JanMM

Assuming a rear light or reflector is required by Virginia law, motorist would have minimal risk of liability if collision. Idiot rider’s response to polite admonishment not surprising.

50PlusCycling

There is a subgroup of cyclists to be wary of on the roads. These are the guys who have racked up enough DUIs to get them permanently banned from driving, and so they get around on bikes, or the have smoked, injected or snorted themselves to the point that they live in a tent or cardboard box, and have to get around on a bike. In either case, they aren’t sticklers for safety equipment, or following the rules of the road. This subgroup is small, but they make up a pretty big percentage of bike accidents.

SpedFast

And to add, this is the same 'group' that tried stealing my bike last year from outside a small store.

SurferRosa

Yes! Just like Jesus, MLK, Sitting Bull, and Huck Finn.

dmarkun

Yes. Good comment.
"Contrarian rebelliousness" was meant as irony not condemnation. I put myself in that category: " ... I probably would have done the same thing" (as that rider - not the people you list).

JoeyBike

Just let nature take it's course. The Earth is overpopulated as it is. I would encourage as many people as possible to just "step off" the planet willingly.

Leisesturm

This isn't the first time you've said something like this. It might surprise you to know that Rhode Island could hold the entire population of Earth (7.5B+) at prison cell density (5' x 5' per person) and Texas could hold the entire population of Earth at NYC population density (~30K/sq.mi)!! The Earth is FAR from overpopulated. The U.S. is FAR from overpopulated at 280ppl/sq.mi, but the distribution of people is far from optimal. Urban areas are a social and environmental disaster. AMERICANS are incredibly high maintenance and hard on the environment. It takes 100 South Asians to have the impact on the planet as 1 American. The Planet doesn't have too many people. It has too many Americans (and British). Are you willing to 'step off' then? I don't say things like that because of how Holier Than Thou it sounds to suggest that total strangers I have no control over should behave in any way that pleases me. Now you know. Be at peace. The Planet's problems are not caused by the mere presence of Billions of humans. It's how a barely significant minority of those people behave, and you are one of them.

blacknbluebikes 

I tried the math, but I don't think the world population will fit in 5x5 squares in Rhode Island (1214 mi^2)... I think it will only hold 1.36 billion, which doesn't even get all of China. Maybe I made an error with exponents. Of course, if it takes 1 minute to position each person (in Rhode Island or Texas), it will take over 2500 years to get the 1.3B there, so, ah, I'd better get the empirical test underway.

NJgreyhead

dmarkun I understand your impulse to let the guy know how unsafe his riding was. Done it myself.

It is not just the rider who would suffer in such a crash. Any driver with any compassion who crashed into the rider would not soon forget it. The rider was someone's child, maybe someone's husband or father.
Even if the rider was totally, provably in the wrong, anguish and sleepless nites might follow for the driver. And maybe even lawsuits.

JoeyBike

Yes. If 5 or 6 billion other people agree to do so I will sacrifice for the greater good. Assuming the remaining ~2 billion people are die hard environmentalists I will be happy to sign off. I'm 65.5yo and the best parts of living are behind me. I'm not selfish so I'm IN! You?

For now I'll take what I can get with Darwin weeding out the fit-less people.

Leisesturm

Well, I worked on Riker's Island (in IT) for 15 years and some of the jails had seven tiers of 5' x 5' cells. That may be how they get around the lack of land area in RI? But the Texas statistic is interesting. I lived in NYC for 45 years and 30K ppl/mi*2 was (and is) quite doable, albeit not something I'd look forward to again. If the whole planet's humanity can fit in Texas and the overall look of things wouldn't be any worse than Manhattan, I'm just not seeing the "overpopulation" hysteria.

Leisesturm

My point is that no one has to give up their lives to save the planet, we just need to STOP DRIVING CARS. Including electric cars since we can't seem to get away from the idea that electric cars should be as big (or bigger) than ICE cars. I'm definitely IN with that. You?

