Thursday Morning Commute - “All signs from my case are pointing to the fact you can be assaulted on the road”

Good morning

• CaBi will be having a two-millionth rider celebration on Monday at the Blind Dog Cafe.
• WABA's full testimony at yesterday's hearing.
• Also from the hearing comes news that John W. Diehl, the driver who - in a highly publicized incident - was recorded intentionally hit a cyclist with his car,  has not been prosecuted "because the man has not shown up for court and has not been arrested on the outstanding bench warrant issued in the case. Reached on Wednesday by phone, 56-year-old Mr. Diehl said he had no idea he had been summoned to court and denied being involved in the accident. 'This is all news to me,” he said. “I never hit anyone. If I had a bench warrant, I would turn myself in.'" Put me down for skeptical.
• Last night, DDOT had a pre-construction meeting on the U St. Streetscape project. There are no bike lanes planned, but I also don't see mention of more bike parking. 
• Hurt is now calling CaBi bikes "dirty with disease-spreading handlebars." But when he says "I think it is awesome you want to ride [them]" I don't think he's telling the truth. I don't think he actually thinks it's awesome. Then there is a bunch of "stop spending my money on things I don't want" stuff in there. Look, we could all point to things that government spends money on that we wish our money didn't go towards. [For me it's the American Embassy in Canada. I don't want anything to do with those people.] But that's the price of living in a democracy. Welcome to being a grown-up Mr. Hurt.
• On the US Transportaton bill: "There has been next to no indication of where House leaders like John Boehner or Eric Cantor stand on Cardin-Cochran."
• "Of the four services I tested, Google is the only to offer bicycle directions. It's different from walking directions in that cyclists must respect one-way signs. Bike routes also favor bike lanes and shun steep hills when possible."

Comments

[charlie]

isn't the point of a bench warrant that the person won't be hunted down, but on their next interaction with law enforcement brought in and detained?

[SJE]

I agree with your suspicion, Wash. They have Diehl's phone number and address and the cops went and checked out car, and found a dent. How hard is it to call him to come over a for a chat?

Thanks also for linking to DCist rather than giving page views to Hunt.

[Jack Cochrane]

Do the two million bike share users include the guy who robbed somebody and rode away on one? I wonder if he returned the bike.

Google bike directions found some choice routes for me that I didn't know about previously and which avoided some scary roads. And I know MoCo better than most people do. I think it's quite useful if you're careful about not blindly following what it tells you.

[contrarian]

Until this story came out:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/2/dc-vehicle-owner-wanted-connection-bike-collision-/

I didn't realize that Diehl was a retired MPD officer. That may explain a lot of the reluctance to prosecute him.