David Byrne falls off his bike

Falling off your bike and cracking your ribs sucks. Here's David Byrne's account:

05.16.2008: You drank too much and fell of your bike

“You drank too much and fell off your bike” could be the title of a drawing by David Shrigley. But in this case, it actually happened to me after meeting Shrigley for dinner and drinks. While riding home, C and I were briefly separated. Upon reuniting, my tire slipped on the cobblestones of West 14th St., and I remember lying in the street, looking at oncoming headlights and rolling towards the curb so they wouldn’t run me over. Two cops approached and looked down at me. “Have you been drinking?” they asked. Probably a typical question in that neighborhood at that time of night. “Yes, I’ve had a few drinks,” I replied. “But I’m hurt.” I managed to get up by myself and retrieve my bike (no help from the NYPD, though one of them asked if I was David Byrne) and it wasn’t until later, when I was in bed, that the pain made itself truly known. I wondered how I would ever even get out of bed. The next day I went to the hospital and x-rays revealed two broken ribs — numbers 3 and 5, way up high. They're healing now, little by little, and I was told that in 3 weeks I should be OK.

More Vigilante Justice

A friend of mine, well versed in debating the nuances of ethical matters, writes:

Let air out of her tire! You're my hero. I am going to visit you in the hospital every day. And bring cake.

So says my heart. But my head says, no, I don't think we get to disable the cars of people we think are driving dangerously -- even if they are. This kind of vigilante action will end in tears, no? How about taking a quick photo of yacking driver and license plate?

But back to my heart. I've long thought the way to deal with cars in Central Park -- legal or not -- was to calmly ride along side them, pull out a can of orange dayglo spray paint, run a stripe along their side, smile, and glide away: no angry words, no confrontation. They won't even know it happened. But gradually, the word will get out that this is what happens if you drive in a park.

I am of course to chicken to actually to this, but you clearly are the guy to launch it.

I like your spray paint idea! The truth is, it could be done without even actually spray painting a car. We just need to start an urban legend! Everybody reading this needs to work the following into a conversation once a day: "...you know how you just can't drive through the park these days without some roving band of jerks spray painting your car... "

But no, I don't think it is bad to disable cars that are driving dangerously. Any more than than it's bad for the State of New York to ban cars that fail a safety inspection. Why is it different than grounding a plane? Danger is danger, sez I.

Why is giving a flat tire any different than keeping a drunk driver from driving? And while any given drunk driver may not actually be dangerous. I knew this woman was dangerous. Specifically to me.

Since when do people have a right to drive both dangerously and illegally?

And what would a photo do? Besides, call me a Luddite, but I commute to work without a camera.

And I wonder if there is any law against letting the air out of tire. If I were still a cop, I'd be very flummoxed as to what to charge myself with.

p.s. I'll try and get taken to a hospital near you, to make it easier to visit. I like vanilla cake with store-bought canned frosting.

Vigilante Justice?

I was biking home tonight, approaching the Queensburo Bridge, and "noticed" an expensive car driving erratically: taking up two lanes, sliding between two lanes, and otherwise making me very nervous.

At a red light, I pulled up to the car and confronted a young woman, not at all surprisingly, gabbing on her cell phone. Not only is this illegal, it's dangerous.

[I would add that since the hand-held cell phone ban, drivers have gotten noticeably less erratic.]

I loudly (her window was up) but not really rudely yelled at her to stop talking on her phone because she was obviously distracted and could kill somebody like me.

She smiled at me and gave me the thumbs up and continued to talk. I insisted she stop talking on her phone. She put her cell phone on her lap and I started to bike away. But I knew she hadn't hung up. So I came back to her window and of course she was still on the phone. I again asked her to stop. She gently waved and even kissy-kissied me, but refused to hang up.

At this point, in a moment I would call inspired genius, I leaned over, took the cap off her front left tire, and proceeded to release the air. To be honest, deep down I've always wanted to do this, but that's not really the point.

I figured if she has too oblivious to notice I was letting the air out of her tires, she really shouldn't be driving. Before all the air was out, the light changed and she gently rolled away. She could still drive on the tire, unfortunately. But it definitely needed air.

While the Indian limo driver behind her gave me a stern nod of disapproval, I believe I did the right thing, like trying to take the keys out of the hands of a drunk driver. Or am I just an asshole?

I am interested in your comments.

Have you seen this bike?

The New York Times is known for many good things, its fine bicycle coverage is not normally one of them.

But this article by Colin Moyniham is great.

