Thursday, April 30, 2009

Kevin Hoover speaks

What follows is too important for a link. Kevin Hoover, editor of the Arcata Eye—and a cyclist—has given us permission to quote his current editorial. Herewith:

Eye Editorial: Berserk bicyclists – April 29, 2009
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How many times have you had to slam on your brakes to avoid colliding with an ablivious/arrogant bicyclist plowing through a stop sign? How often have you held your breath as a biker pulling a trailer containing a child sailed past a stop sign and into a busy intersection? When was the last time you hoped the bicyclist wending and weaving around pedestrians on the sidewalk would manage to maneuver around you and your kids without impact?

Chances are you’ve had some or all of those experiences. And your extra consideration in averting imminent collision with errant bicyclists will often as not be met with dirty looks and the rigid digit. After all, you aren't a bicyclist and therefore don't merit respect.

The once good-natured Critical Mass bike rides – intended to show cyclist solidarity and reclaim the streets from auto dominance – are these days comprised of surly bikers with fashionable terrorist-mimicking scarves over their faces yelling obscenities at drivers and flipping off everyone in sight.

If the biking community wants an explanation – not a justification – for the enmity and discourteousness some vehicle drivers give them, they need look no further than the example their least responsible members set.

Unsafe biking is endemic in our college town, and it is taking a steady toll on its practitioners, with injuries ranging from road rash, cracked skulls to last week, death.

Every year a fresh crop of university students comes to town and has to be taught responsible comportment from the ground up. And then there are the homegrown traffic law-scofflaws. Some listen and learn some don't.

Among the latter category would be the six bicyclists with cracked heads who have been taken away on gurneys over the past two years.

Unfortunately, many hit the ground (and other things) before figuring out that they should follow traffic law and common sense safety measures. One of them isn't going to get another chance.

Humboldt State University, the bike shops, the City and local bicycle advocacy organizations must redouble efforts to put bicycle safety front and center in the biking community’s consciousness – right up there with establishing new trails and bike lanes. It's not unreasonable to suggest that any further amenities the bicycling community is demanding be withheld until it shows some interest in getting its safety act together. Why reward arrogance and lack of cooperation?

You can’t save people from themselves if they’re determined to behave self-destructively. But some bike riders are amenable to reason, and it’s incumbent on anyone with any influence to try to drum safety into bicyclists’ heads – while they still have them.



Why, you ask, does Kevin have a hair up his ass over his fellw bicyclists? Here's why. Needless to say, both the injury and the death might well have been prevented if these free spirits had bothered to wear helmets. Two down, in one day. How many more will it take before we mandate helmet use (attention Ecovelo readers)?

Living in one of the few bike-friendly communities in America has its downside: we get more than our share of nasty bicycle accidents. When a cyclist was killed riding on the far right shoulder of Rte 299 last summer, the cycling community boiled over and demanded a meeting with the authorities. We had had it with arrogant motorists who think they own our roads. We had had it with the sneering hate radio hosts who target cyclists. We were the green warriors on wheels. Later for the gasoholics.

The Arcata police chief, The CHP, the district attorney, CALTRANS (highways) and a local trucking instructor gave us their sympathies. Then we got an earful. Cyclists and motorists were telling themselves the same horror stories. Yes, it turned out that WE are terrorizing motorists, especially truckers. The Arcata police chief put it this way, " at any hour of the day I can look out my window and watch half a dozen cyclists blow through the stop sign at one of Arcata's busiest intersections." Semi-trucks, we learned, take no less than 300 FEET to come to a stop from highway speeds. The truck drivers have learned to expect...utter chaos...from cyclists. The trucking instructor, himself an enthusiastic cyclist, put it this way: "Bikers routinely ride on and off curbs, through lights and into oncoming traffic. I tell my drivers to think of cyclists as out of control three year olds. Be ready for anything."

Yes, we need driver education when it comes to cyclists. It's our road too and we have a right to use it unmolested. We all remember the gas prices last summer and we've seen the waistlines at the local mall. America needs us. But...we're never gong to get the respect we crave from the motoring public if we insist on an utterly hypocritical double standard when it comes to traffic laws. We may not even manage to stay alive.

The answer? Emulate this rider.
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13 comments:

  1. Thanks Gordon. My only objection is that your headline makes it more about me than the actual issue, but whatever.

    Hey, we got our first flame for calling BS on the First Church of the Holy Bicycle:

    "I just got done reading Kevin L. Hoover's article about the death of Kevin Murphy and the near-death injury of a fellow student, and I must admit that your article makes me feel a strange mix of sickness and shame for your entire paper. There's a fucking picture of Kevin's blood on the pavement? I don't see your images and grotesque descriptions of the death, "...the man’s blood onto the sidewalk and into the gutter." as helping prevent any future deaths from lack of bike helmet; it's just deeply disrespectful not only to the deceased but to his family and friends as well. And 100x-shame to that asshole Kevin L. Hoover for placing an ad hocking his latest cash-in on Humboldt's drug-addicted and poor in a book with stunning quotes, all next to a picture of fellow Kevin's hemoglobin-spilling tragedy. I hope to fucking God that you pricks are high on meth and acid or you have no fucking excuse to publish and profit off of such shameless selling-out by describing in gratuitous detail an unfortunate man's last moments. I must admit that I'm going to wear a helmet when I ride my mountain bike from now on, all because I heard of Mr. Murphy's death, but that's no fucking excuse to publish what you did, and next to the shameless plugging of merchandise, you shameless motherfuckers. I'm so fucking pisses at you disrespectful assholes that I'm coming in to your office to discuss in person how you need to change your practicing of ethics. Really, this is how you have to fucking sell a paper? I'll teach you how to write articles with respect and dignity, and I won't allow you to publish this trash ever again. End of story, bitches.
    -Tommy Smiley
    ( I really only have a great problem with the gratuitous details you provided. Namely, the image of Kevin Murphy's blood. He isn't around to approve that image so you shouldn't publish it, even to emphasize a point. The HSU student was being stupid and should be made an example of, but only because he's still alive and kicking. The detailing of Murphy's blood spilling into the gutter I would imagine to be deeply offending to anyone who gave a damn about him. I found the article informative otherwise, but will not apologize for the language I used to deliver my points; they were warranted, given the graphic nature of your article.)"

