Ottawa Driver found Guilty on All Counts

Whew. For the sake of cyclists having to go through it all again, I'm glad that part is over. Sentencing won't be until January 6, according to this article.

Have a great weekend everybody. As you ride all over the place, don't forget that I feel the need for trees.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

5 Injured Ottawa Cyclists - Driver in Court 2 Years Later Pleads Not Guilty

I've noticed that some people are landing on my blog looking for information on the court case involving the man who ran down 5 cyclists over 2 years ago. I made some comments back then and because of those some new visitors have been turning up as they search for info.

Here is a link to the most recent articles in the Ottawa Citizen:

Ottawa Citizen - October 12, 2011 and something very similar from the CBC.

plus

Ottawa Citizen - October 12, 2011 #2

The articles include some information on how bad some of the injuries were, which was very bad in at least one case. None of the cyclists died as many at the time had assumed. I wish those 5 cyclists well as they recount and doubtless relive the ordeal and earnestly hope that justice will be served.



R A N T W I C K

PS - The articles from the Ottawa Citizen are coming out so fast and furious that updates here may become a problem. For the latest I recommend hitting their Home Page and searching "Sommit", the driver's first name or using this link which does the same thing. I'm getting better results with that than "cyclist" and similar search terms.

Ottawa Cyclists - Condition Update

As some of you may be aware, a group of 5 Ottawa cyclists were the victims of a hit and run recently. I have had trouble finding out how the 5 are doing, thanks to media that aren't really into following up. The main reason that I wanted to know was that when I looked at my site stats quite a lot of people were landing on RANTWICK after doing google searches on variations of "5 Ottawa Cyclists Killed".

One of my big concerns about incidents like this, beyond the recovery of the victims, is that people will see it as confirmation that cycling is dangerous. Statistics do not bear that out, but many people assume that if 5 cyclists got run over, 5 cyclists got killed.

The most recent information I have been able to find thus far is that 1 cyclist has been discharged from hospital, while 4 remain in. I do not know the extent of their injuries or how things look for them, but I wanted to point out that none of the five were killed, and we can all continue to hope and pray for them.

Thanks to Les Faber of cyclemania.ca for giving me at least this small bit of information.

Keep riding all over the place,

R A N T W I C K

P.S. You smart-alecky types (you know who you are) who are about to point out that this is Wednesday instead of Monday, don't bother. Mondays will be for my long weird posts with pictures and video and nonsense and other stuff. This was just a quick update.

5 Ottawa Cyclists Mown Down - So Don't Ride A Bike Unless You Are Insane.

A group of 5 cyclists were run over in our nation's capitol over the weekend. Tragedies like this happen from time to time, all over the world. What I want to comment upon is the news coverage I saw last night on CTV.

News clip #1

Half of the coverage is about how dangerous it is to ride your bike. As bad as this single incident is, cycling is not a dangerous activity.

News Clip #2

This time there is at least some focus on car speed. But what burns is the "despite there being a bike lane" reference. Bike lanes rarely make cyclists more safe. Follow these links to see what I mean:

http://www.wright.edu/~jeffrey.hiles/essays/listening/home.html
http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/bikelanes.html
http://www.labreform.org/miseducation.html


Many thanks to ChipSeal for providing me with these links. He also wrote some stuff in an email to me that I am confident he would be OK with me posting in public:

In the USA, we have about 800 people on bicycles killed every year, and naturally the majority of them happen in the warmer months when there are more cyclists out. Given that, we ought to expect at least two bicycle deaths a day, on average. And they all make the news because it is unusual. The 43,000 (117 a day) deaths of motorists is so common it rarely makes news unless there is a celebrity or scandal involved. Kids are no longer allowed outside to play because of hysteria over child abductions, which are extremely rare. Every year we are warned to avoid receiving fruit in Halloween excursions for fear of razor-blade sabotage..... an event that has never (That is; Not even once.) been officially recorded by any law enforcement agency in the whole of the United States. These are media generated hysteria! We are losing freedoms because of irresponsible media outlets breathless headlines to garner a bigger audience. Just turn them off and you will be a lot happier!

I thought that was pretty well said. Thanks again ChipSeal.

Stuff like this is awful. Please use it as a reason to keep riding safely. Do not let it make you ride fearfully or not at all. That would be a terrible shame.

R A N T W I C K

PS - I tried to find out how the cyclists were doing here.
PPS - Ocotber 2011 Driver Pleads Not Guilty here.