Was bound to happen?

[The fingers]

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...odle-makes-toronto-streets-safer-for-him.html 8)
Cars barreling by him. SUVs passing within inches of his bike’s handlebars. Drivers jamming on the brakes and leaping from their vehicles to confront him.
Daily commutes used to be tough for Warren Huska, who cycles 18 kilometres from his home near the Beaches to his office in North York almost every day.
“People get really insulated inside a vehicle,” Huska said. “They don’t really know where the edges of their vehicle are.”
But, for the past year, drivers have given Huska a wider berth.
Now, when he mounts his trusty two-wheeled steed, Huska is protected by a pool noodle.
Strapped to his bike’s frame with bungee cords, the floppy foam cylinder is a reminder to drivers not to get too close.
“The edge of the noodle (helps them) gauge space instead of them trying to judge where my elbow was,” said Huska.
Huska took up the noodle in mid-2015, when Ontario enacted new laws requiring drivers to leave one-metre’s distance when passing cyclists on the road.
The change he noticed was “almost magical,” Huska said.
“Suddenly all the cars are changing lanes to go around me.”
Huska estimated he has biked 8,000 km, in all seasons, with his noodle in tow.
It’s an added measure of safety in a city where cycling in traffic can be a dangerous undertaking.
Toronto police say there were 864 collisions between cars and bikes from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 alone.
Huska said drivers have reeled down their car windows to congratulate him on the usefulness of the noodle.
But, so far, he has heard of only one other cyclist rolling with their own noodle.
That might have something to do with the noodle’s coolness, or lack thereof.
“I’m unconcerned about looking good,” Huska said. “I’m concerned about my safety most.”

 

[MrDude_1]

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...odle-makes-toronto-streets-safer-for-him.html 8)
Cars barreling by him. SUVs passing within inches of his bike’s handlebars. Drivers jamming on the brakes and leaping from their vehicles to confront him.
Daily commutes used to be tough for Warren Huska, who cycles 18 kilometres from his home near the Beaches to his office in North York almost every day.
“People get really insulated inside a vehicle,” Huska said. “They don’t really know where the edges of their vehicle are.”
But, for the past year, drivers have given Huska a wider berth.
Now, when he mounts his trusty two-wheeled steed, Huska is protected by a pool noodle.
Strapped to his bike’s frame with bungee cords, the floppy foam cylinder is a reminder to drivers not to get too close.
“The edge of the noodle (helps them) gauge space instead of them trying to judge where my elbow was,” said Huska.
Huska took up the noodle in mid-2015, when Ontario enacted new laws requiring drivers to leave one-metre’s distance when passing cyclists on the road.
The change he noticed was “almost magical,” Huska said.
“Suddenly all the cars are changing lanes to go around me.”
Huska estimated he has biked 8,000 km, in all seasons, with his noodle in tow.
It’s an added measure of safety in a city where cycling in traffic can be a dangerous undertaking.
Toronto police say there were 864 collisions between cars and bikes from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 alone.
Huska said drivers have reeled down their car windows to congratulate him on the usefulness of the noodle.
But, so far, he has heard of only one other cyclist rolling with their own noodle.
That might have something to do with the noodle’s coolness, or lack thereof.
“I’m unconcerned about looking good,” Huska said. “I’m concerned about my safety most.”

 

[gogo]

^Elegant solution.

 

[Chalo]

^Elegant solution.

I have long considered doing something similar, but with a plate of metal cut into a foot long key shape and mounted on a fiberglass rod. You know, to make my point a little more illustratively.

 

[The fingers]

