Hmm. Poor Yehuda. It´s tough when you get the feeling that the authorities are on everybody elses side.
In my duck pond Sweden (as well as probably in every other so called developed society) there is a big difference between intentional action and actions committed out of stress, when being provoked or under the influence of drugs etc.
I had thought that as Yehuda had a witness Sidewalk Jones would get a “real” sentence. Maybe not to harch but still a sentence that felt like a centence. As it is now I guess that Jones has probably only gotten more respect from his listeners…
Rider was lucky – look at the state of the bike’s back end!
The back wheel is trashed and the frame doesn’t look too good either…
Top marks to the bus driver and the cops who are taking this seriously.
From the notice (both lanes etc) local bikes get a great deal compared with many places
What surprises me is how quickly the police got to the scene. The vehicle rear-ends the cyclist at approximately 3:06.35, then swings around and tries to drive away only to be blocked by the bus. The squad car is pulled up alongside the downed cyclist LESS THAN FORTY-FIVE SECONDS LATER (3:07.17)!!!
The cyclist in me says, “Way to go!” The cynic in me, however, says it’s apparent that the cop was in the traffic flow already and just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and wonders what would have happened had the cop not been ‘Johnny-on-the-spot’ like that. I also wonder what would have been the result if the incident had not occured on a bridge like this and there had not been the concrete barriers on both sides to keep the hit-and-run driver from getting past the bus.
It might be interesting to see just what the follow-up on this would be. One can’t help but notice that there is a sidewalk, also separated from the roadway, being used by pedestrians crossing the bridge. While the cyclist was riding correctly — riding as a legitimate road user and taking the lane as is proper to do — I wonder if the driver (or his lawyer) will try to claim that the cyclist had no business on the road and that he should have been on the sidewalk, and whether or not the judge/jury buys into that argument.
I saw that yesterday. Right after that there was another video response going around by some idiot who blamed the cyclist for “blocking traffic” and saying that he deserved to be hit. I guess he didn’t watch the video that i watched which mentioned that the lane was a sharrow and there was a sign on the bridge urging cyclists to take the lane.
People just make me want to reach for a ball bat sometimes.
Let it go, Yehuda.
Ruining “every time I’m on a ride” in this way is the worst damage possible, and it’s only YOU who can make it stay or let it go where it should go.
Focus on the ride that is NOW.
I definitely feel the same way. After getting hit by a garbage truck last year, I flinch and tap the brakes for every driving coming out from the right, and get angrier than I was at the time, when I was feeling pretty dopey between a concussion, vycodin and Thanksgiving dinner.
Same story with a sketchy bridge where I was taken down by vandalized cable across the path. I don’t go that way after dark, and usually don’t go there in daylight either.
It’s not the injury that follows you around, it’s the malice and/or carelessness. I fly right past places where I’ve fallen alone, but feeling like someone is after you is a completely different thing, especially if that person is still out there.
Uh, oh, after a few hours… I feel I really should add one thing, because… I’m aware that my previous post might seem like some “another stupid wise talk”. It is not. I’ve been stabbed in the chest (couple of years ago), about two inches from the heart, left lung collapsed, etc. The man got away and was never found by the police. You bet, for some time I was very angry with that man. I wished that the police would find him, that he would be tried, etc. … or that something bad would happen to him, that some “divine justice” would come on him… or that I would find him later myself and… beat him with a really big stick? not really sure… anything. None of that ever happened… and after some time, I found that I’m no longer angry and I don’t really care about any of that. (My only concern remaining was that it really would be better if the police had found him – to prevent him doing anything like that again). But the lust for punishment (or revenge, really??!) was gone. And it was a great relief. Looking back, however strange that may sound, I’m actually thankful for that experience – I learned from it an immense lot! After those years, I don’t even feel like a victim… and (not only) that, silly as it may sound, actually makes me feel more like a winner. I didn’t die, my life was not ruined (changed, yes), I learned probably the greatest lesson of my life (so far, at least). Nothing really lost in the long run, a lot, A LOT gained. (Of course, all of that would be a very long and quite complicated narration. Not a point here).
However, one of the many things I learned was the one related here – I realized that I could have kept all the hurt feelings and all the anger and all the want for revenge etc. alive in me forever. (Actually, these things tend to care for themself very well, but… they’re feeding on your very soul, if I should put it this pathetic way). But they’re not any help. None of those feelings will ever change what happened and neither the state of present things. They won’t even help in your future actions (- note that I’m NOT saying that anyone, Yehuda here, should forget about what happened and not try to do anything about it!). On the contrary, they will only prevent you from understanding any of the lessons you could learn from what happened to you. All those negative emotions will only eat you alive, from the inside.
