Seattle Repeals Bike Helmet Law

Daniel Kriegman, a psychologist and former friend of Harvey Weinstein, writes in Quillette:

In 1986, an article by Robert Longo in Psychology Today stated (without reference to any supportive data or scientific research) that “Most untreated sex offenders go on to commit more offenses, indeed as many as 80 percent do.” That article was then referenced in a manual published by the US Department of Justice. And, on the basis of that manual, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in a 2002 SCOTUS decision that sex criminals pose “a frightening and high risk of recidivism” and that “the rate of recidivism of untreated offenders has been estimated to be as high as 80 percent.” Justice Kennedy repeated the “frightening and high” claim in a subsequent decision the following year.

He goes on to explain that this is completely false, and that the sex offender recidivism rate is lower than for most other crimes.

I am not sure about his analysis of Weinstein, but we need legal policies that reflect the realities of the crimes.

Seattle is repealing a law, just because Blacks disobey it:

In the face of data showing enforcement has been both minimal and has disproportionately affected people of color and those experiencing homelessness, the King County Board of Health voted Thursday to repeal its decades-old mandatory helmet law for bicycle riders. The repeal goes into effect in 30 days.

Here, "people of color" is a euphemism for Blacks. Coloed Asian-Americans have been obeying the helmet law.

The helmet law is a stupid and unnecessary nanny state law, but this is a stupid reason to repeal it.

These vegan Trump-haters did not believe in evil

Daily Wire reports:

A young American couple who took a year-long bike trip around the world, believing that evil was a make-believe concept, took a fatal route in Tajikistan near the Afghan border, where alleged ISIS terrorists stabbed them to death.

Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, 29, quit their jobs last year in order to make their trip. Austin was a vegan who worked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; Geoghegan, a vegetarian who worked in the Georgetown University admissions office.

Austin had a personal blog on which he wrote in June 2017, “I’ve grown tired of spending the best hours of my day in front of a glowing rectangle, of coloring the best years of my life in swaths of grey and beige. I’ve missed too many sunsets while my back was turned. Too many thunderstorms went unwatched, too many gentle breezes unnoticed.”

Their trip, which lasted 369 days, took them from the southernmost tip of Africa in Capetown, South Africa, to Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Egypt, Morocco, Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Montengro, Kosovo, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and finally Tajikistan, where they were murdered along with two other cyclists, one from Switzerland and the other from the Netherlands.

And of course they have some incoherent complaints about President Trump. They had no kids.

The New York Times reported:

A grainy cellphone clip recorded by a driver shows what happened next: The men’s Daewoo sedan passes the cyclists and then makes a sharp U-turn. It doubles back, and aims directly for the bikers, ramming into them and lurching over their fallen forms. In all, four people were killed: Mr. Austin, Ms. Geoghegan and cyclists from Switzerland and the Netherlands. Two days later, the Islamic State released a video showing five men it identified as the attackers, sitting before the ISIS flag. They face the camera and make a vow: to kill “disbelievers.”

CBS News added, “ISIS followed an initial claim of responsibility in print with a video showing the five purported attackers pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

I am surprised that they trip lasted as long as 369 days.

Here is warped leftist pacifist thinking at work. There were probably nice people, but no civilization could ever survive if it were dominated by folks like that.

New California law against earbuds

California announces a new law, effective Jan. 1:

DMV Reminds Motorists of New 2016 Laws

Earbuds or Headsets (SB 491, Transportation Committee): This law, among other things, makes it unlawful to wear a headset covering, earplugs in, or earphones covering, resting on, or inserted in, both ears, while operating a motor vehicle or a bicycle. This prohibition does not apply to persons operating authorized emergency vehicles, construction equipment and refuse or waste equipment while wearing a headset or safety earplugs.

Not so fast. Here is the new law, compared to the old law:

27400. A person operating a motor vehicle or bicycle may not wear a headset covering, or earplugs in, or earphones covering, resting on, or inserted in, both ears. This prohibition does not apply to any of the following: ...