https://pvcycling.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/law-abiding-ride-around-and-civil-obedience/ :x
Law abiding ride-around and civil obedience
October 24, 2016 § 14 Comments
Now that the Palos Verdes Estates city council has voted down BMUFL signage against the recommendations of its own traffic safety committee, traffic engineer, and outside consultant, it’s apparently necessary that they be reminded why signage got on their agenda to begin with: Three cyclists have died on the peninsula this year and blatant, over the top harassment of cyclists who dare to abide by the California Vehicle Code.
Moreover, the city has sent a clear message to cyclists by voting down signage: It’s okay to terrorize cyclists at will. And cyclists now report a scary uptick in harassing behavior, such as this dick move by the person driving CA license plate number 6USG423.
At 6:30 PM this Tuesday, October 25 (THAT’S TOMORROW), some cyclists will, as part of traffic, ride through Palos Verdes Estates and ride in and around Malaga Cove Plaza, while doing exactly what the residents have demanded: Fully obey all traffic laws and come to a complete stop at every stop sign. The idea that some residents have made, and that the city has bought into, is that PVE should not consider safer streets (five BMUFL signs) because all cyclists don’t stop at every sign, every time. The city council needs to see again how this faux demand has nothing to do with safety and is a deflection from the real issue: Cars terrorizing bikes and the city’s caving in to the howls of an angry and unrepresentative minority that wants to exclude nonresidents from cycling in PVE.
After riding in and around the plaza as normal traffic, cyclists also plan to attend the PVE city council meeting at 7:30 PM, held in the council chambers just across from Malaga Cove Plaza. During the period for public comment on matters not on the city’s agenda, cyclists will each speak for their three minute allotment, reading from the NIH study that shows signage makes roads safer for bicycles. The council failed to read this document at the last dog-and-pony-show that voted down BMUFL signage, even though it was provided to them in their materials.
If you are a cyclist who is concerned about safety on the PV Peninsula, you should come to this 100% public meeting, read for three minutes from the NIH study (a copy of the study will be available, I’ve heard), and then leave as soon as you’ve read your three minutes; no need to stick around or waste an entire night at the rest of the meeting. You won’t have to stick around for hours as at previous meetings.
Some riders have said they will be convening twice a month to ride and to publicly comment at every council meeting until the city puts the signage back on the agenda and votes to install BMUFL signage and sharrows. The more cyclists who show up and take their full three minutes to read from the NIH study or otherwise advise the council of the need for BMUFL signage and sharrows, the sooner we can expect the city council to vote to put these critical matters back on the agenda and vote to have them installed.
The city has shown that as long as the vocal anti-safety residents gnash & howl loudest, they will not vote for human lives. You should consider spending a few minutes of your time to come to the meeting and oppose such a horrible position.
Democracy only happens when people show up.

 

[The fingers]

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...treets-in-name-of-10196950.php#photo-11557624
A pack of vigilantes that typically does its deeds in the dark has been hard at work on the streets of San Francisco for the past few months trying to make them safer for bicyclists and pedestrians by surreptitiously plunking down orange traffic cones or planting white plastic posts.
The city’s Municipal Transportation Agency hasn’t denounced the group but has been quickly dismantling much of its work, saying it hadn’t been through the proper processes and, in some cases, violates traffic codes.
The group, which has adopted the name San Francisco Municipal Transformation Agency in an obvious play on the name of the MTA, has been placing the cones and posts to keep cars out of bike lanes and crosswalks that drivers often roll through.
An early member of the group, who wanted to remain anonymous because the actions could be construed as illegal, said SF Transformation was born in July after two women on bicycles were hit and killed by motorists in San Francisco in separate June 22 accidents.
The group believes the city isn’t working fast enough to make streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians.

“We’re fed up with how slow the SFMTA is,” said the man, who identified himself as “Copenhagen,” the Danish city known as a bicycling haven. “The reason we’re doing this is that people are dying because they’re not working fast enough.”
According to the Vision Zero Coalition, which aims to eliminate traffic deaths in the city by 2024, 20 people died during the first eight months of this year in traffic collisions, 10 of them pedestrians despite the coalition’s efforts.
The group started by buying orange cones, emblazoned with the letters SFMTrA, and then placing them along bike lanes separated from traffic by painted lines only. The cones seemed to do the trick by keeping vehicles out of the bike lanes, he said, but were easily removed. So the group ordered white plastic traffic posts, which can be glued to the streets. They are reportedly the same posts the MTA uses.
As of Friday, the group had managed to place the more permanent posts, officially known as soft-strike barriers, at the eastern entrance to Golden Gate Park on John F. Kennedy Drive and on Crossover and Transverse drives, where they narrowed a two-lane road to a single lane in the park to slow traffic approaching a crosswalk.
They have also placed them on Folsom and Division streets, at the start of a bike lane to protect a left-turn lane for bikes on Fell Street on the famous Wiggle bike lanes to Golden Gate Park, and in the crosswalk at Geary and Leavenworth streets, where they protected part of the crossing from turning vehicles.
Bicyclists riding down the busy Valencia Street bike lane Monday discovered that the SFMTrA crews had installed plastic posts between 14th and 17th streets earlier in the morning.

The posts at Crossover and Transverse, which narrowed the roadway at a crosswalk, were quickly removed, Copenhagen said, as were those at Geary and Leavenworth. At last check, he said, the Folsom Street and Fell Street posts remained. The MTA has said it won’t touch the JFK posts because it has its own plans to install plastic barriers at that location.
Ben Jose, an MTA spokesman, confirmed that the group’s posts will stay until the city replaces them. But he said the agency has removed other barriers because they haven’t been properly planned or approved.
“Generally, we have no choice but to remove the cones and posts that don’t go through an official process because it is a code violation to place objects in the roadway, and it can create confusion,” he said.
The posts can also interfere with other street uses, he said, as they did on Geary Street, where they blocked a towaway zone used for parking during the day but opened to traffic during commute hours.

