Bike Items that Have Little to Nothing to Do With DC - 1/24/10

Electric Bicycles are gaining momentum (tip Jeff)

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month, Sanyo, the Japanese electronics maker and a major producer of car batteries, showed off a sleek, lightweight e-bike called the Eneloop Hybrid Bicycle.

The Eneloop, priced at $2,300, came to stores in the United States late last year. It operates like any normal bike and, save for the black lithium-ion battery strapped to the frame beneath the seat, looks exactly like one as well. But when you press a button on the left handlebar, a 250-watt motor gently kicks in, providing about twice the power as your own pedaling — and making you feel like Lance Armstrong on even the steepest slopes.

And here's more from the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times Blog.

Two guys cycled across country taking pictures with Mayors for a coffee table book.

The Slouch on bike racing

Q. The Tour de Georgia, billed as North America's premier cycling event, has been canceled two straight years. What does this say about the state of cycling? (Dan O'Neil; Carmel, Ind.)

A. I don't know what it says about the state of cycling, but it tells me the state of Georgia doesn't want to clog its roads with bicyclists and discarded bottles of water for a full week.

The Boston Police Department is using twitter to catch bike thieves.

Already know as the “tweeting police department” they have created a way for owners to report stolen bikes so that local security and followers can keep their eyes out for the missing two-wheelers.

A video on biking in Paris (via GGW). Does it help to know that the French don't respect bike lanes either? I didn't think so. Reminds me of this movie.

A couple of bike sharing entrepreneurs went from knowing nothing about the business to writing software for the market.

UCLA student cyclists are dissatisfied with the rate at which the bike plan is being implemented.

Bikes Belong (the bicycle retailers org) and New Belgium Brewing gave Adventure Cycling Association grants to support the organization’s work to establish an official United States Bicycle Route System (USBRS)

Turn sweat into charge for your cell phone.

With [Miniwiz's] wind charger, you can hook it up to the handle-bars of your bike... to capture the breeze, which then powers your cellphone's battery.

California passes a law just for Contrarian.

It now is legal in California to ride a bicycle without a seat. However, this doesn't mean you can rip the saddle off the post and throw it away. Seatless bikes must have been made that way. And, yes, there are such animals.

LAB has more statistics from the National Household Travel Survey

Half of all trips are three miles or less, but fewer than 2 percent of those trips are made by bicycle, while 72 percent of them are driven. Private vehicles like cars, pick-up trucks, and SUVs, account for 60 percent of trips of a mile or less.

Not a bike item, but about Contributory Negligence and the Last Clear Chance in Maryland. The case deals with two boys who were walking along light rail tracks and were hit and killed by a train. The state settled for $1.5M.

Among the allegations, he said, were that the train operator took his eyes off the track in the crucial seconds before the accident and had no satisfactory explanation for his actions. In addition, Miller said, the plaintiffs were prepared to show that MTA operators did not report the sighting of the boys on the tracks and that the agency had no procedure for notifying operators to take added precautions when trains were being operated on alternate tracks.

While Maryland law generally precludes plaintiffs whose negligence contributes to their injury from collecting damages, Miller said that doctrine was trumped by a provision in the law holding the party with the "last clear chance" to prevent an accident responsible. He said that in such cases, plaintiffs have to show the defendant had a period of time in which to avert the accident.

Comments

[SJE]

Can someone explain why MD pays 1.5M when a train hits two boys from behind when they were walking on track (where they are not supposed to be), but a young woman pays $313 for hitting Curtis Leyermeister from behind when he was riding on the road (where he was allowed to be)

[Richard Layman]

different issues. The MTA was being sued. In the Leyermeister incident, the person sued would have to be the woman driving. I would argue that using the similar principle that the plaintiffs were relying on re the MTA incident, that a civil suit might be able to prevail. That still won't bring Mr. Leyermesiter back though.

[Richard Layman]

WRT the UCLA item, interestingly, I had a meeting Fri. a.m. with people at Towson U. In Balt. County, they have one of the most developed sustainable transpo programs, and their master planning efforts consider walking and biking quite a bit--far beyond the minimal state requirements on university master plan updates.

We were talking about some things, including how can they promote bicycling if the environment outside the campus is less congenial, is it responsible for them to promote bicycling?

And, in the course of the discussion, the planning director at TU had a brilliant point, jumping off from the idea of "safe routes to school" for K-12 schools, to linking TU to off-campus destinations such as housing complexes with a preponderance of TU students, etc.

The meeting will shape a bunch of recommendations that I hope will make it into the "final" pedestrian and bicycle access plan that I am supposed to produce.

Another thing is to work together on continuing to explore the possibility of creating a bikesharing system that can be used by various institutions in Baltimore County, in places with the density and layering of destinations necessary to support a successful bikesharing program and hopefully, support my desire to create a couple sharing stations at multiuser trail trailheads. (A long term project.)

[SJE]

I agree that nothing will bring Mr Leymeister back. The question is how to reduce the number of future incidents. The rare chance of a $313 fine doesnt sound like much of an incentive to focus on the road.