How Austin American-Statesman hurts cyclists

Austin's weekly paper, the Austin Chronicle, is a semi-alternative tabloid covering politics, music, art, and culture. The Chronicle is known for delivering well-researched, detailed articles that go well beyond the headlines. Even better, they also frequently cover topics the traditional media won't touch. The Chronicle has also run numerous features on bicycles, and has been printing local bicycle booster Amy Babich's letters to the editor on a regular basis since 1995. They have an extensive website with archives, and you can read them for free without registering.

On the other hand, Austin's daily, the Austin American-Statesman (owned by Cox Enterprises) is a well-below-average daily paper, covering issues in only the most superficial way, and frequently getting its reporting flat-out wrong. Its editorials are even worse.  While the Chronicle is open about its biases and supports its positions through in-depth examinaton of the issues, the Statesman does the opposite, trying to make its point by omiting any competing arguments or facts. (This is especially true when the paper on one of its anti-environmental crusades.) Cyclists are just one of the casualties at the Statesman. And when cyclists get hit by cars, the Statesman is right there to tell you whether the cyclist was wearing a helmet, but not that the driver ran a red light or hit the cyclist on purpose. And unlike most papers, whose online archives are free, at the Statesman they're $9.95/month.

The analysis below refers to the Austin American-Statesman, unless otherwise noted. We cover bicycle issues first, and then some other general issues.

In November 1999 when a school bus killed cyclist James Morgan, the Statesman's initial article referred to the collision as "an accident" no less than five times. In a later article, the Statesman reported that witnesses said the bus swerved to the right and hit Morgan, seeming to indicate that the driver intentionally hit the cyclist. Why is the Statesman calling collisions "accidents" before they know whether they're truly accidental?

Another way that the Statesman defends the motorist is by blaming the cyclist, which we'll cover further down.

When Ben Clough was killed in 1998, the Statesman reported that a helmetless cyclist died in a collision at MLK and Lavaca, making it look as though a stupid, helmetless cyclist got what he deserved. What they DIDN'T mention was that the driver ran a red light to hit Ben. How could they omit such a crucial fact? Simple: The police didn't tell them.

The Statesman gets most (or all) of its information about car-bike collisions from the police. This immediately puts the paper in a position of reporting only what the police want to be reported. The extremely brief press release from the police department made no mention of the fact that the driver ran a red light to hit Ben. (That fact wouldn't become widely known until the police REPORT was available several days later.) But the police press release made damn certain to point out that Ben wasn't wearing a helmet, a fact the Statesman was only too happy to repeat.

But the fact that the Statesman was duped doesn't let them off the hook, because they're WILLING dupes. When the truth about the collision became known, the fact that the police had been less than forthcoming about the real nature of the collision, and had in fact shifted blame in their press release onto the cyclist, should have been a story in and of itself. But it wasn't. Not to the Statesman, anyway.

A year or so earlier when massive opposition to the city's bicycle helmet ordinance forced a public hearing, the Statesman went on an anti-bike crusade. One of the important points made by the League of Bicycling Voters (LBV), who opposed the helmet law, was that 80% of the no-helmet tickets given to kids were given to black and Hispanic kids, with cops obviously using the law as an excuse to shake down poor kids on the East side. How did the Statesman report on this? In the middle of an article on the helmet law hearing, out of the blue, they said that the police don't keep records on the race of offenders. They didn't even have the courage to mention the 80% charge by the LBV; they were just trying to counter that claim in the minds of any readers who might have heard about it ELSEWHERE! Did the Statesman talk to LBV, who could have provided evidence of their claim (which came straight from police records, copied at the police department)? Of course not. The Statesman was content to print the police lie that they were unaware of the race breakdown of the no-helmet tickets issued to kids.

(And it was indeed a lie -- the race is listed right there on the report. That's how LOBV got their figures, by examining police reports.)

Of course, there are a whole host of stories the Statesman doesn't even touch. For example, how about comparing the case of Michael Memon, who ran into and killed cyclist Tom Churchill, and whose case was sitting around the police department for months, with the case of Cesilee Hyde, who ran into and killed an Austin police officer, and was charged in less than ten hours with a crime? Nope.

Even when they cover the story, they often leave important questions hanging. For example, when the Statesman reported that witnesses said that a bus swerved to the right and killed a cyclist, many readers were undoubtedly thinking that sounded like the collision was intentional, and if so, why was the driver charged with only the relatively minor crimes of leaving the scene and tampering with evidence, instead of homicide? The Statesman didn't say. (Are you seeing a pattern here?)