Copenhagen said the group has grown rapidly, attracting dozens of members and raising thousands of dollars via its website, at www.sfmtra.org. The money has enabled the renegades to buy the posts. Most of the installations take place at night and are often chronicled on Twitter, @sfmtra.
The posts are an inexpensive and simple way to attempt to give bikes and pedestrians more safety than a painted line, island or buffer, Copenhagen said. Drivers sometimes fail to see the painted lines and often choose to ignore them, he said. Uber drivers, double parkers and delivery trucks frequently use bike lanes to pull over or park.
“Paint doesn’t stop cars. They just ignore it,” he said. “It’s incredibly simple to do things like put up a white post and stop an Uber car from parking and blocking a bike lane.”
MTA officials appreciate the intent of the bike lane vigilantes, Jose said, and have engaged them in email conversations in an attempt to work with them. The MTA, a key player in the city’s Vision Zero campaign, has made many safety improvements at the city’s deadliest intersections, and has installed 27 miles of bike lanes that are separated either by various kinds of barriers or by a 2-foot-wide buffer zone painted into the asphalt.

“We certainly understand that people are passionate about safety,” Jose said. “We are, too.”
He said the agency would like Transformation’s suggestions of where it should install official plastic stakes or other barriers. Through an interactive map on its website, the vigilante group solicits ideas from its followers for more of its makeshift improvements.
“We’d like to hear where people are suggesting them and where they would like us to put them,” Jose said.
Copenhagen confirmed discussions with the MTA, and said the group has recommended spots that would benefit from plastic posts — official or unofficial. One of those places, an infamous spot among cyclists, is on Market Street at Gough Street.
The MTA, he said, told the group it would install posts there by early next week to protect cyclists.
“If they don’t,” Copenhagen said, “we’ll have to.”

 

[The fingers]

http://www.10news.com/news/cyclist-asking-for-help :?

 

[The fingers]

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/lond...ia-ciccioli-was-killed-by-truck-a3381416.html
Scores of cyclists plan to gather for a “die-in” following the death of 32-year-old Lucia Ciccioli who was hit by a truck in south London.
The Italian waitress, who had lived in London for four years, is thought to have been travelling to work at her new restaurant job when she was killed on Lavender Hill in Battersea.
Despite efforts to help her, she was pronounced dead at the scene on Monday morning.
She was the seventh person to die cycling in London this year, the sixth in a road collision and the second involving a HGV.
One week on, campaign group Stop Killing Cyclists plans a huge gathering at the spot where she was killed as part of a campaign to ban HGVs from the capital.
Cyclists and road safety campaigners will gather in the area for a vigil from 5.30pm on Monday, October 31.
The group held a similar protest earlier this month in Camden High Street following the death of a 79-year-old pedestrian.
Announcing the event on its Facebook page, the group wrote: “Further to our event to remember Sheila Karsberg in Camden, we are calling on Mayor Sadiq Khan to expedite the introduction of the ban on HGVs in London.
“In addition, we would like Mayor Khan to clarify his position and provide details of the safety ranking system which he has proposed to bring in.”
The driver of the lorry involved in the collision which killed Miss Ciccioli stopped at the scene of the crash and was not arrested.
Anyone with information should contact the Met’s Serious Collision Investigation Unit on 0208 543 5157 or the police non-emergency line on 101.

 

[MrDude_1]

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/lond...ia-ciccioli-was-killed-by-truck-a3381416.html
Scores of cyclists plan to gather for a “die-in” following the death of 32-year-old Lucia Ciccioli who was hit by a truck in south London.
The Italian waitress, who had lived in London for four years, is thought to have been travelling to work at her new restaurant job when she was killed on Lavender Hill in Battersea.
Despite efforts to help her, she was pronounced dead at the scene on Monday morning.
She was the seventh person to die cycling in London this year, the sixth in a road collision and the second involving a HGV.
One week on, campaign group Stop Killing Cyclists plans a huge gathering at the spot where she was killed as part of a campaign to ban HGVs from the capital.
Cyclists and road safety campaigners will gather in the area for a vigil from 5.30pm on Monday, October 31.
The group held a similar protest earlier this month in Camden High Street following the death of a 79-year-old pedestrian.
Announcing the event on its Facebook page, the group wrote: “Further to our event to remember Sheila Karsberg in Camden, we are calling on Mayor Sadiq Khan to expedite the introduction of the ban on HGVs in London.
“In addition, we would like Mayor Khan to clarify his position and provide details of the safety ranking system which he has proposed to bring in.”
The driver of the lorry involved in the collision which killed Miss Ciccioli stopped at the scene of the crash and was not arrested.
Anyone with information should contact the Met’s Serious Collision Investigation Unit on 0208 543 5157 or the police non-emergency line on 101.

