White Honda, loud exhaust, Mt. Lemmon this morning — do you know this person?
Lately I have been thinking about ways to spread the word publicly about people who endanger the lives of cyclists. The other day I was grazed by a green Suburban not once but twice. I couldn’t catch up to the guy on my single-speed but I thought that if I had my camera it would be fun to take a picture of the vehicle and plate and put it up on the web. Maybe it would get back to him somehow.
Anyway this just in from some folks who rode Mt. Lemmon this morning.
Pls forward….
This am on our usual Mt Lemmon ride a white Honda, with a loud, hopped up motor made a couple of noisy passes past the group. My wife was riding by herself after group had headed back down. Right past Seven Cats the Honda came up behind her..then slowly passed her while the passenger leaned out the window and tried to push her off the bike. She veered hard right and he never actually touched her…and then took off too fast for her to get the license #. I have no idea what to do with this…wasting my time calling the police…quess I hope this warning does some good.
Have a great day. JH
The sad part about this email is the “wasting my time calling the police.” I don’t know a bicyclist in Tucson who thinks it is worth it to call the police after an assault. After all, if they won’t even follow up after a cyclist has been attacked with a baseball bat, what’s the point?
Maybe the point is to start carrying cameras and posting pictures of these people’s cars on the internet. The light of day rarely hurts.
Below is a very well-phrased response to the above email from an attorney friend of mine:
Maybe we can get the press to speak out against this behavior. For years the press has blamed cyclists and we know that law enforcement very rarely ever follows up on a hit/run when it is a cyclist. So people in this town pretty much know they can do this kind of stuff and instead of getting busted, they get a pat on the back by their friends. Perhaps the press can rethink its anti-cycling bias and consider that cyclists are human beings with families and friends and positions in society that are good and noble. Perhaps if the press does a flip-flop and starts raising the public dignity towards the legitimate and lawful road users known as cyclists, the public will increase their respect and stop their attempts to kill us.
Amen.
–Erik Ryberg
March 13th, 2009 at 11:27 am
you only need to do a search on google news “bicyclist”
http://www.newschannel9.com/news/jury_976363___article.html/grand_truck.html
A grand jury has to file charges the police can’t WTF?
March 23 update
Here the driver runs away after running over a pedestrian
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/4724211/
Charged with a misdemeanor.
Indy tries to do the right thing, but I question why not a felony? Motorists who injure a bicyclist while driving could be charged with a misdemeanor and face up to three months in jail — six months if the injuries are serious.
http://www.wibc.com/news/Story.aspx?ID=1070700
When you allow a majority of people to use weapons within context of anonymity with little or no consequences to their actions, you allow genocide and hate to grow towards the vulnerable unarmed minority.
March 13th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Honestly, Erik, how much can the cops really do in this situation? There’s not really any more evidence than the account of what was reported to them, and there’s no identification other than the car make and color. If they have the license plate or a description of the driver, then they could reasonably perform an investigation, but in this case what good would it really do?
March 13th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Hey Mickey,
In this case at this point, they probably can’t do much. But let’s say the woman who was assaulted had called them from her cell phone. Do you think they would have sent somebody up Mt. Lemmon to find this person? Or at least kept an eye out at the bottom for a vehicle fitting the description? There’s only one likely exit point. Would they have?
No, they would not have. I know this because I had a client left lying bleeding on the pavement at Cuesta and Congress, and the driver fled up Sentinel Peak.
The police declined to head up there and get her.
If they can’t go a mile up Sentinel Peak to find a driver who left a cyclist lying on the pavement, they sure aren’t going to poke around Mt. Lemmon for this assailant.
EBR
March 13th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Eh I always cringe when I hear stories like this…
I think bringing a camera along is a great idea, Erik. It would be pretty awesome to take a bit of anonymity away from these idiots. You should start a gallery on your site of these drivers…
Even though the effort is probably going to end in futility I think it’s worth it to try to call the cops in situations like what happened to this woman. It would have been so easy for them to nab this guy. Most likely it was just some jerk taking a cruise up to Windy Point.
Mountain rodes are amazing to ride but can be scary – between the dudes on crotchrockets going 60mph with their girlfriends on the back and the pickup trucks that feel the need to honk exceedingly loud when passing. Although I often don’t follow my own advice I think it’s a good idea to have a buddy when riding on roads like Catalina Hwy. Hear too many horror stories about people getting in situations up there, and it’s so far from the hospital that a hit and run could mean your life on Mt. Lemmon.
March 13th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Cell coverage is very poor on Mt. Lemmon. We’ll be bringing a camera from now on.
March 13th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
If you’re not able snap a picture in time, you can always post the license plate on Platewire.com.
Oh, and Mickey: The baseball-bat victim did get a vehicle description and license-plate number. TPD still declined to investigate.
March 14th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
I’m not defending the TPD in anyway, just that sometimes, I can understand feeling like calling the police would be a waste of time. If there is a clear identification and the police have the capability to intervene, they damn well should!
As for carrying a camera, I’ve thought about this myself as well, but the shear logistics of popping a photo of the guy’s photograph within seconds of having been hit or terrorized seems pretty unlikely. I think a helmet/bicycle mounted video camera would probably be a more effective, although far more expensive.
March 15th, 2009 at 9:23 am
On the camera: the hand camera works when you can catch the driver at a light, and visibly take their picture. Hopefully that will give them second thoughts next time they want to graze somebody.
I have used a camera that mounted on my helmet. At that time you needed to have it plugged into a hand-held video camera in a backpack, but technology may have changed. I found the quality of the image to be incredibly poor. Too poor to make out a license plate, certainly, and really too poor to make out much of anything. I would like to hear from people who know more about making this work.
EBR
March 16th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
A bit pricey, but you can get the money back from the first clown that almost kills you. http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/02/02/tiny-camera-shoots-hdtv/
You still have to buy a separate recording device, but they’re getting cheap, too.
This one may be better, with onboard memory supplemented by SD cards for longer record times.
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=177&modelid=16186
Both of those cameras have full HD broadcast quality recording.
September 18th, 2010 at 11:36 am
I was assaulted while cycling on Anklam road. I didn’t call the police. I had a SUV with a bunch of kids slow down and throw a slurpee drink at me while yelling “Get off the road you fat f*ck!” I was hit in the helmet, I lost control and fell over. Got banged up pretty good. I never called the cops because I didn’t have a good description.