And going back to the case of Ben Clough, I asked the Statesman reporter what she made of the fact that the police report indicated that the driver had been drinking, although they police didn't give her an alcohol test or arrest her when she killed Ben. Her answer? She hadn't noticed that part of the report.

Perhaps what's most frustrating is that the Statesman often gets things completely wrong. In 1996, some people expressed that they wanted to go on Critical Mass (CM) rides, but didn't want to be associated with the traffic-law-breaking that some cyclists usually committed. So Tommy Eden, Fred Meredith and I started a special mid-month ride which would be strictly law-abiding, in addition to the regular end-of-the-month CM. The Statesman called me to interview me about it, and the reporter immediately asked about the "rift" in CM. I was kind of surprised, and I explained that there was no "rift"; we weren't replacing the original CM, and none of us were leaving CM. Heck, Tommy, Fred and I were all regular CM riders, and we were riding on BOTH rides! We just started a second ride to appeal to a wider range of people. The reporter kept asking about the rift, and I kept telling him point-blank that there was no such thing.

So how does the article appear in the paper? "Now comes Critical Mass Lite -- a kinder, gentler group of folks on spokes whose members say that they have had their fill of the anarchical rides that began in November 1993," portraying us as defectors from the original group. Okay, how much more plainly can I put this? Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!

Of course, the other media gets things wrong, too. In a 3/22/00 piece about cycling on their 10:00 news, KVUE-24 admonished viewers to wear their helmets because "it's the law". WRONG, unless you're under 18. The local helmet law was amended to apply to only kids years ago. And it's not like this isn't common knowledge, or isn't easy to look up. [more on the helmet law]

Even when the Statesman gets things right, they never give you the big picture. In 1999 when cyclist Amy Babich submitted a petition to get listed on the ballot for the city council election, the city clerk invalidated her petition because some of the signers failed to explicitly write the word "Austin" in their address (even though they listed their street address and zip code, and even though the petition was for an Austin election). While the Statesman reported this, they failed to mention that just a year earlier, an earlier city clerk LOST HIS JOB when he invalidated a citizens petition on similar spurious grounds. Longtime city clerk Elden Aldridge threw out the campaign finance reform petition by Austinites for a Little Less Corruption by invalidating thousands of signatures -- for no good reason, according to the petition organizers, and according to a federal judge ruling in the citizens' favor after they filed a lawsuit against the city protesting the invalidation. (The judge called the clerk's methods "more than a little bizarre.") Aldridge lost his job shortly after the fallout. (Read the Chronicle's article on Aldridge's dismissal; scroll down to "Aldridge ousted".)

When I contacted the Statesman reporter to complain about the lack of context in the article about Babich's petition being invalidated, the reporter used the lame excuse that the two incidents were so dissimilar that they were unrelated (excuse me?), and that in any event "there wasn't enough room" to inform their readers of the bigger picture.

The Statesman's 7-4-00 article by Kelly Daniel on the City's plan to ban parking in bike lanes typically failed to miss the obvious points. The opening line is, "One of the few Austin streets where bicycles and cars have their own lanes has become a hornets' nest of ire about how that relationship will continue," but the whole point is, bikes DON'T have their own lanes since it's okay for cars to park in them. --> DUH! <--   Daniels continues with, "But some homeowners are ... questioning why bicyclists just can't keep going around parked cars, as they do now." After raising that question, Daniels lets it hang there unanswered, implying that there IS no answer, that cyclists FOR SOME CRAZY INEXPLICABLE REASON want to have car-free bike lanes instead of "simply" riding around the parked cars. Daniels fails to provide the answer as to why this is unsafe: because it's @#$(*& dangerous to jut in and out of the car traffic lane, especially for children, who may not be competent enough to remember to look behind them before moving left into traffic. And if kids can't bike on SHOAL CREEK, where in Austin pray tell CAN they bike? Finally, at the very end of the article, Daniels gives a brief and incomplete answer to the danger question, quoting Lane Wimberly about cyclists getting doored when trying to go around parked cars, but offering nothing at all about the danger of moving in and out of the car traffic lane. And of course, while Daniels makes certain to trumpet the NEIGHBORS' question (as though the answer isn't obvious), Daniels doesn't put forth the obvious question that cyclists and normal people would like answered: "Why even have or call it a bike lane if bicyclists can't actually USE it?!?" (more on the Shoal Creek car parking ban)