JoeyBike

Electric cars are a joke IMO except for a select few people. I can agree on this. Ecological battery nightmare and rolling blackouts when everyone who can own their own charging station plugs in. Mostly impractical.

I also agree that no living person should be compelled to step of the planet. Fewer new people being manufactured (children) would certainly help. Remember "ZPG"? Zero Population Growth talk seems to be strictly forbidden these days. Politicians sure can't mention it. So where do we end up? Just like any other organism on Earth, starvation and disease. In our (humans) case, add wars to the mix. Like a Pitrie dish full of bacteria - they either run out of food or drown in their own poop eventually. This is human fate. Can not be avoided. Unless a meteor resets the whole mess first.

Leisesturm

Fewer people ARE being manufactured. Politicians don't mention it because they KNOW we are doomed unless we make more babies. Do you think the ________'s really care about random fetuses? Yes, but not in the way you think. They don't care about them as individuals with inalienable rights, they care that there be enough working age, _____, Americans around in 2060 to keep the lights on! By the time it becomes apparent to the ZPG types that we, in fact, needed exactly the opposite, we will have a reality where people like you and I (>65 now) won't have anyone around who can WORK, or pay taxes. The end result is the same. We all die. It doesn't have to end that way. The all or nothing approach is not what is needed. Ironically a growing number of young children will never reach working age and CARS are the #2 reason. Mentioning the #1 reason will get this thread locked. Use your imagination ...

john m flores 

Blinky lights make great stocking stuffers.

Leisesturm

How dare you try to drag this thread back on topic!

13ollocks

Fine and dandy if all those people needed only their little patch of Texas to survive - however, those 8 billion newly-minted Texans still need food to eat, water to drink, power to keep them cool in summer and warm in winter, building materials to provide shelter and fuel to transport all this stuff. We're busy choking our rivers and lakes with mining- and agricultural effluent, blowing ungodly amounts of water irrigating crops in deserts and clearing rainforests for space to grow feed for methane-belching cows or to grow the cows themselves...burning fossil fuel to transport the food, corn, cows, bricks etc etc ....and on and on....
There really are too many people on the planet for our current systems to sustain them.

JoeyBike

PeteHski

I guess I must be one of the select few people then.

Leisesturm

They'd have the.whole.rest.of.the.planet.to.do.it.with ... I mean ... really. The whole.rest.of.the.PLANET. We are wasting a whole lot of Nevada, and other states, and cramming ourselves into New York and New Joisy just saying. I like cows, let's not knock cows. How about those uncapped derelict drilling rigs. But I don't want to P&R this. We need to ride our bikes a LOT more. To WORK and for ERRANDS. The off-road and gravel stuff is fine but bikes make really great transportation. You don't really need to live 90miles from your job. What if that simply was not allowed? Seriously, when your employer found out you live in another city ... another STATE ... what if they had to say ... I'm sorry, there's this matter of your address?

I-Like-To-Bike

This post is nothing but P&R contrarian rebelliousness which is a more PC moniker than bat-poop crazy.

JoeyBike

You likely have a driveway or garage for your power source placement, don't do long road trips, and don't mind dropping 10K every time your battery bank needs replacing.

I would say ^^THIS boils down to a select few motorists who depend fully on one car for every motorized transportation need. Two electric cars would eliminate even more people from this select group.

Leisesturm

The mistake was to pander to people's range anxiety and attempt to create an infrastructure of charging stations to reassure those (the majority) afflicted with RA. Fast chargers are horrible to a battery. If you cannot go out and back on a single charge, you are trying to go too far for your vehicle design. For multi-hundred mile, overland, jaunts a plug-in electric is NOT the best idea one could have. Is a network of charging stations the answer? No. High speed trains should be doing the heavy lifting of moving people hundreds of miles in a day! I'm not offended to be called bat poop crazy. More of us need to lose our minds and question the status quo. Red Pill FTW.

Jay Turberville

I'm pretty sure that technology will either save us or be our end. I hold a very hard line on that.

jon c. 

Absolutely. There's far too much emphasis on rational thought.