Rick, the last two frames are very well drawn representations of what I mean. Yehuda’s bent spine, head buried between the shoulders… oh my. Seems to me that Yehuda is that victim I was talking about… most of his pain at the time being, if not all of it, comes NOT from the long-gone crime imposed on him from the outside… He shouldn’t be that way, and he doesn’t have to. No one does. No one should. (I’m saying this so boldly only because I strongly feel that way. I’ve “been there” and I dare to assume that some of the most basic aspects of our common human experience are universal).
Oh well, pardon me if it all sound like some jibberish. It is quite complicated to talk about such things, and even more when you try that in a foreign language.
Pardon me also, if you feel I got into things too personal, or too grim, or … in any way not suitable for this forum.
How to put it plainly… well, perhaps these really aren’t topics one should talk about on an internet forum. However, somehow (sometimes) I feel like perhaps you people here are not all those “complete strangers”.
If I didn’t know that the guy that tried to kill me while I was riding my bike had already died, I would feel the same way about it as Yehuda, and you. But what chaps me the worst was knowing the police knew who tried to kill me and did nothing.
You’re definitely right, and it’s our better nature to forgive and forget. I’m not proud of my new-found very thin skin when I’m on busy streets. That very thing is what bothers me so much, that a simple moment of negligence and a thud (from the driver’s perspective) is now a part of my subconcious, changing the way I ride and following me around on so many rides. I hope I will be able to let it go.
Thank you for reminding us all to have some perspective, that is why I read the comments on this site. It really does feel like a special place, where we are not at all complete strangers.
It was a recurring story that ran as a couple different segments. It started with some loudmouth in a car; Yehuda indulged a little “civil disobedience” by taking the guy’s car keys and tossing them away (sorry, can’t remember/find the date). Then (12/06/2009) the guy caught up with Yehuda during a winter ride and forced him off the road into a snowpile and drove away, leaving him lying there.
Then about a year later (November 2010) Rick did a story arc where Yehuda heard him on the radio as a sort-of “shock jock” commentator railing on and on against bicycles on the roads. That was where we first met Idle Crossing, where we learned she had been a passenger in the jerk’s car when he forced Yehuda off the road. Rick then did a story arc whereby she had experienced a change of heart, and over the next several weeks of strips she and Yehuda worked out a scheme to get into the guy’s head before finally turning him over to the police.
Based on what the testimony should have been, there was an “aggravated assault” felony that was left out of Yehuda’s recitation of the charges above. Either Idle was an incredibly terrible witness or the prosecutors were inept. (Or I misinterpreted the strip when I thought that Sidewalk purposefully hit Yehuda and forced him off the road, and that Idle testified to the effect that it was no “accident”). In any event, Yehuda should have been able to take the guy’s car and house in a civil suit based on the facts.
I would go with the (purposfully) inept prosecutor on that one. It took three separate cases before Dr, Christopher Thompson was even tried for assaulting cyclists, and that was because his car was wrecked and he couldn’t leave. Then they finally got him with his own words (and the GPS tracks form one of the cyclists).
Currently there is a lot of noise on both sides of the shooting where Travon Martin died. I don’t want to hash that out. I want to ask why there isn’t more outrage when a cyclist dies.
Locally we lost a member of our biking community in March due to a driver who struck her with such force her body was tossed like a discarded soda can, landing up the hill and farther off the road.
I know this by riding over the spot identified as “point of impact” and laying my momento at the bicycle wheel memorial site where her body lay after the “accident”. It used to be the road I rode every time I went out. Now I avoid the route. Everyone does.
No lessons were learned The next week a stranger just passing through was struck by a motorist and ended up needing to be airlifted to San Antonio as he tried to cross the country by bicycile.
We still ride. This weekend past a thousand of us rode the annual Easter Hill Country Tour routes.
It’s because most drivers who hit cyclists are clueless and distracted and perhaps impatient, but not intentionally targeting cyclists for the kill or purposefully trying to run them off the road. There is plenty of outrage, however, when there is a hit and run.
This is only a comic, but this feels real from some of the wimpy sentences I’ve heard of being handed out for real crimes.
Put another way, compared to fatal crashes with cars… I’ve seen harder sentences in my English Grammar class :\
Hmm. Poor Yehuda. It´s tough when you get the feeling that the authorities are on everybody elses side.
In my duck pond Sweden (as well as probably in every other so called developed society) there is a big difference between intentional action and actions committed out of stress, when being provoked or under the influence of drugs etc.
