalk, not the road.
Brownlow said he tried to tell Palmer that it’s legal for him to ride on the street. Then Palmer’s son pulled ahead of Brownlow and tried to cut him off, Brownlow said, but the cyclist was able to squeeze through. The second time, Brownlow said, the minivan blocked him in near Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.
One witness told police it was clear to him that the van’s driver was deliberately swerving toward Brownlow.
Brownlow said Palmer got out of the minivan and continued to scream obscenities at him.
“I was thinking that I still might be able to talk him down,” Brownlow said. “Explaining what the laws were didn’t seem to help.”
After more yelling, he said, Palmer slapped him in the face. A witness told police that Palmer smacked Brownlow so hard she was shocked Brownlow was able to remain on his bike.
“It was kind of nice that I had my helmet on,” Brownlow said.
People who were tending their loved ones’ graves in the cemetery yelled at Palmer that they were going to call the police and yelled to Brownlow to get Palmer’s license-plate number. Palmer returned to the minivan, and the van left the area.
Palmer said last week that he entered the guilty plea only to spare his 19-year-old son, James R. Palmer, a reckless-driving conviction. He says Brownlow was riding erratically in front of the family minivan and repeatedly cursed at the vehicle’s occupants and flipped them off when Palmer’s son tried to pass the cyclist.
Palmer says he had his son stop the minivan so he could get out and confront Brownlow after Brownlow intentionally rammed his bike into the side of the vehicle. He says he told Brownlow to stop cursing, then stuck his finger in Brownlow’s face. He told police he may have touched Brownlow’s cheek.
After police investigated, misdemeanor warrants were issued in late August for Ed Palmer and James Palmer, and the two turned themselves in.
Ed Palmer was sentenced to 90 days’ probation and assessed a $50 fine. The charges against James Palmer were dismissed.
Julie Harris of Activate Omaha said drivers have honked and cursed at her and flipped her off while she was out riding. She also has had drivers get as close to her as they can or speed up just as they pass.
“In all fairness, however, I also have to say that I have encountered many courteous and attentive drivers who have gone out of their way to be accommodating,” Harris said.
All drivers shouldn’t be judged based on the poor behavior of a few, she said, and all cyclists shouldn’t be considered law-flaunting daredevils based on the behavior of a few.
Brownlow, who commutes from near downtown to the west Omaha bike shop where he works, said both drivers and cyclists need to follow the rules of the road.
“There’s a fair amount of people who are using a bike and not using it properly,” he said.
Continue reading “More bikes, more awareness”

Continue reading “Relief for Bicyclists; Shift for DC Drivers”

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In the second experiment, published in the same journal, scientists from the University of Illinois and other schools first infected laboratory mice with flu. One group then rested; a second group ran for a leisurely 20 or 30 minutes, an easy jog for a mouse; the third group ran for a taxing two and a half hours. Each group repeated this routine for three days, until they began to show flu symptoms. The flu bug used in this experiment is devastating to rodents, and more than half of the sedentary mice died. But only 12 percent of the gently jogging mice passed away. Meanwhile, an eye-popping 70 percent of the mice in the group that had run for hours died, and even those that survived were more debilitated and sick than the control group.
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Continue reading “Phys Ed: Does Exercise Boost Immunity?”

