Wisconsin Cyclist killed in rear-end collision

(Robert Dole) wrote in message . com...
"Contributing factors in the accident, which was reported at 5:51
a.m., where darkness and lack of rear lighting on the bicycle,
according to the La Crosse County Sheriff's Department."

1. Rear lighting is not required in Wisconsin.
2. We don't know what sort of reflectors he may have had on. He may
have had 2 three-inch amber reflectors, a safety vest, and an orange
flag, and a 20watt front headlight. All we know is that either he
didn't have a rear light, or it was not found after the accident.
3. Remember this is filtered through both a sheriff's department
spokesperson AND a newspaper. Recall that two weeks ago, when Ken
Kifer died, the Alabama authorities insisted for days that his name
was Kiefer, and the newspaper professed not to be sure.
4. The opinion of the La Crosse County Sheriff's Department is
important, but don't you think it's odd that they don't cite "Driver
not paying a damn bit of attention" as a contributing factor? (That's
probably not the official phrasing.)

Our actual knowledge of the details of this bicycle accident are one
step above non-existent.

FWIW, the La Crosse area law is pretty fair toward cyclists, as I
learned last October when I was broadsided in daylight(reflectors,
lights, the works--the truck was in a hurry).

In any event, I can't see any good argument for not having something
like an Eclipse mounted on your bike year-round. I use my bikes for
commuting as well as for run, and sometimes I have to stay late. This
time of year, I carry a full lead-acid system with 10w and 5w
headlights, as well as tireflies and the Eclypse in back...but all
year, I have that Eclypse there, just in case.

When I did the AIDS Ride (Heartland 7) a bit over a year ago, we had
one day of rain and darkness just as we were heading into Chicago. I
think I was the only one of over 1,000 cyclists who had any kind of
lighting...

On 4 Oct 2003 10:20:03 -0700, (Steven Scharf)
wrote:

Chris B. wrote in message

[...]

In some places, a flashing rear light is disallowed:

http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/hta3.html

Actually, if you read the actual law, rather than
that incomplete interpretation, you'll see that
while a flashing red light is expressly disallowed,
no mention is made of flashing amber lights.

Yes, I should have specified a red rear light - too late to claim I
knew this all along, I suppose.

Most of Europe has similar restrictions on flashing
red lights. Most of the LED blinkers can be set to
steady-state mode, though battery life is greatly
reduces.

This is how I choose to operate mine.

One of the popular flashers was the Belt Beacon, which
was amber, and provided much better visibility than the
current crop of LED blinkers.

Interesting that you think that a more ambiguous flashing amber light
is preferable to a solid red light for the rear of a bicycle. I
reject the simple minded notion that the purpose of lighting on a
bicycle ridden at night is to get as much attention as possible. I
bet you really do have a pretend police siren on your bike for daytime
attention getting!

LED blinkers are pretty much worthless anyway. You can
buy xenon strobes that are much better, and not that much
more expenive.

This "worthless" comment is absolute nonsense and I can only assume
that you are a salesman of high powered lighting or that you are a
single issue activist and that this is your devoted cause. While you
are here engaging in broken record syndrome about how cyclists who
ride at night need lights which are fit to light a football stadium, a
majority of cyclists in North America ride at night with no lighting
at all. If your nanny motives about promoting safety were sincere,
then you would be out trying to address the far greater problem, but
as is almost universal of your ilk, this is not so.

Matthew 23:24 [Ye] blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow
a camel.

Your stadium lighting pet issue reminds me of the "cost to society"
argument regarding helmets, where even with a similar rate of head
injury and fatality by way of head injury, no mention is made of
motorists who "cost society" 50 times as much as cyclists nor is any
mention made of the other 49% of HI cases which don't factor in
because ladders are easy to grip. All we hear about are those
frequent cycling deaths (what, 2.3 a day in a Country of 280 million
people often with at least one of them posted to usenet) and stories
about hospitals full of brain damaged cyclists which unfailingly
vaporize into dandelion fluff when questioned. I wonder who is
failing to fulfill their task of posting the events surrounding the
hundreds of motorists who die each day to the automobile groups.