I had to look up what a HGV was.. apparently it is "heavy goods vehicle" another term for what the US would call a tractor-trailer or large truck.

So in otherwords these idiots want to live in a very densely populated city, but not allow big trucks to bring stuff into it. Good luck with your food/supplies. lol.
While I obviously think changes need to occur, a "ban" on trucks in london is foolish.

 

[Dauntless]

Here's the inspiration for a horror movie.

[youtube]h0nX8Es3r84[/youtube]

 

[The fingers]

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co...mountain-bike-spikes-delamere-forest-12111121 :x Wouldn't want to land on that.
Mountain bikers have been warned after an apparent ‘booby trap’ was laid on a forest trail in Cheshire.
A series of wooden spikes were spotted on an unofficial route sometimes used by riders in Delamere Forest.
The posts, believed to be sapling supports from when the trees were planted, had been stuck into the mud on the landing of a bike jump.
They were spotted by a rider who took a picture and it was shared on Facebook by a local bike shop to warn others.
The post by Twelve 50 bikes in Frodsham said: “The vast majority of walkers, horse riders co-exist happily and share the forest without problems.
“However, it seems somebody has an axe to grind and has taken matters into their own hands.
“Obviously the consequences of riding into this don’t really bear thinking about.
“If you use the Forest and these trails in particular, please keep your eyes open and take care out there, especially if night riding.”
They later added: “Hopefully this is an isolated incident but if anyone does see anything dodgy going on then please report it.”
It is not known if it was a deliberate act of sabotage or a badly judged prank.
The spikes have now been removed by the government organisation which runs the 970-hectare woodland in west Cheshire and they are appealing for anyone with information to contact the police.
Forestry Commission said they were appalled by the find and their staff quickly removed the stakes.
A spokesman told the M.E.N.: “We are appalled that anyone would do this in Delamere Forest and are grateful that no-one has been hurt.
“We removed the spikes as soon as we were told about them and if anyone has any information about who may have done this we would like them to contact the police by calling 101.”

 

[The fingers]

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/california/Wildlife-Officials--399758461.html 8)
Officials from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed Wednesday the presence of two gray wolves in western Lassen County.
Last summer, photographs, tracks and eyewitness sightings suggest the presence of two canids, frequently traveling together, wildlife officials said.
Scat samples also were collected by department scientists and submitted to the University of Idaho’s Laboratory for Ecological, Evolutionary and Conservation Genetics. Genetic analysis of the samples confirmed the presence of two gray wolves, a male and a female.
“This is another landmark day for wolf recovery in California,” said Amaroq Weiss, West Coast wolf organizer for the Center for Biological Diversity. “Scientists have long said California has great wolf habitat; wolf OR-7 proved that with his historic travels here between 2011 and 2014, and now his son and his son’s mate are helping create a legacy. The female in California is particularly exciting because she’s bringing genetic diversity that’s essential for achieving long-term recovery for wolves in the Golden State.”
There is no evidence suggesting the wolves have produced pups, officials said.
Analysis of scat indicates that the male was born into the Rogue Pack in 2014 and most likely dispersed to Lassen County in late 2015 or 2016, officials said. The founder of the Rogue Pack is the well-known gray wolf OR7, who dispersed from northeast Oregon and traveled around Northern California in 2011 and 2012 before eventually finding a mate and establishing a territory in southern Oregon in 2013, wildlife officials said.
The DNA of the female wolf does not match that of any known individual wolves from Oregon, and initial analyses indicates she is not a close relative of current Oregon wolves.
Gray wolves were eliminated from California more than 100 years ago, until the return of OR7 in 2011.
Gray wolves are currently listed as endangered both federally and within the state of California. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and CDFW have no plans to reintroduce gray wolves into California.
Source: http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/california/Wildlife-Officials--399758461.html#ixzz4OxBMqYD1
Follow us: @NBCLA on Twitter | NBCLA on Facebook

 

[The fingers]

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/crimes.php?yyyy=2016&mm=11&dd=03&nav_id=99592
Driver buries his car after killing cyclist in hit-and-run
The police have arrested a resident of Bela Crkva, a town in northwestern Serbia, on suspicion that he killed a cyclist in a hit-and run.
The accident happened on Dupljaj-Grebenac road on October 27, with the cyclist dying instantly of his wounds.
The police said the driver, identified with his initials and year of birth as D.K. (1984), later decided to hide the car by burying it in the ground.
The vehicle, an unregistered Zastava, was found buried in a hole in an inaccessible area near the town of Kovin.
The suspect is currently held in up to 48-hour police custody, the Interior Ministry (MUP) said on Thursday, and will be charged and brought before the prosecution in Pancevo

 

[The fingers]

https://www.minnpost.com/second-opi...accident-test-how-empathy-affects-altruistic- :? Reminds me of the parable of the good Samaritan, but with a bicycle twist giving even a lesser chance of being helped.
Researchers used a fake bicycling accident to test how empathy affects altruistic behavior

 Email  Share  Tweet  Print

By Susan Perry | 11/04/16

Creative Commons/Matt Montagne

For the experiment, a researcher sat on the ground next to a fallen bicycle near a public footpath.