By Meghan Daum – Los Angeles Times
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And though most drivers, mercifully, don’t harbor as much animosity as Thompson, I suspect there may be more of him out there than we might like to think.
Why? For starters, many people don’t know what rights cyclists do and do not have, which pretty much makes them assume they have none. I was in this category myself until I consulted the bicycle laws in the California Vehicle Code and learned that a cyclist has "all the rights and is subject to all the provisions applicable to the driver of a vehicle." In other words, you’re not supposed to dart through red lights on a bike (shame on you, 80% of Lycra wearers in my neighborhood).
But guess what: It’s perfectly legal to occupy the whole lane, not just hang on the side, if you’re going the same speed as traffic. The speed limit on Mandeville Canyon is 30 mph (it’s 25 mph on most residential L.A. streets), which, according to the injured cyclists’ GPS data, was about the speed they were traveling when Thompson stopped in front of them. In other words, if you’re getting impatient with a "slow" cyclist in front of you, it’s probably because you’re speeding. (It hurts me to say this as much as it does for you to hear it.)
So now that you know, are you going to stop swearing at cyclists? My guess is no. Because there’s a larger bone of contention here, which is that cyclists make a lot of us feel like lazy slobs. Whereas drivers sit in an air-conditioned bubble, expending only the energy required to press the gas pedal, tap the brake and change from a ’70s classic rock radio station to an ’80s classic rock station, cyclists are out in the actual elements doing actual exercise. Whereas drivers are consuming calories by eating an entire bucket of KFC over 10 blocks, cyclists are burning calories and consuming nothing but seaweed at home. Whereas drivers’ carbon footprints grow more beast-like by the hour, cyclists create no exhaust other than the sweet fatigue they feel as they drift off to saintly sleep at night.
Of course, moral superiority is insufferable, but you still shouldn’t try to run it off the road or teach it a lesson with the family car. You might win on the street, but in court, it’s a different story.
Continue reading “Cyclists and motorists on collision course”

From the peer-reviewed literature; just published in the Environmental Health Journal by five researchers from the University of British Columbia:

Methods
We reviewed studies of the impact of transportation infrastructure on bicyclist safety. The results were tabulated within two categories of infrastructure, namely that at intersections (e.g. roundabouts, traffic lights) or between intersections on “straightaways” (e.g. bike lanes or paths). To assess safety, studies examining the following outcomes were included: injuries; injury severity; and crashes (collisions and/or falls).

Results
The literature to date on transportation infrastructure and cyclist safety is limited by the incomplete range of facilities studied and difficulties in controlling for exposure to risk. However, evidence from the 23 papers reviewed (eight that examined intersections and 15 that examined straightaways) suggests that infrastructure influences injury and crash risk. Intersection studies focused mainly on roundabouts. They found that multi-lane roundabouts can significantly increase risk to bicyclists unless a separated cycle track is included in the design. Studies of straightaways grouped facilities into few categories, such that facilities with potentially different risks may have been classified within a single category. Results to date suggest that sidewalks and multi-use trails pose the highest risk, major roads are more hazardous than minor roads, and the presence of bicycle facilities (e.g. on-road bike routes, on-road marked bike lanes, and off-road bike paths) was associated with the lowest risk.

Conclusions
Evidence is beginning to accumulate that purpose-built bicycle-specific facilities reduce crashes and injuries among cyclists, providing the basis for initial transportation engineering guidelines for cyclist safety. Street lighting, paved surfaces, and low-angled grades are additional factors that appear to improve cyclist safety. Future research examining a greater variety of infrastructure would allow development of more detailed guidelines.
Continue reading “New study on the impact of transportation infrastructure on bicycling safety”

Photo: LA Times
By Patrick Brady – VeloNews

The courtroom gallery was filled to capacity Monday as a jury of seven women and five men announced it had convicted former emergency room doctor Christopher Thomas Thompson of assaulting a pair of cyclists last year by abruptly stopping his car in front of them.

For the first time in the trial, which spanned three weeks, cyclists outnumbered Thompson supporters in the gallery. There was a palpable tension in the room greater than any felt during the trial.

Thompson was convicted of six felonies: two counts each of assault with a deadly weapon and battery with serious bodily injury as well as reckless driving causing specified injury and mayhem. He was also convicted of misdemeanor reckless driving.

The six felonies stemmed from the July 4, 2008 incident with cyclists Ron Peterson and Christian Stoehr. The misdemeanor was occasioned by the altercation with cyclists Patrick Watson and Josh Crosby.
Continue reading “Judge denies bail as the prosecutor says no cyclist would feel safe with Thompson on the road”