Okay, that clearly adds in-ear headphones or earbuds to the law, but this exception is unchanged:

(d) A person wearing personal hearing protectors in the form of earplugs or molds that are specifically designed to attenuate injurious noise levels. The plugs or molds shall be designed in a manner so as to not inhibit the wearer's ability to hear a siren or horn from an emergency vehicle or a horn from another motor vehicle.

My ear buds do attenuate injurious noise levels without inhibiting my ability to hear a siren or horn. So I do not see how this law has any effect on me wearing earbuds in my car or bicycle.

The police and judges may have another opinion, but safety is the intent of the law, and I do believe that earbuds are safer because they allow controlling volume to the ears. The law appears written to allow for that.

Okay to hit bicyclists, say LA drivers

The LA Times reports:

Hit-and-run collisions involving bicyclists surged 42% from 2002 to 2012 in Los Angeles County, according to a Times analysis of California Highway Patrol crash data.

The increase came as the overall number of hit-and-runs involving cars, cyclists and pedestrians dropped by 30%. Between 2002 and 2012, the most recent data available, more than 5,600 cyclists were injured and at least 36 died in crashes in which drivers fled the scene. ...

For cyclists who are hit, a major frustration is how infrequently drivers are caught. The Los Angeles Police Department closed one in five hit-and-runs from 2008 to 2012, meaning about 80% were unresolved, according to data the department reported last year to the Board of Police Commissioners. Less than half of those cases were closed through an arrest.

The chance of being convicted is so slim that "if you wanted to murder someone, it would almost be better to just hit them with your car," said Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles), who has pushed for stiffer hit-and-run penalties.

I know that there are a lot of bicycle haters, but I was disappointed to see that the LA Times was swamped with letters siding with the hit-and-run drivers!

Driving a car with earphones

A lot of people seem to think that it is illegal to drive a car while listening to earphones.

Here is the California Vehicle Code:

Wearing of Headsets or Earplugs

27400. A person operating a motor vehicle or bicycle may not wear a headset covering, or earplugs in, both ears. This prohibition does not apply to any of the following:

(a) A person operating authorized emergency vehicles, as defined in Section 165.

(b) A person engaged in the operation of either special construction equipment or equipment for use in the maintenance of any highway.

(c) A person engaged in the operation of refuse collection equipment who is wearing a safety headset or safety earplugs.

(d) A person wearing personal hearing protectors in the form of earplugs or molds that are specifically designed to attenuate injurious noise levels. The plugs or molds shall be designed in a manner so as to not inhibit the wearer's ability to hear a siren or horn from an emergency vehicle or a horn from another motor vehicle.

(e) A person using a prosthetic device that aids the hard of hearing.

So the way I read this, when driving a car:
Earphone in one ear - legal.
Headphones covering both ears - illegal.
In-ear earbuds or earphones - legal if they reduce external noise.

Deaf people are allowed to drive, so you don't have to be able to hear horns. I don't know why a "headset covering" is banned, but cops will give tickets for that. You need to wear the earbuds instead.

Against mandated bicycle helmets

Here are some arguments against bicycle helmet laws.

As Mikael Colville-Andersen and Hart Noecker of Rebel Metropolis have pointed out, one is much more likely to have a head injury in a car than on a bike. The absolute number of head injuries is staggering in comparison; Stromberg shows that even looking at the number of injuries per hour of travel, which compensates for the fact that there are a lot more drivers than cyclists, the rate of head injuries is not significantly different between walking, cycling or driving.

In fact, if anyone needs a helmet, it is the pedestrian, who has even higher rates of head injuries than cyclists.

... drivers were less careful around helmeted cyclists. ...

It turns out that so many people are turned off cycling by helmets that the the lives saved through the exercise and health benefits of cycling among people is greater than the number of lives saved through helmet use.

Update: CNet reports:

Brain surgeon: There's no point wearing bicycle helmets

A British brain surgeon says cycle helmets are too flimsy and can actually create more danger by creating the illusion of greater safety. ...

As the Telegraph reports, Marsh was speaking at the Hay Literary Festival. There, he threw caution to an erudite wind by saying: "I ride a bike and I never wear a helmet. In the countries where bike helmets are compulsory there has been no reduction in bike injuries whatsoever." ...