Statesman reporting tends to shift the blame for cyclist injuries onto the cyclist. For example, the Statesman is often eager to report on whether the cyclist was wearing a helmet when they were hit. Now, we've got nothing against helmets, but the emphasis on helmets in reporting only serves to instruct the public that it's our own fault for getting hit by a reckless drunk driver if we didn't have a helmet, and if we DID have a helmet, well hey, cycling is DANGEROUS, isn't it? That's what you get for being out there on the street, you crazy bicycle-rider!

Would it be appropriate for the paper to report on whether rape victims were wearing risque clothing or walking through the "wrong" neighborhood when they were attacked? (Readers might also be interested in how helmets are overrated, and how cyclists are actually more likely to get hit if they wear a helmet.)

Take the case of cyclist Ben Clough, who was killed in October 1998. The Statesman reported that a helmetless cyclist died in a collision at MLK and Lavaca. What they DIDN'T mention was that the driver ran a red light to hit Ben.

The significance of this shifting of blame toward the cyclist can't be underestimated. Nearly half the serious bike injuries in Austin that we know about are hit-and-runs, only about a third of at-fault motorists get cited when hitting cyclists, and many of those who do face charges ultimately receive no penalty. What can explain this besides a deep societal prejudice against cyclists? And surely the tone set by newspaper reporting fuels that prejudice.

Cyclists have asked the Statesman to not be so insistent about reporting whether cycling victims had helmets. And we have noticed that now the Statesman doesn't always mention helmets in every single article about biking victims, though we have no idea whether or not that's due to our efforts. However, Doug Ballew has taken the opposite approach and lobbied the Statesman to include information about whether cycling victims were wearing helmets. Ballew, coincidentally, happens to be the person chiefly responsible for pushing the widely unpopular bike helmet ordinance through the Austin City Council.

There are other ways that Statesman reporting shifts blame onto cycling victims. When a driver veered off the road onto the shoulder and hit a cyclist, the Statesman reported that, but in the second paragraph they put it this way "Jason Boardman was northbound when his bicycle made contact with the sport-utility vehicle..." When the bicycle made contact?! As though the cyclist hit the truck!As Dan Connelly suggested, you would thereby expect the paper to report that shooting victims "made contact with the bullet".

If the Statesman wants to report on bicyclist responsibility, it would do better to report on whether night-time biking victims had lights on their bikes. Not wearing a helmet isn't going to make it any more likely for a car to hit you, but riding at night without lights is a recipe for disaster. The difference between the two is that the lack of a helmet couldn't have caused a collision, while the lack of lights definitely could have.

In early 2001, a reader wrote to the Statesman supporting a proposed ban of cyclists on country roads, saying that motorists shouldn't be held responsible when cyclists break traffic laws. I wrote in to point out that motorists aren't held responsible even when they're the ones at fault. I listed examples, and provided my web address for more information. The Statesman, predictably, ran the letter WITHOUT the examples OR the web address -- making me look like some kind of uniformed crank, and depriving their readers of any contact with the truth. Here's the original letter:

Bud Lawson wrote, "Motorists and their insurance companies should not be held responsible for illegal or irresponsible actions taken by cyclists on public roadways." Don't worry, Bud, motorists are not held responsible even when they're the ones at fault. Half the cases of drivers hitting cyclists that I know of are hit-and-runs, and motorists who can't be found face no consequences (such as the ones who hit Keith Hailey, Mark Bennett Brooks, Jennifer Schaeffer, and Thomas Linsley). Heck, even when there are witnesses and the license plate is known, the police may take no action against a hit-and-run driver (such as the one who hit Jay Williams). When motorists do bother to stick around after they hit one of us, they're still unlikely to face penalties, even if they were clearly at fault (such as the ones who hit Janne Osborne, Devorah Feldman, and Tom Churchill) -- even if they were well beyond legally drunk when they killed the cyclist (such as the one who killed Andrew Turner).

More information about these cases is available at BicycleAustin.info/justice

Michael Bluejay
BicycleAustin.info

And here's how the Statesman actually ran it:

The writer of the Feb. 4 letter, "A bold stance," wrote, "Motorists and their insurance companies should not be held responsible for illegal or irresponsible actions taken by cyclists on public roadways." Motorists are not held responsible, even when they're the ones at fault.

