Right Hook

4 comments to “Right Hook”

Jack, August 20th, 2008 at 6:47 pm:

• Does anybody have a link to the actual video clip? I checked out the news story and found only text and a photo of Duffy. On the evidence I’ve got so far, it seems likely the cop car made an unsafe turn around a cyclist - I’ve seen motorists do this frequently, and in fact I experience it about every other week somewhere in the city. I’m open to being contradicted by the video evidence, of course… I think in any event we should get the facts from the RPD and other parties, including the guy who was on the receiving end of our lamentable “zero tolerance” policy. And beyond this, we’ve got to get after Duffy. He’s a nice guy, etc., etc., but he’s done nothing for bicycle transportation (in contrast to his support for recreational/competitive cycling as a local development strategy), and it’s high time the cyclist cutting-edge made itself heard at City Hall. There’s no reason this town has to be so far behind other cities in the wider region like Toronto, Montreal, et al. Hey Bob, we don’t want “zero” in regard to cycling, either.

RUDY!, August 20th, 2008 at 6:57 pm:

• Nonsense, biker is clearly in error, an error that could cause him his life. Maybe the cop didn’t use his turn signal, but overtaking a moving car in your lane is pretty lame in my bicycling book.

Jack, August 20th, 2008 at 9:31 pm:

• Well, I couldn’t access the video or even see the player with Explorer, but when I went to the page with Firefox, there it was, big as life… Go figure… But anyway, to the matter at hand: Indeed, RUDY!, the cop didn’t use his turn signal, which indicates he was legally in the wrong, whereas the cyclist made at worst a couple of understandable errors in judgment, one of which was having bad brakes. Of course, in the Darwinian struggle between horsepower and human-powered transport, might makes right, so it will seem to most Channel 10 viewers that the cop was justified in stopping and chewing out the cyclist. In Cyclotopia, things would be different: we’d see the cyclist make a citizen’s arrest! Moreover, the video shows that Chief Local Media Dumbass Ray Levato took yet another opportunity to get the story wrong. I remember his on-the-scene coverage years ago of the grassroots movement in the Southern Tier against planned radioactive waste dumping there; he practically oozed contempt for the thousands of honest souls protesting the plans, and thus he served powerful interests in favor of dumping. These days he massages the story to favor the new Zero squadrons and minimize the collateral damage done to the constitutional rights of people who get in the way.

cyclonecross, August 21st, 2008 at 9:36 am:

• Jack- I had to opposite problem with the video. It didn’t work with FireFox, but worked with IE. It’s really unfortunate that the news media feels the need to polarize issues in the way they do. It also takes a lot of effort to do a well thought out piece which would generate this much buzz in cycling circles, but it’s pretty easy to muck it up and embrace the (negative) publicity.

  -Gary