House of Eratosthenes

I love this “do-this-do-that-week” stuff. It’s not just green commuting. It’s awareness months, it’s take-your-blank-to-work-day — all that stuff. Of course it’s about getting attention and not engaging any process that operates according to cause-and-effect. And that’s fine. But the people who promote these promotable events, get pretty lippy to the effect that it’s about engaging cause-and-effect. They get pugnacious and combative with anyone who dares to suggest otherwise.

But if it was cause-and-effect, and it was smart, there wouldn’t be a “week.” You’d do it all the time.

Nevertheless, a good argument can be made that there’s no harm in these things. That’s right, isn’t it? Even if my point stands about contrasting the getting of attention, against real human achievement — once we acknowledge that, it remains benign, right? I used to think so…I may have to reconsider now (H/T: Boortz).

One bicyclist was dead and another injured two days into a week promoting safe bicycle commuting in the Chicago area.

A white bicycle on the 900 block of North La Salle stood in tribute Tuesday to Clinton Miceli, the fifth bicyclist killed in a collision with a vehicle in Chicago this year.

Miceli, 22, was cycling in the bike lane on La Salle around 6:45 p.m. Monday when he slammed into an open SUV door, was thrown from his bike, then struck by a second car. The driver of the Nissan Xterra who opened the door into Miceli’s path was cited for opening a car door in traffic, police said.

A second rider collided with a CTA bus around 8:50 a.m. Tuesday at Broadway and Patterson in Lake View. That cyclist was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in serious condition, a Fire Department spokesman said. The CTA driver was cited for failure to yield and suspended without pay, authorities said.

Like a lot of folks who are convinced the global warming thing and the carbon cap-and-trade thing are scams, I have a bike, I keep it in shape, and I ride mine more than most others ride theirs. Yes, you read that right. People who believe in the globular wormening climate-change ManBearPig, don’t ride bikes. They drive big fat cars, and they drive ’em everywhere. Oops, outta milk. The convenience store is 200 feet away, I’ll climb in the Lincoln Navigator.

Anyway, I digress.

I work pretty hard to avoid mingling with cars, if I can. Cars don’t see you. If you’re forced to do a move that depends on the car seeing you, for you to get through it alive, then what you’ve got to do is engage the driver’s attention through his windshield and get an acknowledging nod. And if you’re forced to do that — remember, you only have one shot at this stuff — it’s best just to go somewhere else.

Training is good. Most of us have been walked through this kind of thing in fifth grade or thereabouts, but very few of us have had occasion to practice it since those days. Classes, with reflective tape, bike lamps, vests, helmets, reflector mirrors.

I have an even more effective suggestion though: Don’t have “weeks” for this stuff. If we can come to an agreement that such events are about getting attention and not about actually fixing anything, I would hope we’d come to a consequent agreement that this isn’t what the environment needs, and it certainly isn’t what the climate change — yes, I’ll say it because it’s true — political movement needs. C’mon, get real. Everyone who’s paying it attention, not the sneering eyeball-rolling kind I have ready for it but rather the respectful attention it craves, is already paying it as much attention as they’re gonna.

And a “week” has a starting event. During which time, traffic, both cars and bikes, have to adapt to the intermingling. That means people who don’t know what they need to know, have to learn it the hard way. Clinton Miceli paid the ultimate price to make that happen. It’s no different from computer programming, you know — the screw-ups happen where one process hands the data off to another. Where things change. Where a buffer is flushed to disk and a bunch of counters are accordingly reset. If it’s something that’s just a perpetual thing, you don’t have this. And then, maybe this poor fella would still be around today.

And while I can appreciate that Mr. Miceli has emitted his last pound of carbon and thus saved the environment from his own portion of “human caused climate change,” somehow I don’t think that’s the way this is supposed to work. The climate change movement is not supposed to be a eugenics movement.

Unless maybe it is. Hmmm…human-inducted climate change…gotta save the planet…hmmm.

Mission accomplished?

I’m riding my bike to work again. I try to do it 3 days a week. It’s been a wet spring, though, and I don’t ride in the pouring rain. Plus one day a week I have an appointment for which I need my car.

I pretty much always assume nobody in cars can see me. I try to stay a door’s width from parked cars, but I think now I’m going to re-double those efforts.

I do try to assess cars, even parked ones, I’m coming up upon to see if there’s anybody in them, around them, possibly getting in or out of them … that sort of thing.

Yeah, I’m with you on the “do this” weeks. I started riding my bicycle to work again one week this spring and later found out it was our Mayor’s “Get around Columbia” week. That didn’t matter to me. I wasn’t riding for Darwin (yeah, that’s his name. Appropriate. He’s a cultural evolutionist. Otherwise known as a “Progressive”).

I ride MAINLY for exercise. Riding to work does a couple of things. If it’s your transportation, unlike a gym or stationary bicycle or other machine … you can’t just say “that’s it, I’m done” if you’ve had enough. If you’re not at work yet, you have to keep going. And then, since it’s your transportation, now you’re on the hook for riding it back home. On top of that, once you’re home, you’ve gotten your exercise in for the day and you can pop open a beer.

If it saves me a little in gas, cuts down on pollution, saves wear and tear on the car, reduces traffic … those are all fine and good. But I’m doin’ it for my thumper, my lungs, and to avoid gaining an unwanted spare tire. ‘Cause I like food. And beer.
- philmon | 06/12/2008 @ 11:04

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Grim Start to Bike WeekThursday, June 12th, 2008

Grim Start to Bike Week
Thursday, June 12th, 2008