Four Cyclists Killed in Wales

"wafflycat" wrote in message
...

"Steve McDonald" wrote in message
...

Recently, a car skidded on ice in Wales and took out an entire
group of 12 cyclists, who were traveling the other direction. Four were
killed and the other 8 were taken to a hospital.

This make me even more aware of the dangers for bike riders on the
roads during wintertime. Out of the hundreds of cars that might pass
you on a ride, if just one of the drivers has no awareness of icy
conditions, you could be struck like a bowling pin, without warning. I
greatly prefer offroad bikepaths. Those who advocate against separate
paths and want to "seize a share of the road" from motorists, might
contemplate how freezing weather
changes the wisdom of this.

I became aware of the Wales tragedy by watching C-SPAN tonight, on
coverage of the Prime Minister's weekly session with the House of
Commons. The cycling incident was discussed and described as the worst
accident of its kind in the country's history.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4592412.stm

Steve McDonald


Oh please! Do not start the very worst kind of victim-blaming! You ought
to be ashamed of yourself! These cyclists were killed by a car hitting
them at about 50mph when the driver lost control on an icy stretch of
road. Indeed the car went offthe road, hitting a wall, before bouncing
back on to the road and taking out the cyclists.As the car went off the
road first, it is a possibility that even if the cyclists had been on a
theoretical cycle track alongside the road at that point, they may have
been hit. The reason the tragedy made so much headline news is because it
is such an unusual event. Cycling has risks, but life is a risk. Indeed
there about ten people a day killed on UK roads, the vast majority of
those being motorists killing other motorists. Remove the danger - bad
motorists, not blame the victims. Your victim-blaming is wrong and
distasteful. What a total plonker...

helen s

Ah, at long last a post I can get my hooks into!

Helen is a woman who thinks like a man (a dumb man) and so is doubly cursed.
She now no longer has the little common sense left that God gave all women
to compensate them for not being men. She has now become totally stupefied
and is certifiably a dithering idiot! See what happens when women try to
think?

If the cyclists had not been cycling on any icy road they would now be at
home looking at the 100th repeat of the Monty Python show or some other such
nonsense. Instead, they are lying 6 feet under the ground. That is where
Helen belongs too. She is way too womanly dumb to be among the living.

By the way, Helen old gal, how do you propose to remove the bad motorists
from the roads? I mean they have been around from the earliest invention of
the motor vehicle. I think there are more bad motorists today than there
were when I was a kid. Nope, I do not see any possibility of any progress in
that direction.

Helen is certainly right about life being a risk. I sure do want to avoid
her as she is a calamity waiting to happen. Please stay over there in your
tiny kingdom by the sea and do not even think about coming to the US. We
already have enough moronic people here without you adding yourself to the
mix.

Helen should plonk herself and thereby relieve the rest of us of having to
put up with her dizzy dame analysis.

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota

"Dennis P. Harris" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:36:41 -0600 in rec.bicycles.misc, "Edward
Dolan" wrote:

If the cyclists had not been cycling on an icy road they would now be at
home looking at the 100th repeat of the Monty Python show or some other
such
nonsense.

why don't you just stay indoors all winter, so you'll be "safe"?
cowards like you are the reason why we have bad drivers. we need
more cyclists on the road, and they need to take the lane when
necessary to stay safe.

cowards like you should just get rid of your bikes.

Dennis obviously took offense at my Monty Python remark.

Actually, I pretty much do stay indoors all winter. You would too if you
lived in this god-awful place known as Minnesota. Some of these jerks around
here go out on the frozen surface of the lake and do something called ice
fishing. So you can see that Minnesota is full of idiots and you would be
right at home here.

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota

I think we need to step back a bit here.

The BBC article was not definitive as to the condition of the road.
Was it icy all over? Or was the ice confined to the odd patch?

If the road was icy all over, the cyclists and the driver exercised
poor judgement. Cycling on ice is a bad idea, if you don't have to do
so. Driving at 50 MPH on ice is also a bad idea as control is hard to
maintain and easily lost.

If there were only patches of ice, you could suggest that the driver
ought to have been more attentive, but even that is iffy. Depending on
how many patches of ice there were, etc, the driver may legitimately
have been taken by surprise (a kink in the road, in the shade, so that
the ice had not melted there while it had melted everywhere else).

Jeff