BIKE: hit and run

[Patrick Goetz]

Fred Meredith wrote:
> 
> Maybe it's the company you keep. I've  lived and ridden in Travis County 
> for more than 25 years and I can't claim your high incidence of 
> incidents. I guess my friends are safer cyclists and ride defensively.
 >
 > After reading the original post, I got the feeling that Jon was
 > responsible in a large part for how the police responded. He was neither
 > a frothing at the mouth law-bashing frenzied sidewalk rider, nor any
 > other kind of citizen who would be no fun to deal with.
 >

Well, Kellie and Eric are quiet, helmet-wearing math graduate students 
who have probably never raised their voices in their entire lives, so I 
doubt they appeared threatening to the trucker boy who ran them down. 
He actually skidded into Eric, apparently having seen him just a bit too 
late.  Of course one of the reasons they got hit was they were wearing 
bicycle helmets, hence didn't hear the truck coming up behind them until 
it was too late, but they did have bikes equipped with flashing red rear 
lights and reflectors and were hugging the right side of the road.  In 
point of fact, they were precisely following the teachings of the Fred 
Meredith school of bicycle safety, which is one of the reasons they got 
hit.  The Patrick school of bicycle safety would have dictated no 
dangerous, useless helmet, hence hear vehicles coming up behind you and 
get the hell out of the way DESPITE the fact that you have the right of 
way.

But feel free to explain to us list greenhorns and ignoramuses what they 
could have done to safer in this situation.

The other hit and run incident involved my tenant, who is a 5'1" tall 
19-yr-old who looks like an anime character, also soft spoken.  She 
might appear threatening to a gnat if she happened to be holding a fly 
swatter, but I kind of doubt it.  It would have to be a mighty skittish 
gnat.

So your theory of aggressive bicyclists scaring away kindly motorists 
appears not to be holding up too well in these examples.  The thing that 
annoys me about this discussion, though, is the very idea that there are 
circumstances where motorists are justified in committing a hit and run 
accident.  I can't believe you're actually insinuating this kind of 
complete and utter bullshit.


> In other words, he did not react to the motorist "in kind" as many of 
> our finger-waving, spittle spraying fellow "bikers" might have. Right, 
> Patrick? Remember Hays County and the Sheriff's Deputy who stopped you 
> for blowing the stop sign?
> 

You mean one of the bicycle-hating psychopaths that Hays County hires to 
carry a gun around because they don't have the common sense or the 
brains to do background checks or perform psychological profiles on the 
wannabe serial killers they hire to be law enforcement officers?  I 
guess you're not remembering that the whole point of my original post on 
this issue was that I DIDN'T blow the stop sign, but got pulled over and 
harrassed anyway.  Had I actually broken a law, I wouldn't exactly have 
anything to complain about now, would I?

Since you still remember this ancient tale, here's another one for ya; a 
little more recent:  Last year a friend and her friend went for a bike 
ride in rural Hays county, mis-estimated how long it was going to take 
them to get back, and ended up riding back in the dusk.  One of Hays 
county's finest pulled up and ordered them to get off the road because 
they didn't have a front headlight.  When they pointed out that they 
were heading home, he said he didn't give a fuck, and if he saw them on 
the road, he was going to arrest them.  When they started walking their 
bikes along the roadside property, he announced that he was going to 
arrest them for trespassing on private property.  Fortunately for them, 
the land owner happened to be within earshot, came over and told cop boy 
that it was his property and he was inviting them to walk their bikes on 
it, at which which point psyco-cop sped off into the sunset as fast as 
he could put the pedal to the metal.

I don't know Fred, I realize that we don't see eye to eye on issues like 
police harrassment, but I think the behavior of this cop was 
inappropriate, and out of line.  Perhaps you can send the list a long 
rant justifying cop boy's need to arrest my friends for biking on Hays 
County roads.  I'm eager to see what justifications you come up and am 
truly looking forward to the "aw shucks, he didn't really mean it! They 
probably ran a stop sign!" post we'll get from you when they find a pile 
of dead teeanage bodies buried in one of those bastard's backyards one 
of these days.  The good thing about this will be the insuing lawsuit 
will cost the county so much money that they'll be forced to start doing 
background checks and psychological profiles when they hire cops in 
order to get liability insurance, and then we can finally put this issue 
to bed.