A lot of things are not mandated by law, but that doesn't
mean that common sense is thrown out the window. There is
no law that you must wear a helmet either, but most cyclists
in the U.S. choose to.

Do you have any evidence of this? Where I live most people consider
riding a bicycle like walking, only more efficient and they see no
need to equip themselves as they would for a football game (including
the floodlights).

According to Einstein, "Common sense is the collection of prejudices
acquired by the age of eighteen." When someone puts forth something
and claims that it is "common sense", it often is a code for a belief
that person has which they are heavily emotionally attached to but
that falls apart under even the most tame scrutiny.

No doubt you are straining at gnats when it comes to helmets, too.

It would be nice if there were a law that required rear
lights on bicycles (and good front lights too), but the
bicycle lighting manufacturers don't have much political
clout.

Oops.

http://www.johnforester.com/Articles...s/BMA&CPSC.htm

--
Chris Bird

On 4 Oct 2003 02:54:26 -0500, Frederic Briere
wrote:

Chris B. wrote:
Given that most of the general population - let alone many cyclists
who should know better - believe that reflectors are a suitable
replacement for lights and given that John Forrester was not able to
convince the bicycle industry and the US CPSC to change the status
quo,

http://www.johnforester.com/Articles/lights.htm

Actually, although Forester has always stated that reflectors are no
substitute for a headlight, he does claim in EC that a rear light is
unnecessary. He doesn't make that claim (as far as I could see) in the
article you quote, but he doesn't take the opposite position either.
I'd be curious to know if he's changed his mind or not.

This only underscores my point. I'll rephrase:

Given that if most of the general population - let alone many cyclists
who should know better - believe that a front reflector is a suitable
replacement for a white front light and given that JF was not able to
convince the bicycle industry and the US CPSC to change the status
quo, why should Joe Everyman be expected to know better than the
experts and use a rear light. Our local self-professed expert thinks
that a flashing amber light is appropriate; if the cyclist had been
using such a device wouldn't there have been someone blaming him for
not using a solid red (or solid amber/green/purple/pink/black or
flashing red) light instead?

--
Chris Bird

"Chris B." wrote in message
...
if the cyclist had been
using such a device wouldn't there have been someone blaming him for
not using a solid red (or solid amber/green/purple/pink/black or
flashing red) light instead?

Another poster shares the information that the cyclist was in the left lane,
turning left, in the dark, going uphill (no sky to create even a silhouette)
when he was hit. Under these conditions, almost any kind of light might have
saved his life.

You're right IMO that pervasive non-use of any sort of aids to visibility
amongst most cyclists is a far bigger issue than the degree of brigness
amongst those who do have lights. Which is not to say that more isn't better
when it comes to lights. I myself use two or three red LED lights, plus a
reflective triangle, plus 24 watts of front lighting, plus lots of
reflectorized accessories. I have indeed become that weird geezer on a bike
we used to laugh at when we were kids. I wish I could find him now and
apologize; he's probably still alive.

RichC

Zippy the Pinhead wrote:
You can normally travel much faster through the curve without losing
traction and hitting the ditch, and thus the signs are widely ignored.
And that's why it is unwise to take the lane on a hilly, winding
country road.

Unfortunately, when I take the lane on a country road, it's because
there is no shoulder (or that it's not ridable), and I feel that a car
couldn't safely pass me in the lane. This means that any approaching
car will have to (at least partially) move into the opposite lane, and
if the driver is going too fast to see me in advance, I doubt he'd see
an incoming car either.

Usually, when a car passes me in a curb, he was able to see enter it, so
he should be aware of my presence. However, I can see how a hilly,
winding road might conceal one's presence until the last moment. Not
much you can do in that situation, aside from taking another route.