If you walked by an injured-looking man sitting on the ground next to a fallen bicycle, would you stop to offer your help? Or would you keep on walking?

The answer greatly depends on how empathetic you are in general, according to a small but intriguing new British study by neuropsychologists at the University of Cambridge.

And, yes, this may seem like a “duh!” finding. But as background information in the study points out, psychologists have long debated what motivates people to help others.

There are two basic schools of thought, explain the Cambridge researchers. One theory is that we help others because of our belief in social rules (like the “golden rule”), which tell us when, where or who to help. We may have come to accept these rules through our own logic (“when I help people I’m helping to create a better society”) or, more likely, through our participation in various cultural, civic and religious institutions.

The other theory asserts that the degree to which we are willing to help others is determined by our individual level of empathy.

To test the empathy theory, the Cambridge researchers decided to conduct an “in the wild” (real-world) social psychology experiment. Specifically, they wanted to see if the number of empathic traits an individual has is a good predictor of altruistic behavior.

Most studies on empathy, the researchers point out, have been conducted in laboratory settings.

For the experiment, a researcher sat on the ground next to a fallen bicycle near a public footpath. He grimaced and rubbed his ankle, pretending to be injured. Another researcher, located nearby, surreptitiously counted the number of passersby who stopped to help him.

Meanwhile, a third researcher was stationed at a concealed location some distance away. She stopped every person who had walked past the “accident,” whether they had helped the cyclist or not, and told them (as a cover story) that she was conducting a “memory” experiment. She then asked them to describe what they had seen along their walk during the past few minutes. She also asked them for their e-mail address, so she could send them two additional questionnaires to complete on their own time.

The questionnaires tested empathy levels and autistic-like traits. The autistic questionnaire was included because some research has suggested that people with autism are less likely to make altruistic choices, not necessarily because they are less motivated to help, but because their autistic traits may interfere with their self-confidence in such situations.

A total of 1,067 eligible people walked by the fake crash scene. (To be considered eligible, people had to be walking alone and have no visible physical impairments that might affect their ability to help.) Of those eligible passersby, 55 were successfully recruited to take part in the study, and 37 (19 men, 18 women) completed both follow-up questionnaires. Their ages ranged from 18 to 77 years.

Only 5.6 percent of the passersby (60 of 1,067) stopped to help the cyclist — a rather discouraging finding. But, interestingly, 29 percent of the people who filled out the questionnaires (10 of 37 people) helped.

This finding suggests that people who are willing to help a stranger on the street are also more likely to take in an online survey when asked to do so by a stranger, say the Cambridge researchers.

“It is likely that the reason people did not take part in the questionnaires overlaps with their reason for not helping,” the researchers add. “The main reason for both seemed to be that people were simply in a rush to get somewhere, which has been shown [in other studies] to reduce helping behavior.”

But that factor — being in a hurry — does not explain the key finding of the new study: the strong relationship between people’s empathic traits and their helping behavior.

The passersby who stopped to help the cyclist scored much higher on the empathy questionnaire (average score: 56/80) than the non-helpers (average score: 20/80). 

No correlation was found, however, between the number of autistic traits a person recorded and whether they stopped to help. This result supports the idea that empathy is a more important factor than autistic traits in altruistic behavior.

(Interestingly, only one person in the study scored in a range that is consistent with a formal diagnosis of autism — a diagnosis that was later confirmed with the participant — and he was one of the few individuals who stopped to help the cyclist.)

The number of people involved in this study was small, so the findings should be viewed only as a “first step towards understanding why some people may or may not stop to help a person in distress,” said Simon Baron-Cohen, the study’s senior author and director of the University of Cambridge’s Autism Research Centre, in a statement released with the study

Still, the results support the idea that empathy is at least one route to altruistic behavior, he and his co-authors conclude in their paper.

“The implication of the present study,” they write, “is that within any institution (even perhaps extreme inhumane institutions such as those under the Nazi regime), there will be individual differences in how people within the institution respond, and that some of this variation in helping behavior is accounted for by where on the empathy dimension the individual is situated.”

 The study was published online in the journal Social Neuroscience, where it can be read in full.