Marsh isn't alone in suggesting bike helmets shouldn't be worn. In a 2010 Tedx Talk (video above) Mikael Colville-Andersen, cycling ambassador for Copenhagen, insisted that some research found that cycle helmets actually cause more brain damage.

Moreover, he described society's obsession with safety equipment as "almost pornographic." Why, he wondered, don't pedestrians wear helmets, as they suffer more brain damage than cyclists?

For him, riding without a helmet is also a symbol of the livable city. The problem, as he sees it, is drivers, not cyclists. What would happen, he mused, if drivers were forced to wear helmets? That would surely save lives. It would also destroy car sales.

He believes that some of the biggest proponents of cycle helmets are the car industry and the auto insurance industry, as the more laws there are insisting on cycle helmets, the fewer bikes are sold.

Three Feet for Safety Act

I occasionally hear automobile drivers complain that bicyclists do not obey traffic law. I think that they are hallucinating, as bicyclist overwhelmingly obey laws better than car, in my experience. In particular, most cars violated these laws every day, and endanger bicyclists in the process.

Exceeding speed limits.

Weaving in and out of the lane.

Turning right across a bicycle lane without looking.

Passing too close to a bicycle (3 feet minimum now required in California).

Yes, a bicyclist will sometimes blow thru a 4-way stop with no one is around. but cars have the much more significant violations.

Wearing a bike helmet might not make you any safer

This article says that there is no proof that helmets make bicyclists any safer:

According to a 2003 article in the American Heritage Invention and Technology magazine, a surge in bicycle helmets from 1991 to 2001 -- to the extent that 69 per cent of child cyclists and 43 per cent of adult cyclists wore helmets by the end of the period -- was accompanied by a decline in ridership and an increase in cyclist accidents, resulting in 51 per cent more head injuries per cyclist. ...

One source cites statistics from Western Australia where head injuries fell by 11 to 21 per cent when helmet requirements were put in place, but cycle use fell by 30 per cent or more, meaning the risk of head injury increased for those who continued to cycle. ...

In the Netherlands, there is high a rate of cycling and a low rate of cycling injuries. Virtually no one wears a helmet.

The real purpose of the helmet laws may be just to discourage bicycling.

Pedestrian helmets

News from Denmark:

Intense promotion of walking helmets for pedestrians has begun. This logic has been sorely missed. These two organisations have happily promoted bike helmets but pedestrians suffer just as many head injuries, if not more.

This Danish campaign poster reads:

"A walking helmet is a good helmet"
"Traffic safety isn't just for cyclists. The pedestrians of Denmark actually have a higher risk of head injury. The Danish Road Safety Council recommends walking helmets for pedestrians and other good folk in high risk groups."

The slogan is catchy in Danish since it kind of rhymes. All in all it's a brilliant project. Let's save some lives.

The new walking helmets will be available in the Danish Cyclists Union's [Dansk cyklist forbund] shop. Although, as the Danish Cyclists' Union, the Road Safety Council and Trygfonden have been quick to point out:

"A bike helmet is a fine substitute for walking helmets, so there's no need to take it off when you get off your bike. Keep it on throughout the day for maximum safety."

I don't think that this is a joke, but I am not sure. I would think that automobile drivers would benefit the most from helmets. Maybe they are next.

The San Jose Mercury News Roadshow column reports:

Thursday is Bike to Work Day, and it's a good time to remind bicyclists that they should think like they are driving a car. Ride in the direction of traffic, stop at red lights and stop signs, change lanes safely, yield to pedestrians and to traffic having the right of way.

If riding slower than traffic, a bicyclist should ride as far to the right as practicable where it is safe to do so.

However, when a lane is too narrow for a bicycle and a vehicle to travel safely side by side, a cyclist is legally allowed to use the full lane. Many people are unaware of this exception. It is generally safer to ride a few feet away from the curb than to hug the curb and encourage drivers to squeeze past you.