Half the cases of drivers hitting cyclists that I know of are hit-and-runs, and motorists who can't be found face no consequences. Even when there are witnesses and the license plate number is known, the police may take no action against a hit-and-run driver.

When motorists do bother to stick around after they hit one of us, they're still unlikely to face penalties, even if they were clearly at fault or if they were well beyond the legal intoxication limit when they kill a cyclist.

MICHAEL BLUEJAY
Austin

Among other edits, they removed all the named examples AND the website address! Thus Statesman readers can go on believing that the kind of injustice I described doesn't really exist, for if it did, why wouldn't I list any evidence? The Statesman also deliberately denied their readers the opportunity to read about these cases elsewhere, effectively sweeping this issue under the rug.

Let's face it: Without listing any evidence at all, it looks as though I were some lunatic with crazy fantasies about negligent motorists, or worse, that I was just making it up. Predictably, that's exactly what the public thought. Here's a sample of an anonymous message on my voicemail: (I regret that I forgot to put it on the website before it expired.)

Yeah, this is for Michael Bluejay. I disagree with your little column. It's selfish and it shows your stupidity. When you bikers get ready to follow the LAWS of Austin and the laws of Texas when riding your bicyclists, maybe people wouldn't be hitting you. As far as hit and runs, the police DO follow up on it. If they have a license plate they're gonna go after any hit-and-run whether it's a bicycle or a pedestrian. This column shows your ignorance, and your stupidity.

Too bad I didn't have the opportunity to tell him about how the police ignored my own hit-and-run.

In a predictably futile attempt, I went to the Statesman and met with an editor (Pancho Garcia) to voice my concerns. Garcia somehow didn't believe that the Statesman's printing my seemingly wild claims without reference to any examples made me appear incompetent, despite my receiving postal and voicemail from readers drawing that exact conclusion. I argued that the charge that the police sometimes don't follow up on hit-and-runs even with a known license plate would seem outrageous to the common person unfamiliar with these issues, but Garcia insisted that people would somehow be willing believe this without any examples listed (!). He noted that he ran my complaint letter about the censorship by several staffers with 80 years of combined experience, and none of them agreed with me. (Well, duh. Perhaps he should talk to some people outside the Statesman.) I pleaded with Garcia to run this simple, short followup letter:

Readers have contacted me to question my recent letter in which I explained that at-fault motorists frequently face no penalties for hitting cyclists, even if the motorist was clearly at-fault or drunk, and even if the collision was a hit-and-run with witnesses being able to provide the license plate number. For those who doubt that this can be true, please see the report at BicycleAustin.info/justice.

Michael Bluejay

Garcia saw no need to run this letter, but promised to look into it. Right.

With all our criticism of the media's handling of car/bike collisions, it's fair to ask how we'd prefer the media report on these incidents. So here's our wish list.

Our biggest wish is for the media should go beyond reactive reporting when a collision occurs, and do a big-picture story on the fact that half the car/bike collisions are hit-and-runs, that police follow-through is often poor to non-existent, and that the courts are often unwilling to punish motorists who hurt cyclists. This lack of justice is certainly newsworthy -- even more so than the individual cases.

Our next wish is for the media to do some follow-up on cases, rather than considering the story to be over once they've initially reported on the collision. Is the case effectively dead after several months, with the police saying only that the case is "under investigation", when in all likelihood no investigation is actually taking place? Was the investigation concluded with the driver receiving only a slap on the wrist, or not even that? These items are considerably newsworthy, but we rarely hear about them.

When reporting on individual collisions, our advice is:

• If it is known who was at fault and why in a collision, say so.
• Don't take the police department's word on everything. Talk to witnesses to get their side of the story.
• Mention whether the driver was impaired, speeding, reckless, or elderly. (Car/bike collisions here and elsewhere have been caused by elderly motorists who either fell asleep or who were no longer physically capable of driving automobiles safely.)
• If the collision occurred at night, mention whether the cyclist had reflectors and lights.
• Don't mention the lack of a helmet. This tends to blame the cyclist for the outcome, while ignoring the fact that wearing a helmet would not have prevented the collision. When Ben Clough was killed, the paper reported that a helmetless cyclist was killed, putting the blame on the cyclist, but didn't report that the driver had ran a red light to hit Ben (because the police neglected to mention that part).
• If the police are not initially forthcoming with information, get a copy of the police report a few days later when it's released, and see what the police neglected to initially mention. Take them to task in print over their omissions.
• When reporting on roadway improvements, consider that cars don't have a god-given right to monopolize all the roadway space, and that bikes, in addition to having a legal right to the road, help reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. Also balance the story with cyclists' voices; don't let motorists' dominate.
• When running letters to the editor, don't censor a web address that the writer provides for more information.