A Blue Ross 10-Speed Isn’t Hard to Find; A Bomber Who Rode It Is
New York Times
March 15, 2008
By COLIN MOYNIHAN

The Ross bicycle arrived just after World War II, along with the baby boom, the modern suburb and the cul-de-sac. Millions of the bikes left the company’s New York City factories and wound up on streets all over the United States.

There were always faster and more expensive bicycles, and those with more panache, but Ross held its own as a utilitarian fixture. An influx of cheaper foreign models got the blame when Ross went out of business in 1987, leaving the company on the discard pile of nostalgia.

Now, an old Ross bike is at the center of a baffling case involving what the police believe may be a serial bomber who has caused three explosions in Midtown Manhattan since 2005. The most recent occurred on March 6, when a small homemade bomb damaged the front door of the armed forces recruiting station in Times Square.

As in the other two cases, the blast happened before sunrise, no one was hurt, and a man was seen riding from the scene on a bicycle.

The day after the Times Square attack, the police released a photograph of a bicycle, which they believe the bomber abandoned on East 38th Street. It was a blue Ross 10-speed, the bike of many childhoods.

One person posted the photograph on a Web site called Old Ten Speed Gallery, with a note saying, “The suspect not only rode a bike to commit his crime, he had the audacity to enlist the use of this good-hearted and good timing Ross 10-speed!”

Some New Yorkers who know bikes said the Ross was not the speediest model to use while fleeing a crime scene.

“That’s like hopping into a 25- or 30-year-old Pinto,” said Christopher Shibaya, a mechanic who refurbishes old bikes at the Recycle-A-Bicycle shop on Avenue C in the East Village.

But so far at least, the Ross has seemed to have provided a clean getaway in the Times Square case, and tracing the cyclist who dropped off the bomb might be difficult for investigators.

Aging but functioning bikes occupy a flourishing market niche in New York City because they are cheap and tend to be ignored by thieves. And certain riders might choose a Ross simply because it confers a degree of anonymity.

“This is the perfect bomber’s bike,” said Tom Sachs, an artist in Lower Manhattan, who has collected old 10-speeds. “Unconsidered and disposable.”

Sherwood Ross, the former owner of the Ross bicycle company, said he began making tricycles in 1946 using the name Chain Bicycle Corporation. His factory was on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg, not far from the Schaefer brewery, but around 1960, the company moved to Beach 79th Street in Queens. During its apex, Ross Bicycles Inc., as the company was renamed in 1968, made about a million bikes per year.

The factory moved to Allentown, Pa., around 1970. In the early 1980s, the company helped popularize the use of mountain bikes in urban areas, but it went bankrupt in 1987, unable to compete with cheaper bicycles mass-produced in Asia, Mr. Ross said.

The Ross name was briefly licensed by another bike company called Rand, but then it faded from the bicycle market.

The police say they are examining video from surveillance cameras. Investigators determined the bike was sold years ago in a shop north of the city that is now closed, and have spoken with the shop’s owner. They have also lifted fingerprints off the bike, but say that they have no suspects.

Given that many bikes have had several owners, its usefulness as a clue may be limited. Mr. Ross said that the company had probably made hundreds of thousands of bicycles like the one the police were examining.

One morning this week, 13 Ross bicycles were listed for sale on the New York City page of Craigslist, at prices ranging from $25 to $200. And a recent trip through the streets of the East Village, the Lower East Side, SoHo and the area around City Hall found a half-dozen blue Ross 10-speeds locked to signposts and fences.

Nowadays, Mr. Ross, 86, lives in Florida and earns a living as an expert witness, testifying in lawsuits involving bicycles.

“We’ve gotten some notoriety lately,” he said. “Our bikes have been used for many purposes. You can never control who has them.”

Al Baker contributed reporting.

Explosive device

What the hell is a suspicious-looking biyclist? Like we need to give the city any other reason to harrass us.

Explosive device damages Times Square armed forces recruiting police investigating

March 6, 2008
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

A suspicious-looking bicyclist was spotted just before an explosion rocked the Times Square military recruitment center - the same scenario as two unsolved embassy bombings, police said.

The bicyclist, reportedly in a grey hooded sweatshirt, was seen around the time of the 3:45 a.m. blast in midtown, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters today.

"Someone was trying to make a statement," a police source said.

The vacant office, the nation's busiest recruiting station, suffered shattered windows and twisted metal. No injuries were reported, although the blast rattled guests in the nearby Marriott Marquis hotel.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, standing alongside Kelly, said the attack "insults every one of our brave men and women in uniform stationed around the world."

The mention of a bicyclist raised possible links to a May 2005 bombing at the British Consulate and an Oct. 26 explosion at the Mexican Consulate.