 

[The fingers]

http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20161107/police-seek-suspect-in-van-nuys-murder-carjacking
Home News Crime HomicidePolice seek suspect in Van Nuys murder, carjacking

By Wes Woods, Los Angeles Daily News
POSTED: 11/07/16, 6:05 PM PST | UPDATED: 8 HRS AGO
A 37-year-old man was killed in Van Nuys on Sunday and police are looking for a man wanted in connection to the death, who rode a bike and stole the victim’s car.
The incident was reported around 9:50 p.m. Sunday when Los Angeles Police Department officers responded to a radio call for “robbery/grand theft auto” on the 7400 block of Sepulveda Boulevard in Van Nuys.
The officers found a man lying on the ground and a witness next to him.
Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics responded to the scene and transported the man to a local hospital, where he died.

A preliminary investigation, according to the release, found the man and a witness were in their vehicle driving north on Sepulveda Boulevard when a man on a bike, the suspect, rode slowly south toward the victim’s vehicle.
The man in the vehicle honked at the suspect, according to the release, then the cyclist hit the victim’s front windshield with his fist.

After the honk and punch, the driver got out of his car and a fight took place, according to the release.
The suspect punched the man, causing him to fall to the ground, then the suspect got inside the victim’s vehicle and drove off, authorities said.
The witness exited the vehicle as the suspect began to drive away, according to the release, but the man who was punched was unaware that the passenger had exited the vehicle.
The victim grabbed the driver’s side door as the suspect started to drive and the suspect “rammed” the driver’s side of the vehicle against parked cars, causing the man to let go of the door, authorities said.
The suspect drove away on Sepulveda Boulevard, according to the release.
The suspect was described as a Hispanic male approximately 20 to 30 years old, standing about 5 feet 11 inches and between 140 and 160 pounds. He was reportedly wearing a dark-hooded sweatshirt and dark pants. Police did not provide a description of the stolen car.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact Valley Bureau Homicide Detective Steve Castro at (818) 374-1925. Anyone wishing to remain anonymous can call the LA Regional Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477 or www.lacrimestoppers.org.

 

[The fingers]

http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2016/11/08/a-ride-on-the-synth-bike/ 8)
Look Mum No Computer who previously showed us how to make drum triggers from tinfoil and created aMadonna Bra synth with an Arturia MiniBrute and Arduino has posted a new video featuring SYNTH BIKE 2.0.

Designed for riding around and jamming, the bike is a 1973 raleigh chopper with a drum machine/sampler/analog synth built into it in the front panel and top of the frame. tempo can be controlled by a built in clock tempo, or the front wheel, so the faster or slower you go the faster or slower the music goes.

 

[The fingers]

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/n...-remains-found-bicycle-north-lake-havasu-city
Mohave County Sheriff‘s Office (Dave Hawkins/Special to Las Vegas Review-Journal)
By DAVE HAWKINS
SPECIAL TO LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Authorities in Arizona’s Mohave County have recovered human skeletal remains from a desert area some 20 miles north of Lake Havasu City.
Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Trish Carter said an anonymous tip led deputies and detectives to the remains Monday morning in the vicinity of the Interstate 40-Highway 95 interchange.
“No identification was found with the clothing and a bicycle was located nearby,” Carter said. She said the gender of the deceased was not immediately known due to advanced decomposition.
Positive identification and autopsy results are pending. An investigation into the death continues.

 

[The fingers]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/oconnor-bike-lane-crash-collision-1.3843302 :x
Dramatic video posted to YouTube shows another cyclist being struck by a vehicle on the recently opened O'Connor Street bike lane in Ottawa.
The video, shot by a camera mounted on the helmet of cyclist Paul Ringuette around 3:25 p.m. Tuesday, shows a white van turn left at Waverley Street, knocking a man riding in the south-bound lane of the segregated path off his bike. The cyclist tumbles onto the nearby sidewalk, coming to rest on his back.
The video shows the van's driver and a pedestrian rushing over to check on the cyclist, who eventually gets up on his own. His bike did not appear badly damaged.

"It should be made clear that right and left hooks are not a product of bike lanes, they happen everywhere," Ringuette wrote in a message to CBC News.
"This was a 100 [per cent] driver error, not a bike lane issue. He passed the cyclist then immediately [turned] in this path of travel."
Ottawa police say the driver has been charged with failing to yield to traffic on a through-highway under the Highway Traffic Act since the cyclist had the right-of-way. The penalty for the infraction is an $85 fine and three demerit points.

It happened at the same intersection where a cyclist was struck on the day the lane officially opened. That collision sent the man to hospital with rib and shoulder injuries, and also involved a left-turning vehicle.
Another cyclist was struck near Somerset Street W. last week, making Tuesday's collision at least the third since the bike lane opened Oct. 20.

