Dalton McGuinty should re-think Cellphone Charges
Dalton McGuinty might well consider the following story and the growing number of stories of drivers killing pedestrians, cyclists and each other while talking and texting while driving. The Ontario government’s long awaited law banning such behaviour will hit the streets, complete with charges, February 1st.
Mr. McGuinty had the chance to deal with this problem in a responsible way, in the same way that many jurisdictions have, with heavy fines and jail time. Unfortunately Dalton decided that it was better to try and get re-elected then do the right thing.
In Ontario the maximum fine for talking or texting on your cell phone is $500.00. One wonders how many of the recent pedestrian deaths in the Toronto area could have been averted if the cell phone charges had been more heavily enforced with a harder hitting fine? Your tough enough to save us from pit bulls, but not enough to save us from negligent drivers. More people are killed by drivers then pit bulls.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Hi, I’m Carrie Patterson, Gordon Patterson’s wife,” she said softly. “We were married 23 years. But a distraction on a text message caused us his death.”
So ends the sad tale of a distracted driver, a teacher’s death and the ongoing lesson’s of why texting and driving is as bad as drinking and driving. In Washington’s states first vehicular homicide conviction due to text-messaging, Antonio Cellestine, 18 was sentenced to five years for hit and run on a cyclist while he was texting. Phone records indicate Cellestine was texting his girlfriend at the time his car hit and killed the Hudson’s Bay High School teacher.
“I’ve heard the term ‘accident’ used quite a bit today,” Bennett said after Cellestine pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and felony hit-and-run. “But this was no accident.”
Gordon Patterson, 50, was hit at 4 p.m. Sept. 15 in a bike lane near the top of the hill on Northeast St. Johns Road in Vancouver City, Washington. He was riding his bicycle home from school where he taught, when Cellestine’s car trailed into the bike lane and struck him from behind. Cellestine then sped away.
Based on witness statements and evidence gathered at the scene, officers arrested Cellestine the next day on suspicion of hit-and-run. They seized his cell phone and subpoenaed records from his cell phone company.
The records showed Cellestine had received and sent numerous text messages in the time leading up to and during the crash, said Deputy Prosecutor Jim David.
That constituted a disregard for the safety of others, David said, so prosecutors filed the vehicular homicide charge earlier this month.
“By focusing on the texting as opposed to driving, he wasn’t paying attention because he was watching his cell phone,” he said.
Cellestine first made up a story to police about smoking a cigar while driving and brought it up again in court Friday. But police say they found no evidence he was smoking.
This is the first of several cases dealing with homicide charges, texting and driving. A Bellingham teenager was arrested on suspicion of vehicular homicide for allegedly driving and texting when he hit and killed a pedestrian on New Year’s Day. He also was accused of drinking. That case has yet to be resolved.
“I never understood loss until I lost my dad — my best friend,” she said, her voice breaking. “I will always miss my dad …”
The biggest loss, Carrie Patterson said, was losing the future.
“He impacted thousands with his life,” she said. “And we can only imagine how many more it would have been if he was still here.”
GPS to track winter routes
We stole this picture from treehugger.com
The city of Waterloo, I think it is anyways by the look of the phone number, has decided to do a bit of funding toward finding out what route winter cyclists commute.
John Pender the regional planner has made a call out to winter cyclists to strap on GPS so there can be a better understanding of the routes to plow for cyclists during the winter months.
Call Hill, get a loaner GPS unit, fill out a survey and ride for two weeks, sending information from the device back to the region, which will use it to update the regional cycling master plan.
The intention is to form an understanding of the most popular winter cycling routes, so snow plowing routes can be better accommodated for cyclists.
Part of the reason for this experiment is to give council hard facts how many cyclists actually ride in the winter. Because you know there are councillors who are going to be asking that question.
Do you ride in the winter in the Waterloo area which I believe is the one in Ontario? Call Hill at 519-575-4019 and add your route to the database.
