Well, When You Think About It

There is an interesting article about cycling safety over on the New York Times Health and Wellness blog. There are no definite conclusions presented, but I was struck by this.

Dr. Rochelle Dicker, a trauma surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco, does not see it that way. She cares for victims of the worst bicycle injuries, people who might need surgery and often end up in intensive care. So she decided to investigate those crashes.  

She and her colleagues reviewed hospital and police records for 2,504 bicyclists who had been treated at San Francisco General Hospital. She expected that most of these serious injuries would involve cars; to her surprise, nearly half did not. She suspects that many cyclists with severe injuries were swerving to avoid a pedestrian or got their bike wheels caught in light-rail tracks, for example. Cyclists wounded in crashes that did not involve a car were more than four times as likely to be hurt so badly that they were admitted to the hospital. Yet these injuries often did not result in police reports — a frequent source of injury data — and appeared only in the hospital trauma registry.

Dr. Dicker is not a cyclist, but she said, “Lots of my colleagues do not want to ride after seeing these injuries.”

When her colleagues treat people who've been mangled in vehicle collisions, do they not drive? When they treat gunshot victims, do the doctors who own guns get rid of them? Do they not swim after treating a shark attack victim? And so on.

Just wondering.

Bike Lane Blocker

I think this is only the second one I've had to report all year. Duly reported to Spokane's finest.

Ride Of Silence Founder Visits Spokane

Chris Phelan is on a mission. He's riding across the country to raise awareness of the Ride of Silence. Although he's averaging 112 miles a day, he's making himself available at every stop to speak with cyclists and ride organizers and spread the word.

Chris stopped by Spokane today and a few cyclists joined him at the Old Spaghetti factory for dinner. Chris is passionate about the Ride of Silence and if you want to hear that passion, just ask him how he started it. Your eyes can't help but well up as he describes the senseless loss of a friend, the realization that something should be done, the anger-induced terse email announcing that a bike ride would be taking place--"Hope you can join me"-- and the breathtaking sight of a thousand bikes showing up.

Last May, Spokane's Ride of Silence was headed up by Roger Schramm of the Bike to Work Committee. Chris emphasized that the ride is not just for riders here. It's for riders everywhere. Spokane can not only have a ride downtown like the one we had. Others can organize rides in parts of the city that may be easier for people to attend. All it takes to have a ride is one rider and the willingness to spend a little quiet time on the roadway.

30DOB - Day 23

With the weather getting nice this week there are many more cyclists on the road. And that's good thing.

But there are also cyclists who give the rest of us a bad name. I know it's completely illogical. When you see a vehicle driver going the wrong way on a one-way street, do you automatically think that all drivers are traffic scofflaws? Of course not.

But when a bicycle does that, many people start knocking cyclists for violating traffic laws all the time.

Sorry for the poor shot. I had to unsling my camera, turn it on, and point it down the road as I went through the intersection. No doubt the guy on the motorcycle is thinking, "What the hell...?"

Today's Episode Of "Yer Doin' It Wrong"

Fear Begetting Fear

I just stumbled across this post on the Spokane Police Department site. Just what Spokane, or any other community, needs is more people carrying concealed weapons.

Yes, it's old news. One out of every 14 county residents have a concealed gun permit.

You're Gonna Get A Letter!

These two trucks have been in the bike lane on North Addison all week. It's time the city spent money on some postage so I turned them in to carparkedinbikelane(at)spokanepolice.org. With the demise of mybikelane.com this post is the only avenue of public shaming. Shame! Shame!

 

Shootings, School Safety, And The Real Problem

A couple days ago, the Spokesman Review published an article about school districts looking at how to make their schools safer.

Safety and security are at the forefront of parents’ and school administrators’ minds since a gunman killed 20 students and six adults in an elementary school last month in Connecticut.  

“That day pretty much shook American schools to their core,” said East Farms Elementary School Principal Tammy Fuller, who led a community meeting at her school Thursday.  

Districts throughout the region are using varying approaches to address safety.

We are allowing ourselves to be overcome by the "it could happen here" fear. When something happens elsewhere it is easy for us to imagine that the same event could repeat itself. Instead of explaining to parents and students how safe schools are and how unlikely a shooting--let alone a mass shooting--is, we allow our imaginations to run wild and fear to be our guide. And we ignore the real problem.

According to the US Department of Education our country has 67,140 elementary schools, 24,651 secondary schools, 5,730 combined schools, 1,296 special education/alternative schools, and 33,366 private schools. We have 4,495 degree granting schools and 2,247 non-degree granting schools. That's a total of 138,925 schools in our country.

One hundred and thirty-eight thousand, nine hundred and twenty-five schools.