The executive director of Share the Road Cycling Coalition, which works to improve road safety in Ontario, said these kinds of two-way bike lanes on one-way streets are rare in the province.
"I think it's expected that there will be a little bit of a learning curve here," said Jamie Stuckless.
"Looking at Cannon Street in Hamilton [and its similar bike lane], it's a recent example from a few years ago. They did have some collisions in the first year. I think they had 16 [car versus bike] collisions."
Stuckless said these types of lanes are more popular in Vancouver, for example, and said she's optimistic the city's safety education efforts will sink in on O'Connor Street.
The city has installed both temporary and permanent signs along the length of the bike lane, which runs from Laurier Avenue W. to Fifth Avenue, and has posted messages on social media asking both motorists and cyclists to be careful.

 

[4LivesPerGallon]

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...odle-makes-toronto-streets-safer-for-him.html 8)
Cars barreling by him. SUVs passing within inches of his bike’s handlebars. Drivers jamming on the brakes and leaping from their vehicles to confront him.
Daily commutes used to be tough for Warren Huska, who cycles 18 kilometres from his home near the Beaches to his office in North York almost every day.
“People get really insulated inside a vehicle,” Huska said. “They don’t really know where the edges of their vehicle are.”
But, for the past year, drivers have given Huska a wider berth.
Now, when he mounts his trusty two-wheeled steed, Huska is protected by a pool noodle.
Strapped to his bike’s frame with bungee cords, the floppy foam cylinder is a reminder to drivers not to get too close.
“The edge of the noodle (helps them) gauge space instead of them trying to judge where my elbow was,” said Huska.
Huska took up the noodle in mid-2015, when Ontario enacted new laws requiring drivers to leave one-metre’s distance when passing cyclists on the road.
The change he noticed was “almost magical,” Huska said.
“Suddenly all the cars are changing lanes to go around me.”
Huska estimated he has biked 8,000 km, in all seasons, with his noodle in tow.
It’s an added measure of safety in a city where cycling in traffic can be a dangerous undertaking.
Toronto police say there were 864 collisions between cars and bikes from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 alone.
Huska said drivers have reeled down their car windows to congratulate him on the usefulness of the noodle.
But, so far, he has heard of only one other cyclist rolling with their own noodle.
That might have something to do with the noodle’s coolness, or lack thereof.
“I’m unconcerned about looking good,” Huska said. “I’m concerned about my safety most.”

Awesome idea!

Now, spray-paint it to a metal color, so it looks like a metal rod.

Used to pull a side-mounted ALUMINUM bike trailer, even if empty, because it kept cars away, like a force-field, saving my life many times.

 

[amberwolf]

Look up MattyCiii's Folding Lefty Lightstick thread here on ES.

 

[The fingers]

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/ny...tionally-killing-williamsburg-cyclist-9346433
More than four months after a hit-and-run driver deliberately slammed into cyclist Matthew von Ohlen on a Williamsburg street, police have made an arrest in the case.
Juan Maldonado, 56, was arrested early this morning and charged with second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and other, lesser counts.
The criminal complaint alleges that in the early hours of July 2, Maldonado swerved into the bike lane on Grand Street, sped through a red light, and then hit von Ohlen and dragged him ten to twenty feet before speeding away.
Von Ohlen, a 35-year-old cycling advocate and co-founder of the company Bikestock, died from his injuries. The NYPD recovered the vehicle a few days later in Connecticut, but failed to make an arrest for months, as family members and cycling advocates watched a familiar trend play out: the NYPD being unable or unwilling to apprehend and charge dangerous drivers.

"A young man who was an active member of Brooklyn’s biking community lost his life because a speeding driver struck him in a designated bike lane and sped away," acting Kings County District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement. "This was not an accident, but rather a reckless act for which we intend to hold this defendant accountable."
If convicted of the top count, Maldonado faces up to fifteen years in prison. His bail was set at $100,000.
Many advocates had lost faith in the NYPD’s commitment to tracking down hit-and-run drivers. According to stats released last month, the NYPD made only 13 arrests after 38 deadly hit-and-runs in the 2016 financial year. Even when a driver remains on the scene after a deadly accident, families often have to push the DA to file charges.

Victoria Nicodemus was killed last December after a driver rammed into her on a Brooklyn sidewalk. The NYPD originally let the driver walk away with a misdemeanor, before Nicodemus’s family persistently pushed the District Attorney to look into more serious charges. The driver was finally charged with manslaughter more than six months later.
"I want to commend the NYPD for doing a thorough investigation. At times, we did have our doubts that were doing it assiduously, but we’re heartened to see this arrest be made," Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, said of Maldonado's arrest.
"I see this as a big step in the right direction for Vision Zero, as we begin to regain trust in the NYPD’s commitment to it," White added. Transportation Alternatives has chastised City Hall for failing to keep up momentum for Vision Zero by getting the NYPD to make drivers accountable. Following the death of von Ohlen, the NYPD responded by handing out tickets to cyclists on the street where he died.
"The mayor must recommit to Vision Zero. We still have a long way to go. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen cyclists cut down innocently, and officers immediately assuming they had it coming," White told the Voice. The number of cycling deaths so far this year has already far surpassed 2015’s death toll.
Just this morning, two people were injured, one critically, on the Upper West Side by a box truck. The driver fled the scene.