In both cases, police said, the suspect was possibly riding a bicycle when hollowed-out grenades - filled with black powder and a fuse - were tossed into the consulates.

No arrests were made in those attacks. Authorities said it was too early to connect the Times Square explosion with those incidents.

There was no word on the type of device used in the attack on the recruiting station parked on a traffic island at W. 43rd St.

Memorial Ride Tonight

Anonymous left this info in a comment:


After 2 deaths in 2 days last week, and 23 deaths so far this year, we are ready to ride, are you?

Memorial Ride for David Smith and Franco Scorcia
Wednesday December 12

7:00pm Gather Union Square North
7:15pm Ride leaves Union Square North
7:30pm Ghost bike dedication and memorial for David Smith, 6th Avenue at 36th Street
8:00pm Ghost bike dedication and memorial for Franco Scorcia, Broadway at 40th Street
Bring flowers, candles and love.

NYC Street Memorial Project
info@ghostbikes.org

SAVE THE DATE: 3rd Annual Memorial Ride, Sunday January 6, 2008. 4 start locations, check ghostbikes.org for details.

Like that's a crime!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7095134.stm
Bike sex man placed on probation
A man caught trying to have sex with his bicycle has been sentenced to three years on probation.

Robert Stewart, 51, admitted a sexually aggravated breach of the peace by conducting himself in a disorderly manner and simulating sex.

Sheriff Colin Miller also placed Stewart on the Sex Offenders Register for three years.

Mr Stewart was caught in the act with his bicycle by cleaners in his bedroom at the Aberley House Hostel in Ayr.

Gail Davidson, prosecuting, told Ayr Sheriff Court: "They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply.

"They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white t-shirt, naked from the waist down.

"The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex."

Both cleaners, who were "extremely shocked", told the hostel manager who called police.

Sheriff Colin Miller told Stewart: "In almost four decades in the law I thought I had come across every perversion known to mankind, but this is a new one on me. I have never heard of a 'cycle-sexualist'."

Stewart had denied the offence, claiming it was caused by a misunderstanding after he had too much to drink.

The bachelor had been living in the hostel since October 2006 after moving from his council house in Girvan.

He now lives in Ayr.

Will Bicycling to Work Get You Killed?

A mildly interesting discussion in the comments on the NYT Freakonomics blog.

I like the statistical point that it makes more sense to compare trip to trip and not mile to mile, since people who bike likely have shorter commutes. I also like the point that it would save more lives if people wore helmets on ladders instead of helmets on bikes.

Will biking kill you? The short answer is maybe. But if you live, you'll probably be very healthy and live longer.

Oh well...

Sometimes biking is a crime.

May 19, 2007
Bus Kills Man on Bicycle After Robbery
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR and MATTHEW SWEENEY
New York Times

A thief was killed by a city bus in the South Bronx yesterday as he fled across a busy intersection on a bicycle after stealing a gold chain from a jewelry store, the police said.

The man, who was not identified, was struck by the bus just before 4 p.m. near the intersection of East 153rd Street and Melrose Avenue in Melrose, the police said. Witnesses said the man had just snatched a $2,000 chain from the Dreams jewelry store at 651 Elton Avenue and was trying to elude a shop employee when — about a block away — he pedaled into the path of an articulated express Bronx 2 bus.

The bus was traveling at a high rate of speed, sending the man and his bike clear across the street, the police and witnesses said.

“It was a real heavy impact,” said Marilyn VonSaint, who was waiting for another bus nearby at the time of the accident. “The bus smacked him head-on, and he went flying. It was pretty bad. There was blood all over the street.”

The man, who was in his 40s, was taken to Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center with fatal head injuries, the police said. They said the driver of the bus was in shock and was also taken to Lincoln, along with five passengers who complained of injuries.

The owner of the shop, Lakhwinder Singh, said the thief showed up when only one employee was on duty and asked to see a three-inch 14-karat cross on a Cuban-link gold chain. When the employee refused to hand him the chain, the man yanked it through a glass partition and ran out of the shop, Mr. Singh said.

“He took it from here, and he was hit right over there,” Mr. Singh said last night as he stood outside the shop, pointing to the intersection a block away. “He lost his life for $2,000. He’d sell it for maybe only two or three hundred. That makes no sense.”

Mr. Singh said that in all the commotion, the chain and cross apparently disappeared. “The cops said we didn’t find nothing,” he said. “Where’s the cross? I don’t believe it.”

Crash mystery

I never mentioned the unpleasant news that my friend, Damien, to whom I gave a sexy french frame, had a nasty crash a while back. Nasty like waking up in the hospital missing both memory and teeth. The inside of his head was fine (and no, he wasn’t wearing a helmet), but he looked like basically he crashed onto his face, which I guess he did. He was a mess. But he’s doing much better now.