America has a long history of school shootings, but when you compare them to the number of schools you'll find that despite the incessant keep-you-up-to-date-on-all-the-speculation coverage by the media when a shooting occurs, our schools are safe. Fifteen to thirty shootings every decade for over one hundred thousand schools does not mean we have a school safety problem.

According to the US Census Bureau (PDF), thousands of people in America are murdered by firearms every year. The four columns below are for the years 2000, 2005, 2008, and 2009 respectively.

Two-thirds of murdered Americans are killed by firearms. We have a gun violence problem and sometimes that gun violence problem shows up at a school. Our gun violence problem was recently recognized by Spokane Police Chief Straub in another article recently published by the Review.

The homicides in 2012 included a mixed bag ranging from the suspected murder-suicide of an elderly couple and a fatal domestic dispute to a gang-related homicide and a recent shooting where police say a drunken man pulled out a gun at a party and unintentionally shot a young woman in the back of the head. 

But much of the carnage has at least one common link: people who decide to use guns to end disputes.  

“It’s a scary statement about where we are as a nation,” Straub said. “We are settling too many disputes by shooting each other. Going forward, we are not going to tolerate a weekend like this.”

The responsibility for addressing gun violence does not lie with school administrators or the police. It belongs to our legislators and to us as citizens.

It is possible to protect our Second Amendment right to own weapons and decrease the amount of gun violence if we would work together towards those goals. Sadly, that doesn't seem possible in today's political climate.

So instead we make our children fearful at school.

Walkability Score Reduction

During my morning run I think I spent over half the distance running in the street because the uneven frozen surfaces of the uncleared sidewalks make walking, let alone running, rather difficult. I noticed a couple of contributing factors.

Poor design. The sidewalk is next to the roadway and is covered by snowplows.

Not my problem. The business's sidewalk is pristine and the public one is now blocked. 

Some residents clear the snow. Some don't.

Don't let the snow keep you from walking or running. But make yourself visible and keep a sharp eye out for traffic.

Car Salmon On Lidgerwood

Going the wrong way on a one-way street. Fortunately, he got over to the right in time for the car traveling in the right direction.

Statewide Bike/Pedestrian Count

So today was the first (and main) day for the bike and pedestrian counts at various intersections in a number of cities. During my commute in this morning, I saw a hi-viz jacket at the intersection of Post and Buckeye so I swung by to be counted and say hello. It was Gary, a very nice guy, retired boilermaker, and as you can tell from the photo, a cyclist.

Gary marking down cyclist number four.

I had the afternoon shift at Rowen and Addison. I'm glad I wasn't counting cars. That would've been overwhelming. After an hour the guy living in the corner house came out to see me. He said he didn't appreciate me hanging around on his property and he was concerned about criminal activity. I was on the sidewalk, but instead of getting in a pissing contest I explained what I was doing and asked if I could stay there for another hour. He was cool with that. I wonder what kind of heinous criminal activity he expected out of a gray-haired man wearing a bike jersey and shorts.

This fellow showed off his double trailer set up. He carries his camping and fishing gear in the front trailer and the dog in the back. 

Of the 23 cyclists I counted, 12 were not wearing helmets. Ten blew through the four-way stop like they owned the intersection. 

This guy came ripping down the road but was hardly pedaling. Once he was close enough, I saw and heard why. He's motorized. That's a sweet looking bike.

More Elbow Room

Recent construction on Hwy 2 and Hawthorne resulted in some welcome changes for bike commuters like me. The edge of the pedestrian islands were pushed back. I've never mentioned the poor design before but it was something I noticed almost every day I rode to work.

The red arrows are pointing to where the edges of the islands used to be and the purple lines show the gain in road surface. The southbound approach still leaves a little to be desired but at least cyclists now have a little more room and are not pushed completely into the traffic lane. This isn't bad if the light is red and you're starting off at the same time as traffic. But if the light is green, be careful if you have 45mph+ traffic coming from behind.

Northbound wasn't much of a problem and now it's luxuriously roomy compared to before.

 Northbound on Hwy 2.

Southbound on Hwy 2.

Someday, Spokane. Someday

The City of Brotherly Love has learned that increasing the number of cyclists reduces the number of vehicle-cyclist accidents and deaths.

John Randolph, a retired architect and builder who has been biking on the streets of Philadelphia since his days at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1960s, said bike riding here has gotten appreciably safer.  

The increase in cyclists "has changed the consciousness of motorists," he said. "Bicyclists are paid much more attention to now. They're not just an unusual occurrence any more."  

"Obviously, the bike lanes make it safer . . . biking east and west through Center City is much more pleasant and safe than it used to be."  

[Alex] Doty, of the bicycle coalition, predicted that the increase in bikers and in biking safety may attract a new breed of riders to Philadelphia streets.  

