We need stricter punishments for stupid - Houston cyclists hit

[marciero]

Originally Posted by benb

Man so hard to resist being snarky about warped versions of Texas history taught all around the US with this comment.

Forget the Alamo indeed.

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by steelbikerider

As a Native Texan, I find some of the comments here as offensive as the comments after the accident reports. Texas has a large cycling community,
some of the largest rides in the country with the MS 150 and Hotter than Hell, at least 2 cyclists currently in the pro tour with TX connections and a racing history that will match or exceeed most states.

Yes, our politics are a mess but so is the rest of the country. Give TX justice a chance. About 10 years ago, I was in a road rage incident in which a driver swerved into our group and took down 4 riders including me with 1 rider suffering a shoulder injury requiring surgery. He was charged with 4 counts of vehicular assault, plea bargained it down to one and went to the state pen in Huntsville for a few years.

Read the comments section. You live with these people. I never get coal rolled in Ct..
It's like the residents of that state are in a competition with Florida for pure societal whack. Is it the heat?

[el cheapo]

There's good and bad people everywhere. It seems it's always the bad that make the news. Here in Texas, for every moron there's fifty folks that would help you. Yeah like everybody on this forum I've had my share of close calls. But it's the times that I've been changing a flat on the side of the road when multiple good people stop and ask if I need help. Or when I missed a sign saying fresh gravel and crashed at 24 mph. Cars stopped and drivers rushed to my aid as I rolled in agony on the road. Good will triumph over bad.

[batman1425]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

Read the comments section. You live with these people. I never get coal rolled in Ct..
It's like the residents of that state are in a competition with Florida for pure societal whack. Is it the heat?

There are idiots everywhere. I've been coal rolled in PA, MN, and KY. I was hit by an adult distracted driver in NY. Had an empty Jack Daniels bottle tossed at a group ride I was a part of in WI.

Belligerent entitled people are everywhere. I ignore it as best as I can - especially when drivers escalate, and do my best to avoid even being a situation where my riding could even be interpreted as "threatening" to the drivers on the road. Cameras help, but only if you are fortunate enough to ride home and review the footage after something happens.

Right or wrong, there's not much I can reasonably do in lycra and 16lb bike compared to the amped up possibly armed driver of a 5000lb killing machine that feels triggered solely by my presence on a public road if an altercation starts.

[Mr. Pink]

Bear spray.

[berserk87]

Rolling coal was a thing that happened often enough in my area 3 to 4 years ago. I haven't seen it happen, nor have I heard of it from my friends, in a couple of years. I don't know why it disappeared, because Indiana is certainly not really ahead of the curve in terms of being civilly evolved, but I'm glad it's gone.

[Big Dan]

The battle of cyclist vs drivers is over and we lost.
Maybe we will have better luck with driverless cars.

[benb]

We had it even here a few years ago where inspections are pretty tight.

Though I suspect you beat them with this stuff if the guy who designed your roll coal chip was smart and included an inspections mode that hides itself. My experience has basically been my cars always get hooked to a computer but I think a lot of the time they are not actually getting sniffed and the sniff wouldn't even catch it if the chip was smart, but the guys making these are probably not VW-level.

It might be I just haven't noticed it recently just cause of the pandemic. My riding has been diminished but nowhere near as much as my driving, it might just be less trucks on the road and less chances they find me cycling.

[azrider]

Originally Posted by Big Dan

The battle of cyclist vs drivers is over and we lost.
Maybe we will have better luck with driverless cars.

I would MUCH rather take my chances with a driverless car than some low self esteem punk with a penchant for pretending to be tough.

[mpken]

Having read many comments on YouTube and the new sites, it saddens me how insignificant lives are to so many. Hopefully these attitudes are from the fringe and not the majority. Ride safe and godspeed.

[goonster]

Originally Posted by benb

Most of the bubbas are not going to figure out the embedded electronics/software knowledge to make modern computerized trucks do this stuff

Not a fan of broadly applying stereotypes, but that demographic includes more than its fair share of skilled auto technicians and fuel mapping savants.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by jet sanchez

Charges laid or not, if he is under the age of 18 so his parents will be on the hook for this, correct?

They certainly will be in the civil case...this is going to cost them a lot of pesos.

[batman1425]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

They certainly will be in the civil case...this is going to cost them a lot of pesos.

I suspect more than they have/more than will be needed to make the victims whole.

This brings up a whole different thought - should we as cyclists have our own accident insurance policies to make us whole if and when some person does this to us and is under/uninsured. I'm not sure an auto policy would apply in this situation. Umbrella might. Some health insurance policies specifically exclude certain high risk behaviors - bikes races and SCUBA diving come to mind where some providers can deny claims because the insured was doing something they knew carried higher than normal risk levels. Could riding a bike on a public road be considered a high risk behavior? Certainly seems like it is these days.

[unterhausen]

Originally Posted by goonster

Not a fan of broadly applying stereotypes, but that demographic includes more than its fair share of skilled auto technicians and fuel mapping savants.

Not only that, but it's a trivial modification. The installs may well look like crap though. And the chance that the uninitiated blow their engine at some point is not inconsequential. A lot of them have a setting that leans out the mixture too much for general use.

I looked into this in depth a while back. I might even have an account on a diesel mod forum. Before that, I was looking into a mod chip for one of our cars, but decided against it. That car has a big enthusiast base, but the mod chips were done by one guy and it was definitely a thesis to get it tuned right.

For a while that guy was the only source of Absinthe in the U.S.

[FriarQuade]

Part of his punishment should be a lifetime of driving a Chevy Aveo.

I know he shouldn't be driving but he's in Texas so we all know it's going to happen.