New York Law makes parking easier
We stole the picture as well
Last August 2009, Mayor Bloomberg signed a piece of city legislation called Bicycle Access to Office Buildings Law (Local Law 52). This law aims to increase bicycle commuting by helping cyclists gain access to secure parking at their office buildings during the workday. This law takes effect Friday.
The legislation was signed into law and was sponsored by Council Member David Yassky (D-Downtown Brooklyn/Brooklyn Heights) and moved through the City Council by Council Member John Liu (D-Queens), the city’s new comptroller.
Wiley Norvell of Transportation Alternatives, a bicyclists’ and walkers’ advocacy organization commented that the group had met with the larger commercial building owners at World Trade Center 7, and they were very positive about complying with the new law.
“Some are creating a central area to store bikes, while others are just letting people take the bikes up to their offices,” he said.
Commuter cycling in New York is already accelerating rapidly, with a 26 percent increase in the last year alone. It has more than doubled since 2005, according to city figures.
The perception of bicycles in offices has changed since 10 or so years ago, he added. “At that time, when most people thought of bikes in offices, they thought of bicycle messengers. People had these Madison Avenue attitudes that having a bicycle wasn’t proper in an office building.” Now, a much wider spectrum of people bike to work.
“A lack of secure bike access and parking at the office is one of the biggest deal-breakers for commuters who want to get to work by bike,” said Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.
“While commuter cycling continues to grow, this new law unlocks a barrier that has stopped an untold number of bike commutes before they even started. While we launch a new era in bike commuting, we also recognize businesses that are making cycling a commuting and business priority for their employees.”
“Allowing bicycles in buildings is an effective way to encourage cycling,” said Councilman Yassky, whose term expires at the end of the year. “This legislation is an extremely realistic effort to cut emissions, improve air quality, maximize public transportation and ease congestion, reaping tremendous environmental, public health and quality of life benefits for New Yorkers and New York City.”
Congratulations to the city of New York, Mayor Bloomberg, Council Member David Yassky and Comptroller John Liu for making this important law a reality. Its these kinds of innovations that are making commuting to work a stronger reality for many.
We would also like to thank Raanan Geberer of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle for letting us steal the story rearrange some paragraphs, not many mind you cause we are extremely lazy and make it look like we actually write our own copy.
What’s so hard about peace, love and car free?
Stolen from the Internet from the Guardian Online
A quarter of households in Britain – more in the larger cities, and a majority in some inner cities – live without a car. Imagine how quality of life would improve for cyclists and everyone else if traffic were removed from areas where people could practically choose to live without cars. Does this sound unrealistic, utopian? Did you know many European cities are already doing it?
Vauban in Germany is one of the largest car-free neighbourhoods in Europe, home to more than 5,000 people. If you live in the district, you are required to confirm once a year that you do not own a car – or, if you do own one, you must buy a space in a multi-storey car park on the edge of the district. One space was initially provided for every two households, but car ownership has fallen over time, and many of these spaces are now empty.
Vehicles are allowed down the residential streets at walking pace to pick up and deliver, but not to park. In practice, vehicles are rarely seen moving here. It has been taken over by kids as young as four or five, playing, skating and unicycling without direct supervision. The adults, too, tend to socialise outdoors far more than they would on conventional streets open to traffic (behaviour that's echoed in the UK, too).
Most of the European car-free areas are smaller and "purer" than Vauban: vehicles are physically prevented from entering the streets where people live. Exceptions are made for emergency vehicles and removals vans but not for normal deliveries, which are made on foot, trolley or cycle trailer. A few peripheral parking spaces are available to buy (usually around one space for every five homes) and a few are reserved for car club vehicles. In all the examples I have studied, cycling is a vital means of transport.
Car-free areas of this kind, with anything from a couple of hundred to more than a thousand residents, exist in Amsterdam, Vienna, Cologne, Hamburg and Nuremberg, among others. There is even a small one in Edinburgh.
There is another form of car-free development, so familiar we have until recently overlooked its potential. Most pedestrianised city or neighbourhood centres in Britain are almost entirely commercial. But a few farsighted councils, such as Exeter, have brought back housing and residents, without cars or allocated parking, into city centres that would otherwise be deserted after 6pm.
