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Cyclist killed at W. Burnside and 14th
According to Portland Police Bureau Lieutenant Mark Kruger, the cyclist collided with a cement mixing truck at the corner of W Burnside and 14th.
Let’s get something straight – cyclists do not collide with cement trucks.
You got the words mixed up on that one, kid.
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“Let’s get something straight – cyclists do not collide with cement trucks.”
They do in bike-friendly Portland. A day earlier and two blocks North I had to unleash a jump I didn’t even know I had to avoid smacking the business end of a huge Mercedes with my rear triangle. There’s apparently a law here that relieves motorists from the obligation to obey traffic signals as long as they’re talking on a cellphone……
Like anywhere else, even in bike-friendly Portland, those of us out on 2 wheels are mere targets at times for folk in cars. I’ve had so many close calls on the streets of Portland that I’ve stopped counting. But cyclists DO collide with cement trucks when they turn right directly in front of you.
…maybe someday in the distant future, when enough of us have died on the streets due to car & truck fatalities, it might occur to some politician, that healthy minds & bodies are being wasted for no reason other than a lack of attention…
…w/ all the “encouraged” distractions in this modern world, if cycling safety is not taught early & often in schools & fully re-enforced throughout life, it will never get better …
It needs to be taught in prisons. Period.
Avoiding the Suicide Slot
Hmmmm….. I would have agreed that bikes don’t collide with vehicles, or certainly aren’t normally at fault for the accidents that they are injured or killed in. I thought that until last night, when some dumb ass on a bike merged into the street inches from my car, he cut across the sidewalk, over the curb and would have hit me had I not swered into the oncoming lane. I just glared back at this dumb ass with a screwed up look meant to say ‘do you have a freeking death wish?’
Maybe it should go without saying, but even idiots can be taught to ride a bike.
I love it when I try and drive through downtown Flagstaff in my overweight work truck, and some moron with an IPOD is swerveing the wrong way down Beaver on their Walmart bike.
Yeah, sadly as a cyclist in NYC, I find myself shaking my head more often than not at the dumbassed maneuvers many of us are pulling. Not as much as I shake my head at jackass drivers but enough to make it hard for me to ever imagine a time when cyclists aren’t marginalized in the city partly due to our blatant disrespect of traffic rules.
Ike, I feel you man, I really do. There are a few cats out there who are just begging for it. I drive too, and fuck, I’ve had kids come out of nowhere, straight at me, on a one way street here in Flagstaff.
Come the fuck on, man. Riding straight in to traffic? And I’m down by law here folks. I give cyclists lots of room, acres, kilometers, miles…
Jeez.
And, this morning, when I rode to work for the first time in forever, some lady tried to pass me on the right, then successfully on the left, while we were both turning left on to Beulah out of my neighborhood.
It was insane. Where the fuck was she trying to go? All I heard was here flooring her Range Rover. In fact, it was the noise of her engine revving so high that I noticed first when she came up on the right.
It is a one lane left turn. And she sound three lanes. Behind me, to the right of me, and finally, to the left of me.
Map here: maps.google.com
name says it all.. much respect..
ride safe and fuck agro cars
We can all be self-righteous and inconsiderate pricks, whether we ride bikes or drive cars. Hell, I’ve nearly doored people and had extremely close calls with perfectly law-abiding cyclists while rolling through stop signs in my Honda.
And I’ve had my share of fist-waving, fuck-you confrontations with drivers after I pulled some dopey stunt on the road bike.
Too, I’ve been utterly (well, almost) violated on the streets by soccer moms while they talk on cell phones. These, I of course follow to let the air out of their tires.
Not slash, that would be totally illegal…just a little mayhem done unto people who likely can’t beat me up.
What more can I say?
Plenty, but I’m at work and shouldn’t be doing this anyway.
In japan (they say) ANY contact with a non-car gets the motorist in Trouble. Here in Marin, if you rear end a cyclist, it’s the cyclist’s fault. Happened to teacher JoAnne Black, racer Jim Bryan, and photographer Bob Snyder, contractor Jeff Miller. All hit from behind (and lived) and all had to shoulder the blame.., cops sympaathized with the motorist
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