If you notice cars stacking up behind your bike, you may want to pull over every now and then to let them pass. But there is no law stating that bicyclists must ride single-file. Go to bikesiliconvalley.org for more.

Yes. Bicyclists should occupy the whole lane when safety requires it.

California motorist charged for injuring cyclists

The LA Times reports:

A Brentwood physician who allegedly injured two cyclists last summer by slamming on his car brakes in front of them on Mandeville Canyon Road pleaded not guilty today. Prosecutor Mary Stone alleges that Christopher Thomas Thompson hit his brakes after a confrontation with cyclists who were riding down the narrow road.

The resulting impact flung one cyclist through the car’s rear window and the other to the pavement. Thompson, 59, allegedly told police during the July 4 incident that he stopped his red Infinity sedan in front of the cyclists to “teach them a lesson.” The physician complained that cyclists frequently traveled the residential street in Brentwood and that he was “tired of them,” Los Angeles police Officer Robert Rodriguez testified during a preliminary hearing last month.

Thompson is charged with one felony count of reckless driving causing injury and two felony counts of battery with serious injury, two counts of causing “great bodily injury” to the cyclists while attempting to commit a felony and one count of mayhem for other severe injuries to one of the cyclists. He also faces one count of misdemeanor reckless driving causing injury in an incident with another cyclist on the same road in March.

A reader responds:

My sympathies are with the doctor. Far too often I see pretentious idiots wearing tights who think they are Lance Armstrong ... The fact of the matter is that these bicyclists were riding way too fast and were a hazard to everybody on that road. By their own admission when the doctor told them to ride single-file (AS REQUIRED BY LAW) ...

No, California law does not require bicyclists to ride single-file. The physician should do some hard time in prison.

Proposal would change rules for bicyclists at stop signs

The local newspaper reports:

SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - Bicyclists, who often raise the ire of drivers and pedestrians for their loose interpretation of traffic laws, could be allowed to roll through stop signs and travel through red lights after halting.

The “stop and roll” proposal is patterned after a state law in Idaho in which bicyclists are legally able to treat stop signs as yield signs, and interpret red stoplights as stop signs. Currently, California bicyclists must stop and put one foot on the ground at stop signs, and follow the same stoplight rules as drivers. ...

Bicyclists said they were in favor of the idea, especially because it is difficult to start pedaling from a dead stop and stoplights occasionally do not recognize bikers because of their size.

“Bicyclists are already perceived as outlaws who never stop at stop signs,” said Andy Thornley, program director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, who added that bicyclists see drivers as aggressive and pushy.

About a month ago, I was riding my bicycle and had to make a left turn at a stop light. There was a local cop who stopped on the shoulder and watching the intersection. A left turn requires a left turn arrow, and I happened to know that the intersection has a car detector in the left turn lane. It was not going to turn green for me. It was a lightly-travelled intersection, and I could have waited as long as 20 minutes for a car to enter the left turn lane and trigger the green left arrow.

So I just did a stop and roll, and the cop did not say anything. It would be nice if the bicycle stop and roll were actually recognized in the Vehicle Code, because it is a practical necessity.

Decisions take time

Here is some new mindreading research:

In a study published Sunday in Nature Neuroscience, researchers using brain scanners could predict people's decisions seven seconds before the test subjects were even aware of making them. ...

Haynes updated a classic experiment by the late Benjamin Libet, who showed that a brain region involved in coordinating motor activity fired a fraction of a second before test subjects chose to push a button. Later studies supported Libet's theory that subconscious activity preceded and determined conscious choice -- but none found such a vast gap between a decision and the experience of making it as Haynes' study has.

In the seven seconds before Haynes' test subjects chose to push a button, activity shifted in their frontopolar cortex, a brain region associated with high-level planning. Soon afterwards, activity moved to the parietal cortex, a region of sensory integration. Haynes' team monitored these shifting neural patterns using a functional MRI machine. ...

Hallett doubts that free will exists as a separate, independent force.

This is consistent with previous research, but it does not cast any doubt on free will. It just shows that it takes a few seconds to make a conscious decision.

