Tuesday Morning Commute - On the outside

Good morning

• Virginia Delegate Alfonso Lopez (49th District) plans to reintroduce the "Exercise due care" and "Following too closely" bills again in the 2013 Virginia legislative session.
• In talking about car-bike road rage, AOL's Auto blog puts forward the unusual hypothesis that "Drivers get angry because they don't want to hit a cyclist, and feel that those on the two-wheelers are not holding up their end of the road-safety bargain." That may happen, but that is way down the list from the top reason for anger which is that drivers want cyclists to get out of the way. Then he lists a bunch of road rage incidents between drivers and cyclists, including one of these two that involved firearms.
• "A postal truck driver whose seven-ton vehicle rolled over and killed a former State Supreme Court special referee as she rode her bicycle in Manhattan last year was acquitted on Thursday of leaving the scene of a fatal accident."
• More about outgroup psychology and cycling. 

Comments

[SJE]

OT: RCP, Wise to Sherrill, is closed to all (including bikes and peds), 930-230 for the next few days

[charlie]

actually, I very much agree with the AOL quote.

The biggest problem I have with drivers are ones that follow me. They are afraid to pass me or cross over the white line.

[Will]

The shootings from Michigan are outrageous, and illustrate exactly why concealed carry and open carry laws are terrible. These were road rage incidents that escalated to shooting and manslaughter because one party had a valid license to carry a handgun. In the heat of an altercation, most people are horrible judges of when it is appropriate to use deadly force. Even trained police are bad at judging, which is why we still have high profile instances of cops using deadly force when in retrospect it didn't seem warranted. These cops have years of training, it's their job, and yet they still make mistakes. Now put a concealed weapon into the hands of random gun enthusiasts with varying levels of competency, training and mental soundness, then see what happens when they find themselves in a serious confrontation. Yikes!

[dynaryder]

@Will:way to take an article about road rage and turn it into a gun debate. Cograts,you win at the internet.

FYI,gun ownership is in the constitution,driver's licenses are a privilege. And far more people are killed every year on the roads than are killed by guns. In 2011,DC had almost twice as many traffic fatalities as murders.