"We can attract more women, more of the 8-year-olds and 80-year-olds, and that's the tipping point that makes biking fully accepted.  

"And that's when Philadelphia can turn into something like the Amsterdam of the U.S."

Philadelphia has 220 miles of bike lanes and plans to increase that to 300 miles. New York City has more than 280 miles of bike lanes. Portland, Oregon has over 300 miles of bike lanes. 

Sharing The Road

Some work is being done where Nevada intersects with Hwy 2. This is the view on my commute home. 

The traffic barrels on the left are blocking my path. I surveyed this when I stopped at the red light on Thursday evening and decided I could cut through the construction area since it was clear and there was no right-turning traffic coming from Nevada. As I was thinking this over, the driver in the truck next to me spoke up.

Him: "What do you want to do about the barrels?"

Me: "I don't see anything in my way on the right so I'll go that way."

Him: "Okay, but if you want to go left, I can hold off and let you go first."

Me: "That's very nice. Thank you very much."

In my experience, any interaction with a vehicle driver is usually unpleasant. Here's a driver I'm going to remember in a good way, unlike that one guy.

You're Gonna Get A Letter

Lucky Road Find Day

Lucky I got this stuff off the road.

Bike Lane Blocker

Fortunately, North Addison isn't all that busy even during rush hour. But still.

First Bike Lane Blocker This Season

And so it begins.

Increased Militarization Of The Police

According to KRPC in Houston, The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office in Conroe, Texas used $300,000 in federal homeland security grant money to become the first law enforcement agency to purchase a ShadowHawk unmanned helicopter made by Vanguard Defense Industries. (Note to other news agencies: See how KRPC included links to references so people can read these things for themselves? Hint, hint.)

Montgomery County did not get the weaponized version of the remote controlled helicopter.

Michael Buscher, chief executive officer of manufacturer Vanguard Defense Industries, said this is the first local law enforcement agency to buy one of his units.

He said they are designed to carry weapons for local law enforcement.

"The aircraft has the capability to have a number of different systems on board. Mostly, for law enforcement, we focus on what we call less lethal systems," he said, including Tazers that can send a jolt to a criminal on the ground or a gun that fires bean bags known as a "stun baton."

"You have a stun baton where you can actually engage somebody at altitude with the aircraft. A stun baton would essentially disable a suspect," he said.

According to the Vanguard site:

U.S. Military and Law Enforcement consumers have less-lethal/lethal options including single or mulitple (sic) shot 37 mm/40mm grenade launcher, 12g shotgun.

I imagine a "less lethal system" consisting of a 37mm or 40mm grenade launcher engaging somebody "at altitude" probably would disable a suspect.

Somewhat akin to the Scooter Chair commercial, Vanguard Defense Industries lets law enforcement agencies know that they may qualify for a free Shadowhawk.

By nature of the Shadowhawk’s unique capabilities, federal, state and local law enforcement agencies can obtain 100% funding to purchase and maintain a UAS of their own. For further information on applicable grant funding please click the link below or contact us directly for further information.

The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office may want to rethink getting the weaponized version of the Shadowhawk. It's the closest thing to a combination AK 57 oozie radar laser triple-barrel double-scoped heat-seekin shotgun needed to bring down Da Turdy Point Buck.

For The Record

The other night I spoke at the county commissioner's board meeting about the proposed helmet ordinance they were considering. (Unfortunately, I had to leave afterwards for an emergency at work so I missed hearing the majority of the speakers.) The board had two options to consider along with the ordinance. One was that the ordinance would only apply to ages 16 and under. The other option was to make it "no penalty", that is, there would be no fines. A parent could essentially be cited twice since they could be cited along with their child, and organizers running events could be cited if participants weren't wearing a helmet.

According to the way it was described, the board could could adopt the ordinance as is or adopt one or both of the other options. I spoke in favor of adopting the two options. I brought up the CDC data showing the higher occurrence of injuries and fatalities for age groups 4-9, 10-14, and 15-19 and some other info from the Washington Dept of Health site as well. I spoke against fining event organizers for individuals taking part in the event who weren't wearing a helmet because participants sign a waiver acknowledging the hazards of the activity they're about to participate in. I can't speak for all organized events, but I have yet to attend one that didn't state a helmet was required.

I laughed when I saw the Review article yesterday. (You may have to log in to see it completely.) From my introductory comment you'd think I was some curmudgeon who didn't want the gub'mint tellin' me what do to.

One critic, Hank Greer, said he is a bicycle commuter who recognizes the value of wearing a helmet. He said he uses a helmet for his commutes, but doesn’t think he should have to use one for “puttering around the neighborhood.”

Why couldn't they have quoted the guy who spoke against the ordinance with his "Safety is a philosophy and it doesn't apply to me" speech? Now he was a critic.