I have noticed this myself while riding my bike. If I see a hazard in the road, I can slam on the brakes as fast as my reaction time will allow. Reaction time is usually a tenth of a second or so. But if I see something interesting on the side of the road and have to make a deliberate decision on whether to stop, then the decision takes a few seconds. I can only make a decision faster than a second if I had already prepared a programmed response.

Blaming cyclists is part of tragedy

A letter to the editor of the local paper says:

Once again, we hear the tragic news about cyclists killed on the road (Page 1A, March 10), and once again, the tone of the article implies that it is the cyclists' fault. Toward the end of this otherwise fine article, we read the following.

Cyclists along the well-traveled stretch of road talked Sunday about the dangers of their sport - everything from speeding cars to drivers who blare their horns in an attempt to intimidate them. One of the most dangerous things cyclists can do, they said, is ride two abreast. That practice is not illegal but can be extremely dangerous on narrow, winding roads with a large amount of traffic.

So, a sheriff's car crosses a double-yellow line and plows into a group of cyclists, killing two of them, and what we read is sympathy for the distraught driver, and words that shift the blame to the dead and injured cyclists, with absolutely no evidence presented that they were doing anything wrong. This is appalling.

Mark Flynn
San Jose

The paper says the cop fell asleep:

Sunday morning around 10:30 a.m. Council crossed a double yellow line on Stevens Canyon Road and struck a group of cyclists in the opposite lane. Matt Peterson, 29, of San Francisco, and Kristianna Gough, 30, of Oakland, died.

Daniel Brasse was the first to come on to the scene of Sunday's crash. There was no screech, no bang - no noise to warn bicyclist Brasse about what was coming around the corner.

A sheriff's patrol car was facing the wrong way on the wrong side of the road after slamming into Brasse's three riding partners. A deputy was walking around in a daze, later telling at least two witnesses he had fallen asleep.

Peterson was already dead. Another of Brasse's friends, Christopher Knapp, 20, was writhing in agony, with two limbs broken. And Gough, her leg severed and her head bleeding, was gasping for air.

As far as anyone knows, the bicyclists were riding in a safe and legal way. It is a lightly traveled road, and there is no bicycle lane.

Bicycles and the Law: The Case of California

Here is a good summary of California bicycle law, by Alan Wachtel. A lot of people seem to think that bikes have to ride on the shoulder, or have to get out of the way of cars, or cannot occupy an entire lane. In reality, bikes have more or less the same road rights as cars. Other states have similar laws.

SF woman complains of bicycle attack

California news:

It was supposed to be a birthday night out for the kids in San Francisco, but instead turned into a Critical Mass horror show -- complete with a pummeled car, a smashed rear window and little children screaming in terror.

The spontaneous Critical Mass bike rides, in which thousands of free-spirited cyclists roam the city, have been a fixture on the last Friday night of the month since the early 1990s. ...

Susan Ferrando, her husband, their two children and three preteens had come to San Francisco from Redwood City to celebrate the birthday of Ferrando's 11-year-old daughter. ...

Confusion, however, quickly turned to terror, she said, when the swarming cyclists began wildly circling around and then running into the sides of her Toyota van.

Filled with panic, Ferrando said, she started inching forward until coming to a stop at Post and Gough streets, where she was surrounded by bikers on all sides.

A biker in front blocked her as another biker began pounding on the windshield. Another was pounding on her window. Another pounded the other side.

"It seemed like they were using their bikes as weapons", Ferrando said.

The trouble with Ferrando's story is that there are dozens of witnesses who say that she was a hit-and-run driver. Being from out-of-town and not expecting crowds of bicyclists does not give her the right to hit them with her van.

George writes:

What gives those bicyclists the right to decide that their bike ride is more important than car traffic? The Critical Mass bikers don't ride in single file, run traffic lights, and cause traffic jams.

And why is Ferrando's birthday celebration more important that the bike ride? The police could take measures to slow down the bikers, but that would just cause worse traffic jams.

Under Idaho law, a bicyclist may treat a stop sign like a yield sign, and a red stop light like a stop sign.