Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Curt H Moore on April 19, 2010 at 11:40pm

Great points now go back to Gary Gilberts comment "30 seconds" If you can't get your point accross in 30 seconds or less they will edit at will.....

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Permalink Reply by Todd Allen on April 21, 2010 at 3:52am

If there was time it might have been good to mention that as the number of cyclists increase the safety of all cyclists tends to go up. I think due to drivers becoming more aware of cyclists, expecting and watching for them.

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Permalink Reply by Barry Niel Stuart on April 21, 2010 at 8:54am

One, that bicycles are vehicles, too, that we must follow the same rules as the motorists including riding with other traffic, not against it. Many improperly trained newbies ride against traffic, not with it, and not wearing a helmet is bad enough. Two, motorists and bicyclists must share the road together. Many non-cycling motorists still have a concept of a bicyclist as a five-year-old on a 20" coaster brake bike on the sidewalk instead of an adult on a 27-speed tourer on the street. Three, bicycling is just as rational a choice as motoring. Where I live on Milwaukee's East Side, the City of Milwaukee DPW is very quick to ticket and tow cars. This is a major source of revenue to the city. Tickets and towing fees cost, not only in the fees themselves, but also in the lost work time and wages from having to take off work to locate and retrieve a towed car. You can expect a hard time at the impound lot.

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Permalink Reply by heather s on April 24, 2010 at 10:38am

Maybe you're watched it by now, but yes, you're in it. You've made it your mission to commemorate cyclists killed in traffic with ghost bikes. You had a nice quote about making cyclists feel like they are part of a supportive community, but somehow the reporter made it seem as though the goal is to... I don't know... make cyclists feel that their deaths will not be in vain?

It most certainly was a 'OMG cycling is so dangerous look at all these cyclist deaths people aren't wearing helmets blahblahblah' sort of piece. The amount of time spent talking to the ER doctor about the kinds of injuries cyclists come in with was not helpful or instructive, imo. Also, referring to the kid who was recently killed on the south side, the reporter said 'collided with a pickup truck.' really?! child in a crosswalk collided with a truck?

But, he also talked about some infrastructure improvements CDOT is looking into, like raised bike lanes and bike boulevards. And, I think importantly, pointed out that distracted drivers are a major cause of car-bike collisions. And the reporter said that he rode his bike that day, which is nice I suppose.


H3N3 said:

So, here it is:
http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/special_report/20100422-bike-r...

Yeah, it did turn out to be the kind of horrible "cycling is dangerous, ride at your own peril" piece I suspected it was going to be. I can live with the little quote they used, and am glad they used something I said rather than just made something up about how Ghost Bikes are placed to remind people that cycling is dangerous, although I did take pains to make sure they were aware that placing the bikes was a collaborative effort spread out among many, so if it reads otherwise it's 100% sloppy editing.

I made many points that would have saved this piece, but no surprise they're going to surgically extract whatever fits their angle.

I didn't watch the vid-- maybe someone can tell me if I'm in it . . . .

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Doom on April 24, 2010 at 1:40pm

Ugh, this is just a sore spot with me but on the off chance any reporters are reading this DO NOT WRITE THIS KIND OF GRAF:

Brian Steele with CDOT, the Chicago Department of Transportation, said that since 2004 the city has been averaging about five fatalities and just over a thousand accidents a year.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING. It's like saying a ballplayer had 80 hits last year—it's good if he had 200 at bats, not so good if he had 700 at bats. When you write something like this you are actively making the people who read it less informed than they were. The useful metric is how many X per Y.

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Permalink Reply by Craig S. on April 24, 2010 at 4:09pm

I just watched this and I'm not surprised, Saxenmeyer is a fucking moron, I doubt he can ride his bicycle more than two miles and even then, it's on a sidewalk. That however, isn't important, what is important is his gross editorializing. How in the hell does he know that every cyclist is riding a bike to "save the world."? Is that really my purpose? Fucking condescending prick. Just like FOX, terrify everyone first and then offer up some points that perhaps drivers are distracted. Really? Ya don't fucking say, Saxonmeyer.

