With its low self-esteem and high urban blight, Hartford is the ultimate underdog city. Sad City Hartford documents the joys, sorrows and eccentricities of New England's Rising Star.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Just Be Glad You Don't Live in Brooklyn

A friend of ours living in Brooklyn knows how much we here at Sad City Hartford love disagreements related to civic issues. With that in mind, our friend forwarded us an amusing exchange from the Boerum Hill listserv. For those who are unfamiliar with listservs, they are a god awful 1990s technology that serve as a bastion of ultra-self-righteousness.

The battle between bikes and cars has since the invention of the automobile. In fact, the first recorded dispute between a motorist and bicyclists was in 1901, when Henry Ford cut off the Wright Brothers, who were riding a bicycle-built-for-two.





From: Loren
To: boerumhill@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 9:32 PM
Subject: [boerumhill] stepped-up bike law enforcement
Bikers, beware:
Loren
4) NYPD to Emphasize Enforcement of Bicycle Infractions
Our friends at the 78th Precinct have asked us to help spread the word that the NYPD is embarking on a stepped-up effort to enforce vehicle and traffic laws as they pertain to cyclists.  We're told that this will be an ongoing effort and not just a short-lived ticket blitz, and that it will focus on failure to obey red lights and stop signs, failure to yield to pedestrians, wrong-way riding and riding on the sidewalk.
Fair warning! Look out, Brooklynites on bikes.
At 12:03 AM -0500 1/13/11, stephan geras wrote:
Dear Loren
Thanks for the forewarning. As someone who uses an 18 pound bicycle and witnesses an uncountable number of 2000 pound vehicles speeding through red lights and stopsigns, turning at intersections through pedestrians who have the right of way forcing them tp jump back or die, speeding beyond any possible reasonable speed limit on residential streets, even racing with other speeders to get to green lights,   forcing pedestrians and cyclists off the road, I have to be cheered up to hear that the NYPD will begin to take action to  reduce the number of deaths caused by reckless cycling.
By the way, the city of Minneapolis MN has just legislated that ticketing of cyclists for going through red lights will be terminated. 
Stephan Geras
Yeah, man. Cars are jerks and stuff. 

From: Sina Najafi
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2011 8:28 PM
Subject: Re: [boerumhill] stepped-up bike law enforcement

 
I have a car and a bicycle, and for the record, I for one disagree with the view expressed in the posting below.
The fact that a few drivers act like assholes does not mean all bicyclists should be given carte blanche to ignore all traffic laws. If a cop sees a car passing a red light, they will ticket them, and rightly so. But at the moment, they do nothing to bicyclists that they see breaking many laws pertaining to safety (their own and others')
Ooooh...solid counter point.



From: stephan
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 1:34 AM
To: Sina Najafi
Subject: Re: [boerumhill] stepped-up bike law enforcement

Sina, I'm glad you took the time to express yourself in so much detail. I'm sorry you were traumatized by your collision with a bicycle. It was not your fault since you were driving.
As an environmentally concerned citizen, I see that death by car, not by bicycle, is real. The argument that they are different is not frivolous.The automobile sui generis and its reckless use have far worse consequences no matter what your predilection or formulations..   
I didn't renew my driver's licence 14 years ago in order to reduce my carbon footprint. I know how tough it is to give up that driving priviledge once a teenager gets it, and I know the psychological and physical obsessions with defending its use (like the second amendment wrt guns). 
As you say, there is no appropriate comparison between bicycles and cars;  the difference is about 2000 pounds, momentum, breaking and accelerating speeds, turning stability, reaction time, road conditions, awareness, laws for driving that are almost impossible for cyclists to obey as well as carbon emissions which dump billions of pounds of carbon into the atmosphere yearly. You wouldn't know that without taking cycling as seriously as driving.. Laws for cyclists need to be different. And they will be.... when oil becomes too expensive, when cycling is no longer considered a recreational weightloss program, and when city planning takes sustainability seriously. But I'm afraid those laws will not favour driving as has always been the case.
Did you know that when there's a collision between a bike and a car in Amsterdam,  the driver of the car is, without dispute and under the law, at fault.?
Stephan

Wow...he brings up the carbon footprint, dependence on oil and "recreational weightloss" into the discussion. Can our friend Stephan get anymore uppity?

---------- Original Message ----------
From: "stephan" <sgeras@...>
To: <boerumhill@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [boerumhill] stepped-up bike law enforcement
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 15:42:35 -0500

well then perhaps it would be better for you if I posted a notice this way: NOTICE TO DRIVERS: NYPD IS INITIATING A ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY TOWARD CYCLISTS. PLEASE FELL FREE TO TAKE OUT YOUR RAGE AND RESENTMENT AGAINST ALL CYCLISTS YOU SEE ON THE ROAD AND AGAINST ANY REASONABLE ARGUMENTS THAT DEFEND CYCLING.
Stephan 
Yes, apparently he can. We should be glad in Hartford, where all we have to do is put up with the bed-wetters at the beat bike blog. (Tee hee...just kidding, guys. Much love.)

(Photo courtesy of Hipster Bikes)

3 comments:

  1. Some cyclists in Hartford are a problematic too. I was at the stop sign at the Asylum/Farmington triangle of death and I was pretty sure I could go and a cyclist flew right in front of my car forcing me to come to a skreetching halt and then someone wanting to go up Farmington had to come to a stop to avoid t boning me and and then the cyclist proceeded to weave in and out of traffic across every lane of Asylum all the way down the hill and off into the distance pissing off every single driver within the area and miraculously escaping all of the twenty collisions that almost happened from his ridiculous cycling style.

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  2. what's really sad is you're private moment with yourself and your little club of followers, sitting in front of your computer fantasizing the naked city and breathlessly ejaculating. You're so far off the topic of conversation or it's relationship to the neighborhood that your comments are porn.

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  3. so gawker is the source of your stupidity.
    Too bad for Hartford's citizens who read your uninformed regressive crap.

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