 

[The fingers]

http://road.cc/content/news/211546-...t-close-passing-cyclist-twice-year-could-have
Police in North London have started using legislation which means drivers caught passing too close to cyclists twice in one year could have their car confiscated and crushed.
Last night Camden police, who have already replicated West Midlands Police's (WMP) award-winning close pass initiative, armed themselves with Section 59 forms, a piece of legislation under the Police Reform Act 2002, which allows police to seize vehicles being used in an antisocial manner.

At a House of Lords event on Tuesday celebrating WMP's successful close pass operation Gareth Walker, of Greater Manchester Police, suggested the legislation as another way to tackle bad driving. Questions were raised over why the Metropolitan Police aren't yet running a similar operation across the force as a whole, which polices 32 boroughs in the capital.
Sergeant Nick Clarke, for Camden Town and Primrose Hill Ward, who already adopted the close pass initiative on his beat, told road.cc: “He happened to mention it and everyone’s brains went: ‘do you know what, we haven’t thought of that!’.”
He said the legislation was originally intended for “boy racers screeching around McDonald’s car parks being idiots” but could be applied to any driving “causing or likely to cause alarm, distress or annoyance to the public”.
Sgt Clarke said the response to his updates regarding close passing drivers on Twitter support the notion it causes distress and alarm to cyclists. He said: “The tweets, and retweets I have had; I can stand up in court and say I’m repeatedly told this is why people don’t get on a bike – that this is causing alarm and distress to other people."

He said his officers will use a “graduated response” and only use them at first on the worst cases of bad driving, such as “punishment passes”.
“We don’t just come in with a sledgehammer, said Sgt Clarke, so just like the start of the close pass stuff we initially didn’t do any reporting, we were just explaining why we are doing this stuff, saying: ‘you could kill someone’.
“Then we said: right, let’s start looking at people digging their heels in, and now we are at the point where we are reporting everyone.”
He said the same process will apply for s59 reports – only the worst cases will be reported during the initial education phase.
“When I hear the engine rev behind and the person perhaps cuts me up I pull him or her over and they will be reported and will get a section 59 saying: if you do this again in your vehicle or anyone else’s that vehicle will get crushed,” said Sgt Clarke.
After the initial warning from officers, Clarke said video evidence from a third party would be sufficient to take that driver to court under section 59.

Clarke has run the operation five times in the last month or so with no additional budget. Clarke sends officers out on the roads for a couple of hours in the morning rush hour when most criminals aren't operating. The Camden initiative involves a plain clothes officer on a bike and several others at key points around a figure of eight loop. Officers target mobile phone driving as well as those who pass too close to the cyclist. Clarke says writing up evidence for driving misdemeanours also provides good training for newer officers.
Questions were raised on Tuesday as to why the Metropolitan Police aren’t following West Midlands’ Police lead and running the close pass initiative in London. The Sergeant Simon Castle, from the Met's Cycle Safety Team, said they had trialled the scheme but with slow traffic speeds in London the cyclists were overtaking traffic, rather than the other way round.
Clarke, however, feels the operation is replicable by other ward sergeants, and that it can have wide-reaching effects on driver behaviour across London.

He said: “It can be replicated in London, it’s just the locations that you choose.”
He said while High Holborn, for example, has a high KSI rate (killed or seriously injured) it isn’t possible to run a close pass operation there. However, by targeting drivers on major roads into High Holborn those drivers will still be looking out for cyclists when they reach dangerous junctions.
“They get to the point where there’s someone on a Boris Bike on High Holborn who’s at risk of collision; by targeting them three or four miles up the road you’re reducing the risk of that happening.”
He added: “The Think! campaign has a limited impact; people watching it aren’t the target audience. The fact you may have your car crushed is a powerful motivator for people to drive safely.”

 

[The fingers]

http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/33748727/surfside-woman-says-coyote-chased-her-during-bike-ride Chased by a coyote.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act...st-near-the-cotter-river-20161120-gstr33.html Emulated by an emu.

 

[The fingers]

http://www.bikeradar.com/road/news/article/more-of-the-uks-most-terrible-cycle-lanes-48650/ :?
8 more of the UK’s most terrible cycle lanes

‘Misguided, misplaced and moronic marvels’

 

[The fingers]

http://www.columbian.com/news/2016/nov/24/advocates-fight-for-electric-bike-trail-use/ :x
Advocates fight for electric bike trail useWoman says restricting use to off-highway vehicle routes violates ADA