The (Charleston, South Carolina) Post and Courierreports that the city law-givers are on the verge of issuing new ordinances cracking down on the scourge of illegally parked bicycles. Apparently bicyclists have been documented locking these dangerous mechanical objects to almost anything, including: parking meters, street signs, trees, and light poles! Certain city council persons have had enough.
Reporter David Slade explores this controversy in depth this is an excerpt from his investigation:
"Charleston could soon take a hard line against illegally parked bicycles, with proposed regulations that would allow the city to immobilize or seize bikes found locked to traffic signs, street trees and the like.
Just as a motorist might find their illegally parked car with one of the those big yellow "boots" attached to a wheel, rendering the vehicle useless until a fine is paid to remove the device, cyclists could find a city lock on their illegally parked bike until they pay a $45 fine.
A proposed Charleston city ordinance would prohibit locking bikes to parking meters and other public property on sidewalks, and violators could see their bikes confiscated until they pay a $45 fine. Bikes that appear abandoned, like this vandalized one that hasn't moved from Calhoun Street in months, could be seized and disposed of after seven days' notice.
City Council will consider the measure at a meeting scheduled to start at 5 p.m. today in City Hall.
'I think this probably goes a little bit too far in discouraging the use of bicycles, if it is enforced,' said Tom Bradford, director of the cycling advocacy group Charleston Moves.
'We pay so much attention to whether there is sufficient parking for cars, and at the same time, we want people to be more active,' he said. 'But if you make it very difficult to park a bicycle, then you're cutting off your nose to spite your face.'
The parking rules are part of a broader bicycle ordinance that would give the city authority to seize and dispose of abandoned bikes, would eliminate a widely ignored regulation that all bikes must have a one-dollar city license, and spells out when and where people can ride bikes on sidewalks. Generally, children 12 and younger could ride on sidewalks."
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Charleston, South Carolina is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. The idea behind this ordinance seems pretty silly. Maybe it's just the presentation, but the ordinance sure sounds like an invitation to the City becoming known as hostile and unfriendly to the very sorts of people I would think they would want to be warm and accommodating.
The defense of former NYPD rookie, Patrick Pogan is torn from the pages of every bad rape defense--the victim, had it coming because the victim is a bad person. Oh, and even though the video shows Pogan clearly attacking the victim Christopher Long--Pogan and his lawyer are claiming that the jurors can't believe their "lying eyes (you know, the eyes that look at a video of a cop walking across the street to shove a cyclist off his bike onto the pavement.)" This is because, according to Pogan's attorney Stuart London, Christopher Long is a dirtbag, pot-smoking, anit-government piece of shit. In other words, he had it coming. This is from the New York Postcoverage of the story:
" The cyclist came at me -- and I had to stop him from hurting me,' ex-NYPD rookie officer Patrick Pogan insisted to a Manhattan jury today, giving his own, eyebrow-raising account of a notorious, 2008 cop-on-biker take down for the first time publicly. 'I thought he ran through a red light. He had his hands in the air...He had up what I perceived to be a middle finger. I told him to stop,' the baby-faced Pogan remembered to jurors. But Christopher Long -- a kooky Critical Mass activist who told jurors earlier this week that he gets stoned every day, believes bikes have more right to the roads than cars, and finds the NYPD 'beyond reform' -- did not stop, Pogan testified.
The collision of bodies and egos that came next would be caught on a snippet of video that became an instant YouTube classic -- and some of the prime evidence against Pogan in his ongoing trial on charges of misdemeanor assault and felony false filing of a police report against Long. Today on the stand, the 24-year-old former altar boy sat on the witness stand as the video played on a screen to his side, giving the footage his own novel -- bike activists called it "dumbfounding" -- personal narration. 'I saw him going toward the sidewalk,' Pogan remembered of Long.
'He's either going there to go around me or he's going there to stop. Iok a walk to the side,' Pogan remembered. 'I see him rise up on his bike. I see him crouch down his shoulder as he's coming toward me... at this point I know he's going to try to use that shoulder against me.' Long, in his own testimony, had told jurors that he'd turned his shoulder toward Pogan at the last minute, to brace himself and put something 'not steel' between him and the cop so as to minimize the inevitable impact for both of them.
But to Pogan, Long raised his shoulder, 'maybe to scare me or use that shoulder to come through me,' the ex-cop testified. Pogan insisted that in the split second between seeing Long's shoulder come up and the moment of impact, he performed in his head a complicated, by-the-book computation of his "force' options...'I could have used my mace but that would have cost the city more than $65,000,' the cost of settling Long's federal lawsuit, Pogan told jurors. 'Maybe I'll use my baton,' Pogan said he then wondered. 'But the baton was useless at that point. There was no way I could have used any of the tools at my disposal.'
Finally, 'I prepared myself for a hit. He was coming toward me. I braced for impact. I lowered my shoulder. There was a collision. I used my arms to get that bicycle away from me.'
Pogan conceded to the defense lawyer examining him, Stuart London, that the account in Long's arrest report and criminal complaint -- in which Pogan claimed Long had knocked him to the ground in the impact -- was less than spot on. 'It's not true -- I did not go down at that moment. I went down two later times in that incident,' Pogan averred. The ex-cop's testimony continues this afternoon.
'I was dumbfounded,' Barbara Ross, a spokeswoman for Times Up, the environmental group that promotes the Critical Mass ride, said at the lunch break of watching Pogan testify. 'It's clear on the video that Christopher Long is avoiding [Pogan], not coming toward him. He's flipping reality upside down.'"
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It's amazing how Pogan can perjure himself from the witness stand in the face of this video.
In another forum, I offered the opinion that the defense on this case is built on the old--good offense=good defense theory as demonstrated recently by the acquittal in february of this year of a group of NYPD cops who were alleged to have shoved a flashlight into the backside of suspect. Despite testimony of at least one other NYPD officer who witnessed the assault the defense attorneys in that case aggressively went after the victim for being a punk and these officers "walked." There was no video evidence.
Let's hope the jurors in this case can keep their "lying" eyes open.
In Oregon, "pedaling under the influence" can get you arrested, at least, something like that according to the Oregonian. Here's the story:
Bicycling on a dark state highway without a helmet or a light in the middle of the night was bad enough. But police say Timothy Brett Crawford's biggest mistake was having too much booze before getting on his bike Wednesday night.Crawford, 43, of Estacada was cited for biking under the influence of alcohol after he was found unconscious on Oregon 224.
The bicyclist apparently crashed while riding along the highway east of Estacada. State Police Trooper Ryan Tellier found Crawford unconscious in the westbound lane about 9:17 p.m. and called LifeFlight to fly the man to a Portland hospital. Police say there was no evidence that Crawford was struck by a vehicle. His bicycle had no lighting equipment and he was not wearing a helmet, said OSP Lt. Gregg Hastings.After Crawford arrived by LifeFlight at Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Medical Center, emergency room doctors found no obvious injuries. A preliminary blood test showed a 'dramatically high' alcohol level in the cyclist, police said."
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Sounds to me like they didn't catch him pedaling, they caught him unconscious.
Actually, Portland is as close as you can get to bicycling nirvana this side of Copenhagen.
Pardon my dust, I'm not very expert at this--but, I intend to "embed" two videos and I don't quite know if I've been successful.
These charming videos produced by Mike Rubbo an Australian video-maker were posted at the far better blog: BikeSnobNYC yesterday. I was struck by the loveliness of these short films which deal with the larger ideal of personal liberty and the practice of governments to legislate "safety." These videos beautifully illustrate complex ideals and impulses, watch them and we will discuss.
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