Of course, if the Statesman is this sloppy on bicycle and transportation issues, you can bet that that same incompetence is evidenced throughout all their other reporting, and even in their business practices. Here are just some examples.

Vicious hackers. When the FBI made arrests during its Operation Sundevil in 1990, they explained the crimes as a vicious effort in which hackers stole a secret document that could have brought the nation's 911 system to its knees. Much of the media dutifully reported the FBI's party line. Soon after, though, some of the more responsible outlets reported the truth: that the "stolen" document simply detailed procedures and definitions of terms, the document was freely available in libraries, and in fact could be ordered from the phone company on an 800 number for $13. Now, long AFTER the national media had exposed the FBI deception, Bob Banta (who I believe is still at the Statesman as I write this in 1999) had a front-page article about computer hacking, and naturally referred to Operation Sundevil as a vicious hacking effort by deranged criminals which could have brought the nation's 911 system to its knees. Usually I ignore poor Statesman reporting, but in this instance I had to call up Bob Banta at the Statesman and read to him from another article in the national media which completely refuted the sucker position that Banta promulgated.

A stepping stone into the world of big business. Freeport McMoran is a large multinational corporation which engages in such diverse operations as developing the environmentally sensitive area along Barton Creek greenbelt over the Edwards Aquifer, and murdering native tribal peoples in Indonesia who are protesting Freeport's invasive gold mine there (the largest in the world). During the peak of local concern about Freeport in the early 90's, Bill Collier, then the Statesman's environmental reporter, authored a series of front-page articles about the company which were less than critical. This was especially disappointing, because much of Collier's previous work for the Statesman had been surprisingly accurate. Anyway, not long after Collier's puff pieces on Freeport ran in the Statesman, Freeport offered Collier a high-paying job as their spokesperson, which Collier readily accepted. Was this a "reward" for his non-threatening articles about them? Sure seems like it. But even if his articles had taken Freeport to task, he might have received a job offer anyway: A local television newscaster in another city who was very critical of Freeport was also offered a job by the company, which he also readily accepted.

Anti-Environment, Part I. It's no secret that the Statesman has continually portrayed the local environmental movement as a bunch of naive idiots who would wreck the local economy if they had the chance. Naturally, the Statesman fails to point out when history shows that they were wrong and the environmentalists were right. In the early 90's when the citizens had to resort to a petition drive and referendum to force through the SOS water quality ordinance over the objections of the City Council, developers (with help from the Statesman) predicted economic doom for the city as growth would be strangled. Of course, the exact opposite happened, with Austin experiencing the biggest economic boom it's ever seen. As I write this, in 1-2000, the City Council is decidedly pro-environment, and the local economy is booming like never before.

One of the current city councilmembers, Daryl Slusher, ran for mayor in the early 90's against Bruce Todd. Slusher, a former reporter for the Chronicle, was the favorite of the environmental community, which of course meant that the Statesman hated him. One thing that didn't help Slusher's campaign was that the Sierra Club surprisingly endorsed Todd over Slusher, which happened because the group's endorsement committee was made up of only a small handful of members, while much of the Sierra Club membership at large was horrified by the endorsement of Todd over Slusher. Several Sierra Club members wrote to the Statesman to make this point clear, but the Statesman wouldn't run any of their letters. The Statesman boldly declared Todd to be the choice of the environmental movement based on the one sketchy endorsement by the Sierra Club, and ignored the massive opposition to Todd by the entire rest of the environmental community (including many individual Sierra Clubbers). When Slusher lost the election by a tiny margin, it was clear that Slusher could have won handily if the Statesman hadn't been so forceful in its opposition to him. In his concession statement to a local TV reporter, Slusher said, "I'd like to thank my two opponents, Bruce Todd and the Austin American-Statesman." (The reporter, typically, didn't follow up on this and instead started asking unrelated questions.)