BTW, I should point out that the fatality in the quoted article happened
in an urban area that's as flat as a pancake. I've ridden there twice,
and you eventually get so bored that going down an overpass becomes
exciting.


--
Frederic Briere *

= IS NO MO http://www.abacomsucks.com =

Wayne Pein wrote in message ...

My understanding is that the posted speed enables motorists to come to a
complete stop prior to striking a stationary object. A bicyclist moving in
the same direction provides a great margin for error. A motorist should have
no trouble slowing to the bicyclists speed.

Lots of the curvy areas are uphill, and a bicyclist moving 10 mph
isn't much above stationary. If the posted speed is 35, and the driver
is going 55 (having slowed down from the 70 they were going in a 55
mile zone), the slow bicyclist is at risk.

So, I contend that it is a good idea to use the full lane under any condition
in which you want to communicate via position that you don't want motorists
to overtake.

Moreover, by being further out into the lane, you are visible
sooner when the road is curvy.

Depends on the direction of the curve, doesn't it?
True for a curve to the right, but it's the opposite if the road
curves to the left (in countries that drive on the right).

In article , says...
Zippy the Pinhead wrote:

On 4 Oct 2003 03:15:23 -0500, Frederic Briere
wrote:

"The driver told police he couldn't avoid the cyclist, who was riding in
the middle of the road."

I couldn't find a more detailed version of the incident, but stated that
way, it sounds as if the cyclist is being blamed for taking the lane.
No mention is made that any driver who hits a cyclist because he's
simply "there" is a danger to anybody.

A letter to the editor in the same paper that reported the death of
the young doctor complained about coming around a blind curve and
finding cyclists riding four abreast.

There are a lot of blind curves on country roads in Wisconsin. They
are marked with diamond-shaped yellow signs indicating the direction
of the curve and the recommended speed for negotiating the curve. The
signs are widely ignored. They are speeds at which one can see and
avoid traffic ahead. If you're doing 35, for example, on a curve
marked for 35, you can brake in time to avoid hitting a combine being
transported from farm to farm. That's why the signs are there.

You can normally travel much faster through the curve without losing
traction and hitting the ditch, and thus the signs are widely ignored.
And that's why it is unwise to take the lane on a hilly, winding
country road.

My understanding is that the posted speed enables motorists to come to a
complete stop prior to striking a stationary object. A bicyclist moving in

This assumes you can see them at some minimum distance. If you don't
see them until they are 30 feet in front of you, you aren't going to get
stopped from 35mph in time.

the same direction provides a great margin for error. A motorist should have
no trouble slowing to the bicyclists speed.

So, I contend that it is a good idea to use the full lane under any condition
in which you want to communicate via position that you don't want motorists
to overtake. Moreover, by being further out into the lane, you are visible
sooner when the road is curvy.

Depends on the direction of the curve.

--
Dave Kerber
Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.

In article , bikerider@-
nospam-thanks-rogers.com says...
On 4 Oct 2003 10:20:03 -0700, (Steven Scharf)
wrote:

Chris B. wrote in message

[...]

In some places, a flashing rear light is disallowed:

http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/hta3.html

Actually, if you read the actual law, rather than
that incomplete interpretation, you'll see that
while a flashing red light is expressly disallowed,
no mention is made of flashing amber lights.

Yes, I should have specified a red rear light - too late to claim I
knew this all along, I suppose.

Most of Europe has similar restrictions on flashing
red lights. Most of the LED blinkers can be set to
steady-state mode, though battery life is greatly
reduces.

This is how I choose to operate mine.

One of the popular flashers was the Belt Beacon, which
was amber, and provided much better visibility than the
current crop of LED blinkers.

Interesting that you think that a more ambiguous flashing amber light
is preferable to a solid red light for the rear of a bicycle. I
reject the simple minded notion that the purpose of lighting on a
bicycle ridden at night is to get as much attention as possible. I
bet you really do have a pretend police siren on your bike for daytime
attention getting!