Read the comments after the FOX article and there's a point of view that isn't far off the mark. Drivers think we are the ones causing and deserving of accidents. I've said it before, there are just as many douche-bags on two wheels as there driving four.

FOX is the worst outlet for information on a local, regional and national level, it amazes me after all these years it's still alive and that people actually think it's a source for accurate information. The other networks are not much better.

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Permalink Reply by Joe TV on April 24, 2010 at 7:37pm

Wow. I didn't think that story was necessarily off the mark, or unfair. unfocused and unnecessary perhaps, but I don't think he did cyclists a disservice. I would recommend the young gentleman who suffered some "cognitive" damage after being hit to consider wearing a helmet.

Craig S. said:

I just watched this and I'm not surprised, Saxenmeyer is a fucking moron, I doubt he can ride his bicycle more than two miles and even then, it's on a sidewalk. That however, isn't important, what is important is his gross editorializing. How in the hell does he know that every cyclist is riding a bike to "save the world."? Is that really my purpose? Fucking condescending prick. Just like FOX, terrify everyone first and then offer up some points that perhaps drivers are distracted. Really? Ya don't fucking say, Saxonmeyer.

Read the comments after the FOX article and there's a point of view that isn't far off the mark. Drivers think we are the ones causing and deserving of accidents. I've said it before, there are just as many douche-bags on two wheels as there driving four.

FOX is the worst outlet for information on a local, regional and national level, it amazes me after all these years it's still alive and that people actually think it's a source for accurate information. The other networks are not much better.

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Permalink Reply by Craig S. on April 25, 2010 at 2:07am

I've done a short professional stint in small market news and I can appreciate just how difficult it is to put together a good piece of journalism, broadcast or print. With that appreciation I'll also submit that for a major market like Chicago, we have some of the worst broadcast journalism in the land and lot of it emanates from FOX.

I think Saxonmeyer did the bicycling community and Chicago a disservice. Why so much air time devoted to that young messenger with so many injuries and why no questions into why he has been injured so much? Perhaps he's a dick in traffic? We don't know. I'll wager there are hundreds if not thousands of people who ride year round for years with no scrapes or injuries, why didn't he talk to them, find out what they do to safely ride? He probably could have found some in the building that FOX is in. Maybe he did but their stories didn't fit within the story's direction. We don't know.

Is that doctor's experience with injured riders more prominent than with injured drivers? Everyone with half a clue knows that riding a bike in any city has the potential for danger but so does walking down my back deck stairs. Reading Howard's initial thread starting post, he was approached with the idea of talking about bicycle safety and quite honestly, I must be blind and deaf because I didn't see nor hear much of that topic in Saxonmeyer's piece. Couldn't he have done some story research with any of the local bike advocacy groups or clubs? If he did we don't know that.

I should probably apologize for my vitriol directed at FOX and Saxonmeyer but I don't think I will, his condescending VO in the first two minutes about did me in and I really lost it with their fucking banter at the end of the piece. Oh, right, throw in Bicycling's declaration that Chicago is the tenth best city to ride in, even though we just scared every viewer shitless about riding a bicycle in the city.

Everyone have a great Sunday!

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Permalink Reply by Gary Gilbert on April 26, 2010 at 2:23am

The Fox piece is bad on so many levels that it is disturbing.

They led with the bicycling is unsafe message and ended with the reporter talking about his own bike. How confusing is that to the average listener?

They tried to tie the story to Earth Day and how is that relevant?

They could have as easily replaced cyclists with motorists or train riders or any other transportation choice. OMG, trains killed xxx people last year and none of them were wearing seatbelts or helmets. We better be careful. In fact if you look at the statistics they post on the web site, being a pedestrian is 10x more dangerous than cycling.

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