Groningen, the Netherlands' capital of cycling, has the largest car-free centre in Europe: half-pedestrianised, entirely closed to through traffic, with 16,500 residents, three-quarters of whom have no car in the household. Forty percent of all journeys within the city are made by bicycle.
Carfree UK, which I coordinate, was set up to promote European-style car-free development in this country. We are not anti-car, we are pro-choice. We have recently run public meetings in London to set up a new car-free association for London, which is beginning to look at areas of the city from which traffic could be removed. We know considerable potential demand exists for traffic-free housing in London, and probably in a number of other major cities. Where else do you think might be suitable?
• Steve Melia is coordinator of Carfree UK and a researcher at the University of the West of England
Cyclist Memorial Held in Mississauga
Six cyclists from the organization ARC, Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists set out early this morning to lay flowers for a dead cyclist. The cyclist was killed last week. Little is known about the tragic event. What is known is that it was around 6:30 at night. The cyclist was coming home during a busy rush hour when he was hit from behind and then hit again by another car. He died that night. Both drivers involved in the accident remained at the scene. The cyclists name is unknown as is his name as the newspaper and the police have not released this information.
News reports commented on how the cyclist seemed to have swerved out into the path of the first car that hit him. As always the only witnesses to the accident seemed to be the drivers involved.
Regardless of what happened, a bike had to be painted white and delivered to the scene of the cyclists death. The white bike, known as ghost bikes, are a symbol that according to the website, ghostbikes.org originated in 2003 in St Louis, Missouri. Since their first appearance they have appeared in over 100 cities. Ghost Bikes are small and somber memorials for bicyclists who are killed or hit on the street
Junker bikes are painted white and delivered to the site of the death scene, flowers are laid and a minute of silence is given to the memory. ARC has been doing cycling memorials since the mid nineties and have began putting ghost bikes in the Toronto area around 2005.
The ride began at Bike Pirates on Bloor at 8am. The group headed west and took Bloor street all the way to Mississauga. On the way the group tried to take one lane for safety sake.
Remarkably there were only two interactions with angry drivers. The first was at Royal York and Bloor where a driver took umbrage with the cyclists taking the lane. He seemed not to notice that there were several other lanes he could have driven in and that the light was red. The second was in Mississauga proper where a van driver roared past the cyclists trying to get ahead of the pack.
The ride to the site took around abouts an hour and a half. The site was a suburban waste land with a mix of single occupancy homes, strip malls and high rises. The road was straight and wide with unused sidewalks.
The ARCista's took the bike from the cargo bike that had brought it to that place and locked it around a utility pole. There were already flowers at the site which was why the cyclist found where the site was.
The chain used to secure the bike was to short so two of the cyclists donated their locks to make sure the ghost bike was not easily removed by the city or neighbours. Flowers were laid and a minute of silence was given.
The ride back was punctuated by the strains of a cyclist singing, They never walk in Mississauga, sang to the tune of It Never Rains In California. As always, or so it would seem, the ride back was faster then the ride there.
The cyclists ended their trip at a local Breakfast place called Yasi's in the west end and ate a well deserved meal. It was a beautiful day for a ride, but a horrible reason to go.
Many thanks to Ainsley, Martin, Geoff, Vic, Scunney and Derek for making the long trip out.
Tweet Tweet
- No public Twitter messages.
Puff the Magic Dragon
Where did I put those socks
- Jane’s dad
- Bike Bike Volunteer Call Out
- MECfest
- Oh yes, this post needs a title!!
- Bicycle parts not considered weapons or at least not brass knuckles
Deese R’ da Daze dat we Rote
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jul | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | |||
TCAT
IbikeTO
- Comedy Daryn Jones For Mayor
- BIXI Toronto reaches 500 members almost a year before it launches
- Mayoral Candidate HiMY SYeD to share 'Vision 2020 - BikeCity' at Bike Joint Sept 1