Nobody Cares if You Live or Die Out There. Have a Great Weekend!

It was a short week, so I'm going to spare you the quiz, and instead remind you once again that when you're on a bike in New York City you're completely on your own:

The driver of this car chased @bryanbanducci and @shawn182 on their way home from work. The driver followed them at high speed for several blocks, threw a water bottle at them, and chased them into the protected bike lane on Flushing Ave in an attempt to run them over. We called the @nypd They said because the driver did not succeed in hitting them, there was nothing they could do. This is unacceptable. This is not #visionzero Drivers cannot use their cars to terrorize cyclists. The car is a Honda Odyssey License plate GUY1290 This dangerous aggressive driver needs to be stopped, and the police response is shameful. @transportationalternatives @billdeblasio @paulsteelywhite #visionzero #nypd @gothamist

A photo posted by Anna Maria (@annamariastyles) on Jul 7, 2016 at 7:11pm PDT

I suspect pretty much every cyclist in New York City has a story like this.  (Really, I suspect pretty much every cyclist everywhere has a story like this, except maybe in Holland where the worst thing that happens is someone taking up too much space at the bike rack with a bakfiets.)  Hey, I was already on the receiving end of a little completely unwarranted road rage this morning, and it wasn't even 8:30am yet.

I also suspect you scoffed as heartily as I did when you read that the NYPD said there "was nothing they could do" because "the driver did not succeed in hitting them."  This is because we all know that even if the driver did hit them there's a pretty good chance the police response would be the same.

You bet your ass you'd better have a bell on your bike though, or else you'll be in big trouble:

So far this year, motorists have killed 12 cyclists on New York City streets, an increase from five at the same point last year, according to the New York Times.

Other than a one-week initiative in May to keep bike lanes clear of motor vehicles, the NYPD hasn’t updated its usual approach to “bike safety” — ticketing cyclists who break the letter of the law but don’t endanger anyone.

Even after a driver was shown on video deliberately running over von Ohlen, inflicting fatal injuries, the local precinct responded by ticketing cyclists and handing out flyers.

And with that, I'm going someplace where I'm free from both addled drivers and draconian cycling crackdowns, and that's a little place I like to call "mountain biking."  So I'll see you back here on Monday, but in the meantime I'm going to leave you with this:


Which, as far as I can tell, is the world's fastest "bum bar" bike:

It may have taken well over a hundred years, but I think we've finally dialed in the design of the safety bicycle.