On Thursday, July 11, 2019 at 11:19:04 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, July 11, 2019 at 9:09:59 AM UTC-7, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

On Thursday, July 11, 2019 at 11:25:18 AM UTC-4, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

On Wednesday, July 10, 2019 at 12:29:23 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote:
https://nypost.com/video/angry-biker...matic-protest/

Includes (predictably) editorial snark about hats

Interesting data point in that video: Last year 111 pedestrians
were killed, a
4.7% increase. As always, that's _far_ above the number of dead cyclists.

But they somehow neglected to say about the peds, "Many without helmets."

Vaguely related: Yesterday Streetsblog (IIRC) posted a rabble
rousing rant about
"Police using deadly force." Most of the commenters seemed to want
every police
officer hung.

I gather there is some problem with police attitude toward NYC
bicyclists - as
in, when a cyclist is killed (say, from a right hook crash with an
irresponsibly
driven truck) the NYC cops respond by ticketing only cyclists, even if the
dead cyclist broke no law. That's wrong, IMO.

But the Streetsblog event was different. A guy on a bikeshare bike
crashed red
light after red light, ignoring the cop following in a cruiser
order him to stop
the bike. The biker kept looking back at the cop, but riding on,
through light after light.

The cop finally cut into the bike lane ahead of the rider and
stopped. The biker
ran into the cop car. Streetsglob called that "Deadly force."

It plainly was "deadly force". If anyone but a cop were to cut off a
cyclist with an SUV, causing an intentional collision, I think even you
would call it so. Cops *are* permitted to use deadly force under some
conditions, whether this was one of them ought to be the question.

As I understand it, the cyclist is still alive. That seems to prove the "force"
was not deadly in this case.

That's a ridiculous argument. Deadly force means force that *might*
cause death, people survive being shot all the time, but shooting is
plainly deadly force.

True, but corralling a cyclist with a car is probably not deadly force unless the car or the bike are going 60mph. I also assume the cops had lights on and were sounding a siren, at least in bursts -- SOP for pulling over cars.

But anyway: What should the cop have done?

I haven't seen the video, was he using lights and siren? PA system?

And are you saying that no traffic laws should apply to bikes? And that bikers
are exempt from following police orders?

Of course not. I note that a few days ago you proudly described ignoring
warning signs that probably had the force of law, and ignoring the
protestations of a construction foreman who tried to prevent your using
an unsafe bridge. Would you have paid attention if he had been a cop?

I think you said something like "no bridge is closed for a cyclist".
Should *those* traffic laws not apply to bikes? Or just not to you?

This raises an interesting point -- when does sinage turn into "the law?" Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't -- and probably not when placed by a private contractor. Some bridges and roads are clearly closed to everyone, and violating the closure results in serious penalties. I rode up to the gate on Larch Mountain after the Eagle Creek fire. The gate was closed, and there were all these "road closed" signs with about a dozen cited CFRs (it's national forest) and statutes cited for authority to shoot you if you proceeded. https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2465/5...752ff7cd_b.jpg (minus all the nasty signs with CFRs). Well, maybe not shoot you, but make you legally miserable. I looked up the road and said, nah.

However, not exercising the same restraint, I rode past a barricade with a similar sign on the Gorge highway, and lo and behold, a state policeman popped out of nowhere and busted me. I talked my way out of a fine, penalty and certain death and just turned around and rode back to Vista House and home.

What I hate is when the sign says "bridge out," and I ride ten miles to the bridge to find out that it is REALLY out -- and then I have to backtrack ten miles because I'm not going to swim across a river holding my bike. Optimism is a good thing, to a point. If I were Joerg, I would have a pannier filled with an inflatable raft or a hovercraft or something.

-- Jay Beattie.

I continually argue that the police such as the Highway Patrol have JOBS of enforcing the driving laws and absolutely do not. While city cops have begun (JUST) to realize just how dangerous roadways are becoming with the total ignoring of driving laws, as a rule anything goes appears to be the driving laws in California today.

But the police not enforcing the driving laws with any efficacy doesn't mean that you can ignore a police officers order to pull over, truck, auto or bicycle.