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  2. Kevin,

    I've added the photos you sent and one of a helmeted cyclist who some may recognize.

    Mr. Smiley certainly knows how to honor the dead.

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  3. True Believers are the embarrassment of every legitimate movement.

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  4. Sounds like you know something about this Smiley character. I'm having trouble figuring out what it is he actually believes. Apart from "venting" on others...

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  5. No, I don't know Tommy but as usual I appreciate his passion.

    I suppose that if it was really about rational conversation, I could deconstruct his highly erroneous blast but... meh, who cares? You get it or you don't.

    Thing is, some cyclists are giving car drivers serious competition for the Shittiest Attitude Towards Fellow Humans Award. When I ride my bike, drivers do a lot of seemingly intentionally antagonistic things to me in traffic. I can't help but wonder if they're taking all the brake-slammages they've had to do because of jerk bikers out on me.

    All in all, though, the local bike activism scene has become altogether too arrogant and clubby. They need reform, beginning with policing their community.

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  6. Agreed. But whenever I've tried to suggest that we cyclists might need to look at our road manners, and consider, say, actually stopping at a stop sign or two, I get a litany of complaints about rude motorists.

    We're in a war and both sides are blaming the opposition for everything. Unfortunately, our side is losing.

    Nevertheless, I'm not giving up on changing a few things. Helmets, for example, seem like a common sense move, until you try to talk with an adult who refuses to wear one while riding behind his helmeted children. I see this all the time on The Hammond Trail.

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  7. "..I get a litany of complaints about rude motorists."

    Right, well that would be the logical fallacy known as "tu quoque."

    http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx

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  8. Definitely have to bookmark that list.

    My own cycling group begins its Sunday morning ride by rolling through every stop sign on 7th street between F and Alliance including the one in front of the Police Station. If you stop, you lose the group.

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  9. http://bikesocial.blogspot.com/2009/02/is-critical-mass-heroic-or-dangerous.html

    More on Critical Mass.

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  10. Hey guess what? Tommy's back, and more indignant than ever:

    "This has nothing to do with your view of "reality." If you had shown a picture of my family, or a loved one, or even a close friend, in the final moments of their life, and for no reason but to publish a "story" in a paper that takes in over $1 an issue, I would take SERIOUS ISSUE with your journalistic integrity, or lack thereof. You could have easily reported on the bike accidents without publishing gory details and bloody images. That's just plain snuff, and it's really easy to sell. I just view at as a complete cop-out; taking the easy road when you could have published a story that was equally as informative but lacking any of the bullshit that would offend the casual viewer, especially the victim's family and friends. Your lack of journalistic integrity is your own undoing. Your paper is dying and I rejoice in its demise. Remember this, wanna-be reporter, that when you're dead (and I'll be watching and waiting everyday), I will make a point of photographing your dead body, or at least a few bloody stains, and publishing them on craigslist, the Lumberjack, and any other worthless local publication. Countin' down the days, bigot-boy. Don't fear the reaper, though. It'll be any day now...
    -TS"

    Tommy, I don't think we agree on the role of a newspaper. We are supposed to reflect the reality of the town.

    If we didn't publish anything that might offend someone, our pages would be blank. Ink manufacturing plants would go out of business, and the unemployed inkmakers wouldn't be able to buy bicycles or send their kids to HSU.

    Under your theory of journalism, would we be allowed to report that, or would doing so be exploiting the plight of the ink workers?

    Thanks,

    Kevin

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  11. Does anybody ever write to you to apologize for a rant?

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  12. Yes, that happened recently.

    A man named Justin didn't think our "Plaza Girl" strip club story in the April Fools' edition was funny or appropriate. He stopped by the office when I wasn't there and expressed his dissatisfaction.

    I wasn't there, but before I could could call him to discuss it he came back with some very generously worded apology cards expressing remorse for his excessive anger. Even though I had some points to make that might have ameliorated his objections, I knew his heart was in the right place in terms of sticking up for women.

    And recently I received a letter from someone who has been unhappy with me for some of my editorial opinions, apologizing. She didn't have to; I like her a lot and respect her (totally wrong) point of view on certain matters.

    By the way, I've found myself apologizing for reckless rhetoric more than once in recent years. Several times, actually.

    It's really not a big deal. I truly appreciate people's passion over issues and events, because at least they aren't just sitting there being passive.

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  13. See that all 23,204 visitors to The Social Biking Blog from places like Korea, Finland, Brazil, Iran and NYC? Kindly follow my lead and become Arcata Eye subscribers http://www.arcataeye.com/. This is the incisive and witty small town newspaper you wish you had. And Arcata is arguably the best small town in the country (with fog).

    Yours dead seriously,


    Gordon Inkeles

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