LED blinkers are pretty much worthless anyway. You can
buy xenon strobes that are much better, and not that much
more expenive.

This "worthless" comment is absolute nonsense and I can only assume
that you are a salesman of high powered lighting or that you are a
single issue activist and that this is your devoted cause. While you
are here engaging in broken record syndrome about how cyclists who
ride at night need lights which are fit to light a football stadium, a
majority of cyclists in North America ride at night with no lighting
at all. If your nanny motives about promoting safety were sincere,
then you would be out trying to address the far greater problem, but
as is almost universal of your ilk, this is not so.

Matthew 23:24 [Ye] blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow
a camel.

Your stadium lighting pet issue reminds me of the "cost to society"
argument regarding helmets, where even with a similar rate of head
injury and fatality by way of head injury, no mention is made of

Where do these stats come from (the rates of head injury and resulting
death in cars)?


....


--
Dave Kerber
Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.

Robert Dole wrote:

Wayne Pein wrote in message ...

My understanding is that the posted speed enables motorists to come to a
complete stop prior to striking a stationary object. A bicyclist moving in
the same direction provides a great margin for error. A motorist should have
no trouble slowing to the bicyclists speed.

Lots of the curvy areas are uphill, and a bicyclist moving 10 mph
isn't much above stationary. If the posted speed is 35, and the driver
is going 55 (having slowed down from the 70 they were going in a 55
mile zone), the slow bicyclist is at risk.

It is impossible to account for motorists this irresponsible. Cowering at the side of
the road in the hope of not encountering such a situation would make my riding less
enjoyable.





So, I contend that it is a good idea to use the full lane under any condition
in which you want to communicate via position that you don't want motorists
to overtake.

Moreover, by being further out into the lane, you are visible
sooner when the road is curvy.

Depends on the direction of the curve, doesn't it?
True for a curve to the right, but it's the opposite if the road
curves to the left (in countries that drive on the right).

Yes, that is true.

Wayne

David Kerber wrote:

In article , says...
Zippy the Pinhead wrote:

On 4 Oct 2003 03:15:23 -0500, Frederic Briere
wrote:

"The driver told police he couldn't avoid the cyclist, who was riding in
the middle of the road."

I couldn't find a more detailed version of the incident, but stated that
way, it sounds as if the cyclist is being blamed for taking the lane.
No mention is made that any driver who hits a cyclist because he's
simply "there" is a danger to anybody.

A letter to the editor in the same paper that reported the death of
the young doctor complained about coming around a blind curve and
finding cyclists riding four abreast.

There are a lot of blind curves on country roads in Wisconsin. They
are marked with diamond-shaped yellow signs indicating the direction
of the curve and the recommended speed for negotiating the curve. The
signs are widely ignored. They are speeds at which one can see and
avoid traffic ahead. If you're doing 35, for example, on a curve
marked for 35, you can brake in time to avoid hitting a combine being
transported from farm to farm. That's why the signs are there.

You can normally travel much faster through the curve without losing
traction and hitting the ditch, and thus the signs are widely ignored.
And that's why it is unwise to take the lane on a hilly, winding
country road.

My understanding is that the posted speed enables motorists to come to a
complete stop prior to striking a stationary object. A bicyclist moving in

This assumes you can see them at some minimum distance. If you don't
see them until they are 30 feet in front of you, you aren't going to get
stopped from 35mph in time.

That was my point. Traffic engineers know the site distance and post the speed
limit accordingly.



the same direction provides a great margin for error. A motorist should have
no trouble slowing to the bicyclists speed.

So, I contend that it is a good idea to use the full lane under any condition
in which you want to communicate via position that you don't want motorists
to overtake. Moreover, by being further out into the lane, you are visible
sooner when the road is curvy.

Depends on the direction of the curve.


True.

Wayne