The Scaly Scales of Justice »

Sure, cyclists should ride intelligently, but having respect for the power of a car is the driver’s job. If they lack that respect then the car should be taken from them.

Being only as interested in the taxonomy of American cycling subcultures as I am in baseball statistics, I have never been a Bike Snob reader. (And sorry, mom in law, I haven’t read that book you gave me.) But as Brooklyn Spoke pointed out, this is a righteous post.

The “power” that Snob is talking about is at the crux of everything that happens on our streets, from the subculture of masochistic cycling to the grateful nod that pedestrians give to motorists for being allowed to enjoy their lawful right of way.

In our society’s submission to this power, we’ve even corrupted the principle of responsibility such that it is far more often critically applied to pedestrian and cyclist victims than the people controlling the powerful vehicles that killed them. In the not-so-old days this social norm meant the very opposite: an obligation of those with power to use it with honor, respect, and care.

But anti-collective, anti-social, mechanized America has almost privatized responsibility out of existence. That noble ideal was rebranded as “self-responsibility”, an obligation not to be maimed or killed (so that no one else has to endure the unpleasantness). But we already have a lower, truer apprecation of that in our bones: it’s called survival. Survival is what’s left, when laws and social conventions are brushed aside.

Is this how we want to live?

via n8han, whose posts are always insightful and well phrased. very often i find myself reblogging him because i agree with his analysis and he sums up nicely my thoughts on the matter. i reblog him often.

Daily News Editorial Board Member, Alexander Nazaryan; entitled young transplant from Connecticut, 2002 Dartmouth alum, and therefore “Fake New Yorker”; is completely obsessed with bike lane opposition, despite the abundance of other things in the city/world to think and write about. His bike lane fixation exceeds even my own perverse drive to repeatedly call him out as a complete fraud on the internets.

”

— Dueling Bike Lane Polls: What’s The Point If Everyone’s Ignorant?: Gothamist (via n8han)

(via n8han)

Anatomy Of A Greenpoint Bike Accident »

I also want to live somewhere this doesn’t happen. :/

n8han:

Michelle remembered why she stopped calling. “[Detective Almonte] was like, ‘Listen, you should be lucky you’re alive.’ ” This was the last time she spoke with anyone from the department. “It’s like you can play Grand Theft Auto in the streets and hit real people and ditch your car and that’s allowed,” she said. “Honestly, I feel like the only way that this case would have gotten more attention is if I’d been brain dead or physically dead.”

I want to live somewhere that this doesn’t happen.

Bikes are New York fringe? Email your friends. Ask how many of them own bikes. Then ask how many of them own cars. If more of them say they own cars, look out the window. You live in Connecticut.

”

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The City and Bikes: Rubber Meets Road

A nice calm article dismissing the overwrought pro-bicycle/anti-bicycle media frenzy. Biking is no big deal, just like walking or taking the subway. People get upset over jaywalkers and smelly subway patrons; somehow we all persevere.

(Hat tip to Emily Demarest, I believe she first brought this article to my attention.)

(Source: merylfriedman)

Here’s the biggest problem with urban bicyclists: Their personalities. They exude a sense of superiority as they sip vitamin water amid an afternoon breeze while I, just for argument’s sake, may be tucking into a Filet-O-Fish in the sealed confines of my car, quickly abandoning hope of finding parking near my gym.

”

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Make Boston bicycle-free by Brian McGrory

suck it, McGrory.

high heels & two wheels: Safety »

highheelsandtwowheels:

With every terrible cycling accident, there is the debate on safety. Bike Snob addresses this subject this week and is spot on.

“You’d imagine that at some point Americans would wake up to the fact that they’re being sold a very expensive illusion of safety that is in fact killing them and opt…

Streetsblog reader Mark Davis has put together a map showing how greenway-bound cyclists are funneled through the West 29th Street tunnel where Marilyn Dershowitz was killed on Saturday.

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— Dershowitz Death Illuminates Dangers Faced By Greenway-Bound Cyclists (via n8han)

(via n8han)

Cyclist’s Helmetcam Shows “Williamsburg Hasids Gone Wild”

via gothamist

{ insert Slate-y counter-intuitive headline } »

But it’s easier to blame the victim and to say the child trying to cross the road, on which cars were moving faster than they should, impulsively darted into traffic. As a paper in Injury Prevention noted, however, “drivers who hit a child pedestrian were more likely to have had a prior citation, more citations, more safety violations, a suspended or revoked license, or more negligent operator points than drivers who did not hit a child pedestrian in the study period.” Not to mention the many cases (to cite just one recent example) of children struck by drivers when they weren’t even on the road, when they weren’t “playing,” but simply walking.

(Source: n8han)

Eilidh's Ghost Bike and the painful truth that still more people are being killed all the time »

via @KaraByerswriter 

We can engineer cars and roads to be safer, but the safest way to engineer our communities is to make cars less necessary.

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— Driving While Human: Is Car Safety an Oxymoron? (via n8han)

(via n8han)

"Bike etiquette: What do you do when what's polite isn't safe, what's safe isn't legal, and what's legal isn't polite?" »