Anti-Environment, Part II. "I knew Tim Jones. Tim Jones was my friend. You, sir, do not know Tim Jones." Sure, that's a sloppy adaptation, but that's how I wanted to introduce this next piece. In late 1999, the Statesman ran a series of articles and editorials, making the incredible accusation that local environmental activist Tim Jones was trying to get a developer to hire him so he could help the developer get around environmental laws. (The irony, of course, is that it's the Statesman's own reporters who engage in that kind of sleaze. See our Stepping Stone section above.) The Statesman claimed that the evidence for Jones' coverup-for-hire offer was on a secret recording of one of Jones' three-year-old phone conversations, made without Jones' permission. The problem with this was that it was completely untrue. Jones was indeed recorded without his knowledge or permission, but he never said anything about helping a developer skirt environmental laws. How could the Statesman get this wrong? Simple, they got their information from a second-hand source and never bothered to investigate it before reporting it as fact. The Chronicle was naturally outraged, and put the actual recordings of the phone conversation on their website so readers could hear for themselves that Jones never said what the Statesman claimed. The Statesman's attack on Jones makes more sense when you consider that Jones sits on the city's Environmental Board, courtesy of being selected for that position by councilmember Daryl Slusher. (See Anti-Environment, Part I, above.) [Read the Chronicle's coverage on the Tim Jones issue.]

In a lengthy 1-16-00 article about the controversy surrounding where to build highway S.H. 130, the Statesman fails to even once mention that prominent critics question whether the highway will have its intended effect of reducing congestion. (Here are some references documenting the failure of communities to build their way out of congestion with new roads.) A few days later, the Chronicle ran a lengthy cover story on S.H. 130 in their 1-21-00 issue, which at least raised the question of whether building the road would have its intended effect, although they didn't devote that much space or attention to that question.

Mayor Watson himself was the swing vote in favor of building S.H. 130, an incredible fact the Statesman amazingly failed to report. (6-00)

Mike Dahmus writes that News 8's initial coverage of the Shoal Creek Blvd. restriping referred to a bike path instead of a bike lane, and that in their followup coverage on 8-8-00, they referred to the plan as banning parking all along Shoal Creek, when in fact it preserves parking on one side of the street.

In its April 20, 2002 slamming of Councilmember Goodman, the Statesman takes a swipe at the Bike Program: "Goodman has championed the much-maligned Austin Music Network, which has cost taxpayers more than $1 million dollars over the past two years. She was the force behind the unnecessary, problematical electric utility consumer advocate proposition on the ballot. And she has generally lent support to insubstantial efforts such as the city's bicycle coordinator." (In fact, the city's Bicycle Program has made impressive accomplishments, especially considering that they have a shoestring budget.)

In July 2002 the Statesman recently reviewed the book Divorce Your Car by Katie Alvord. Check out this quote:

Alvord's book recommends the "circle game," a five-step plan that Austin bike advocate Michael Bluejay has included in his on-line newsletters at http:// BicycleAustin.info over the years.

While it's always nice to have a plug for the site and the newsletter from the Statesman (especially given how mercilessly I criticize their reporting), I've never actually heard of the "circle game" nor the five-step plan, much less included them in this newsletter.

Annalisa Petralia at KEYE 42 did a story on 8/14/08 about the increase in car-bike collisions, pretty much blaming cyclists for increase, while providing zero supporting data. The first instance where she touches on the reasons for the increase says, "But a growing number of bicycles on the road are creating major safety issues. Officers say they've been issuing more tickets to cyclists breaking the laws." The story goes on to quote a police officer about the tickets APD is issuing.

Either KEYE knows that cyclists are really mostly at fault or they don't know. If they do know, they certainly haven't provided any evidence of that. If they don't know, then they're slandering cyclists and misreporting the news by printing a ridiculous assumption as though it were fact.

In September 2008 a Memphis newspaper ran an article with the headline "Road safety responsibility of cyclists too". And what was the article about? A cyclist who was hit by a driver who illegally ran a stop sign and whom witnesses said had a beer bottle in his car, though police wouldn't give the driver a breathalyzer test. Could there be a greater disconnect between the article and the headline? Really, folks, I couldn't make this stuff up.

The Statesman did run a very good story by Claire Osborn about the sentencing of the driver who killed cyclist Ben Clough in May 2001. (more)

Pamela LeBlanc authored an excellent article for the Statesman about bicycle commuting on March 29, 2004.