Well he just got a copy of the police report (which wasn’t easy to get) and it says that he ran into the side of a van. That strikes me as strange. It happened on Northern Blvd and 31st St., according to the report. That is also fishy because he now lives on 29th St and was coming from the bridge. Why would anybody go two blocks out of the way to take a worse route home? Nobody bikes on Northern Blvd by choice. Maybe he was, but he doesn't think so. And he has no memory.

According to the police report, which is simply the word of the car driver, at 22:30 the driver was going west/south on Northern Blvd. My friend was going east/north on Northern Blvd. Damien than crossed Northern Blvd to continue north on 31st St. at which point he ran into the side of a van. The van suffered damage around the driver’s door.

Now I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there. And I’m not saying that Damien, with his carefree French ways, is without blame. But I can’t believe that a moderately rational man would simply bike into the side of a van at top speed.

Sounds like more B.S. about bike crashes. If you have any idea how a bike could damage the left side of car without peddling straight into it, let me know. I don't trust the driver's story. I don't trust cars. I do trust the police officer's report in indicating damage to the side of the van. Everything else is suspect.

And we have no idea what happened to the bike. He misses it. But we’re happy he’s alive.

Nobody’s Fault?

I was biking back from Lower Manhattan on 1st Ave between 52rd and 53rd St., on the left side of the Avenue. There’s a bus about 3 car-lengths ahead of me. He’s in the next-to-left lane, but about to move in the far left lane. He’s signaling. Then out of nowhere a car speeds by me, about 40-45 mph, and comes way too close to me, about a foot away. I’m thinking pretty nasty thoughts about him as I watch him zoom by me and try to take the bus on the left. The bus continues its leftward drift and runs into him. Suddenly my bike is wheeling through the Schadenfreude Café!

I’m also suddenly aware of my psychic ability to move large objects. As we all know, with great powers come great responsibility. And clearly I wasn’t using these powers for good. But I enjoy seeing my wishes come true as the front fender of the car comes off in one big piece and a dent is put in the side. Meanwhile the bus doesn’t even realize what it did. The car chases the bus, which makes a left on 53rd St and stops.

I’m basically a good samaritan and felt bad for the bus driver. He did nothing wrong, and buses are always blamed for crashes like this. And basically bus drivers are good drivers. And from the damage, it would be all to easy to blame the bus for turning into a car. But clearly the car was at fault. First for speeding. Second for almost clipping me. And third for zooming in the way of a turning bus. So I go up to the bus driver and give him my info. And then I wait 20 minutes for his boss to come. And I tell her what I saw and how it was the car's fault.

And the police come. And don’t even want my info. The bus supervisor questions this and she (the cop) says, “It doesn’t matter because it was an accident. Nobody is at fault.”

Now I understand it’s unusual to write a ticket for something you don't see. And I understand the temptation to be a lazy cop (I am a former police officer, after all). But somebody was at fault. The car. And based on the facts and my account, she could have cited him for something. Just as you cite a drunk driver after a crash. The least she should do is take my information in case it’s needed later, like, say by the MTA or insurance company.

But what bothered me most is that instead of the bus hitting the car, the car could have hit me. And if he had killed me, the cop would have done the same thing. No ticket. No fault. Another bike fatality stat for “bicyclist crossing into a vehicle path.”

If, God forbid, I should die in a bike crash, please remember it wasn’t my fault. Or even if it partially my fault, like running a red light, please remember that it wouldn’t have happened if the driver wasn’t speeding.

B.S. for Bike Safety

Here's a link to the NYC bike safety report. It doesn't really say much. Or blame cars enough. And most of the statistics are pretty useless, most often because they have no denominator. What's the use of knowing bike injuries by month if you don't know how many people ride each month?

And despite my dislike of helmets, the fact that only 3% of fatalities involved riders with helmets is pretty damning evidence in favor of helmets. Still, it would mean more if it said what percentage of riders use helmets. I would guess around one-third of all recreational riders. And if you include delivery bikes (as you should), the number probably goes down to one-fourth.

And speaking of not blaming cars enough, the report says the biggest cause of bike crashes is, "bicyclist crossing into a vehicle path [accounting] for 84% of documented bicyclist contributing factors." That's because here in New York, when cars hit bikes, bikes are always to blame and drivers never get cited (unless they're driving drunk down the West Side Bike Path and kill a doctor). To say that bikes cause crashes by going in front of cars is like saying the Jews caused the Holocaust by walking into gas chambers. What bullshit!