I had thought that as Yehuda had a witness Sidewalk Jones would get a “real” sentence. Maybe not to harch but still a sentence that felt like a centence. As it is now I guess that Jones has probably only gotten more respect from his listeners…
If he killed him he would be lucky to get a month in jail.
And unlucky to get a week?
The car – the discerning person’s murder weapon of choice.
Seems it’s a truth wherever we are in the world: Kill with a car and you’ll get away with it.
hey Rick… I can feel their pain… Thanks
It isn’t all doom and gloom….
http://autos.aol.com/article/bus-driver-blocks-escape-of-hit-and-run-driver/?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000058?test=latestnews
–Brian
Rider was lucky – look at the state of the bike’s back end!
The back wheel is trashed and the frame doesn’t look too good either…
Top marks to the bus driver and the cops who are taking this seriously.
From the notice (both lanes etc) local bikes get a great deal compared with many places
What surprises me is how quickly the police got to the scene. The vehicle rear-ends the cyclist at approximately 3:06.35, then swings around and tries to drive away only to be blocked by the bus. The squad car is pulled up alongside the downed cyclist LESS THAN FORTY-FIVE SECONDS LATER (3:07.17)!!!
The cyclist in me says, “Way to go!” The cynic in me, however, says it’s apparent that the cop was in the traffic flow already and just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and wonders what would have happened had the cop not been ‘Johnny-on-the-spot’ like that. I also wonder what would have been the result if the incident had not occured on a bridge like this and there had not been the concrete barriers on both sides to keep the hit-and-run driver from getting past the bus.
It might be interesting to see just what the follow-up on this would be. One can’t help but notice that there is a sidewalk, also separated from the roadway, being used by pedestrians crossing the bridge. While the cyclist was riding correctly — riding as a legitimate road user and taking the lane as is proper to do — I wonder if the driver (or his lawyer) will try to claim that the cyclist had no business on the road and that he should have been on the sidewalk, and whether or not the judge/jury buys into that argument.
If only cases like this ever went before a judge and jury. This case will most likely never been heard in a jury trial.
I saw that yesterday. Right after that there was another video response going around by some idiot who blamed the cyclist for “blocking traffic” and saying that he deserved to be hit. I guess he didn’t watch the video that i watched which mentioned that the lane was a sharrow and there was a sign on the bridge urging cyclists to take the lane.
People just make me want to reach for a ball bat sometimes.
Accident which outraged local community last year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZOzvlPM6kQ
Despite widespread public searching driver’s not captured
Awww, it does suck, Yehuda, but he’s got it on his record now and he’d better not get caught doing that again, so it’s not all for naught.
Let it go, Yehuda.
Ruining “every time I’m on a ride” in this way is the worst damage possible, and it’s only YOU who can make it stay or let it go where it should go.
Focus on the ride that is NOW.
I definitely feel the same way. After getting hit by a garbage truck last year, I flinch and tap the brakes for every driving coming out from the right, and get angrier than I was at the time, when I was feeling pretty dopey between a concussion, vycodin and Thanksgiving dinner.
Same story with a sketchy bridge where I was taken down by vandalized cable across the path. I don’t go that way after dark, and usually don’t go there in daylight either.
It’s not the injury that follows you around, it’s the malice and/or carelessness. I fly right past places where I’ve fallen alone, but feeling like someone is after you is a completely different thing, especially if that person is still out there.
Same way as Yehuda, that is.
Uh, oh, after a few hours… I feel I really should add one thing, because… I’m aware that my previous post might seem like some “another stupid wise talk”. It is not. I’ve been stabbed in the chest (couple of years ago), about two inches from the heart, left lung collapsed, etc. The man got away and was never found by the police. You bet, for some time I was very angry with that man. I wished that the police would find him, that he would be tried, etc. … or that something bad would happen to him, that some “divine justice” would come on him… or that I would find him later myself and… beat him with a really big stick? not really sure… anything. None of that ever happened… and after some time, I found that I’m no longer angry and I don’t really care about any of that. (My only concern remaining was that it really would be better if the police had found him – to prevent him doing anything like that again). But the lust for punishment (or revenge, really??!) was gone. And it was a great relief. Looking back, however strange that may sound, I’m actually thankful for that experience – I learned from it an immense lot! After those years, I don’t even feel like a victim… and (not only) that, silly as it may sound, actually makes me feel more like a winner. I didn’t die, my life was not ruined (changed, yes), I learned probably the greatest lesson of my life (so far, at least).
Nothing really lost in the long run, a lot, A LOT gained. (Of course, all of that would be a very long and quite complicated narration. Not a point here).
However, one of the many things I learned was the one related here – I realized that I could have kept all the hurt feelings and all the anger and all the want for revenge etc. alive in me forever. (Actually, these things tend to care for themself very well, but… they’re feeding on your very soul, if I should put it this pathetic way). But they’re not any help. None of those feelings will ever change what happened and neither the state of present things. They won’t even help in your future actions (- note that I’m NOT saying that anyone, Yehuda here, should forget about what happened and not try to do anything about it!). On the contrary, they will only prevent you from understanding any of the lessons you could learn from what happened to you. All those negative emotions will only eat you alive, from the inside.
Rick, the last two frames are very well drawn representations of what I mean. Yehuda’s bent spine, head buried between the shoulders… oh my. Seems to me that Yehuda is that victim I was talking about… most of his pain at the time being, if not all of it, comes NOT from the long-gone crime imposed on him from the outside… He shouldn’t be that way, and he doesn’t have to. No one does. No one should. (I’m saying this so boldly only because I strongly feel that way. I’ve “been there” and I dare to assume that some of the most basic aspects of our common human experience are universal).
Oh well, pardon me if it all sound like some jibberish. It is quite complicated to talk about such things, and even more when you try that in a foreign language.
Pardon me also, if you feel I got into things too personal, or too grim, or … in any way not suitable for this forum.
How to put it plainly… well, perhaps these really aren’t topics one should talk about on an internet forum. However, somehow (sometimes) I feel like perhaps you people here are not all those “complete strangers”.
If I didn’t know that the guy that tried to kill me while I was riding my bike had already died, I would feel the same way about it as Yehuda, and you. But what chaps me the worst was knowing the police knew who tried to kill me and did nothing.
You’re definitely right, and it’s our better nature to forgive and forget. I’m not proud of my new-found very thin skin when I’m on busy streets. That very thing is what bothers me so much, that a simple moment of negligence and a thud (from the driver’s perspective) is now a part of my subconcious, changing the way I ride and following me around on so many rides. I hope I will be able to let it go.
Thank you for reminding us all to have some perspective, that is why I read the comments on this site. It really does feel like a special place, where we are not at all complete strangers.
I only kind of remember what happened with Sidewalk, can someone point me to the storyline?
See Nov 2010, and for the background on those strips, see Dec 2009.
It was a recurring story that ran as a couple different segments. It started with some loudmouth in a car; Yehuda indulged a little “civil disobedience” by taking the guy’s car keys and tossing them away (sorry, can’t remember/find the date). Then (12/06/2009) the guy caught up with Yehuda during a winter ride and forced him off the road into a snowpile and drove away, leaving him lying there.
Then about a year later (November 2010) Rick did a story arc where Yehuda heard him on the radio as a sort-of “shock jock” commentator railing on and on against bicycles on the roads. That was where we first met Idle Crossing, where we learned she had been a passenger in the jerk’s car when he forced Yehuda off the road. Rick then did a story arc whereby she had experienced a change of heart, and over the next several weeks of strips she and Yehuda worked out a scheme to get into the guy’s head before finally turning him over to the police.
Based on what the testimony should have been, there was an “aggravated assault” felony that was left out of Yehuda’s recitation of the charges above. Either Idle was an incredibly terrible witness or the prosecutors were inept. (Or I misinterpreted the strip when I thought that Sidewalk purposefully hit Yehuda and forced him off the road, and that Idle testified to the effect that it was no “accident”). In any event, Yehuda should have been able to take the guy’s car and house in a civil suit based on the facts.
I would go with the (purposfully) inept prosecutor on that one. It took three separate cases before Dr, Christopher Thompson was even tried for assaulting cyclists, and that was because his car was wrecked and he couldn’t leave. Then they finally got him with his own words (and the GPS tracks form one of the cyclists).
Currently there is a lot of noise on both sides of the shooting where Travon Martin died. I don’t want to hash that out. I want to ask why there isn’t more outrage when a cyclist dies.
Locally we lost a member of our biking community in March due to a driver who struck her with such force her body was tossed like a discarded soda can, landing up the hill and farther off the road.
I know this by riding over the spot identified as “point of impact” and laying my momento at the bicycle wheel memorial site where her body lay after the “accident”. It used to be the road I rode every time I went out. Now I avoid the route. Everyone does.
No lessons were learned The next week a stranger just passing through was struck by a motorist and ended up needing to be airlifted to San Antonio as he tried to cross the country by bicycile.
We still ride. This weekend past a thousand of us rode the annual Easter Hill Country Tour routes.
Yeah. We are crazy. But don’t kill us for it.
It’s because most drivers who hit cyclists are clueless and distracted and perhaps impatient, but not intentionally targeting cyclists for the kill or purposefully trying to run them off the road. There is plenty of outrage, however, when there is a hit and run.