Globe Highlights Failure Of Justice In Wellesely Fatal Hit And Run

The globe had a front page article today about the lack of an indictment for Dana McCoomb, the truck driver who killed cyclist Alex Motsenigos last year.

It’s a common refrain among local ­cyclists: Want to kill someone and get away with it? Run them over while they’re on a bicycle.

Within Boston’s growing cycling community, a perceived lack of criminal prosecution of motorists involved in fatal bike crashes has been a regular source of outrage in recent years. That ire came to a ­fever pitch last week, when a grand jury investigation of a Wellesley bike crash with seemingly copious evidence — video footage, witnesses defending the deceased bicyclist, a truck driver who had fled the scene and had an extensive history of driving infractions — came back with no charges.

The grand jury’s decision, bicyclists contend, is evidence of a wider problem: Most people do not respect the rights of bike riders.

“The message that we got from this particular case,” said David Watson, executive director of the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition, “is that, clearly, members of the general public still don’t care enough about bicyclists’ safety.”

(VIA)

As if to prove the entire point of the article, the comment section is a wasteland…depressing.

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New Globe Editor Brian McGrory Hates Cyclists

Oh great, of all the people who could have taken over as editor for the globe this guy had to take the reigns.

As Mayor Tom Menino prepares to roll out an ambitious bicycle-sharing program on the streets of our great city this month, offering hundreds of bikes for short-term rental all across town, I might urge him to go in a slightly different direction.

He ought to ban all bicyclists from Boston instead.

Ban them as in, here’s the city line, Lance, there’s a bike rack. Lock it up, and flag yourself a nice air-conditioned cab. Maybe you won’t be sweating so much when you walk into work.

That’s right, the new editor of the globe is known bike hater, and all together irrational and misguided man, Brian McGory

We can only hope the globe doesn’t become another useless rag that spends a large part of its time “defending” cars, and touting cyclists as the scourge of the city.

(thanks Sean for the heads up)

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Biking To The Future

There is an awesome post in the globe about the future of biking in Boston as well as a great overview of the new super awesome bike/ped bridge under the Zakim Bridge.

BIKE PATHS, BIKE LANES, BIKE RACKS, AND CYCLE TRACKS. Bike this and bike that. Cities and towns across Greater Boston are peddling cycling construction projects this summer like never before: If it isn’t a Newton city committee proposing 30 new miles of bike lanes, it’s Malden and Everett converting downtown railroad beds into a multiuse path, or Charlestown and Jamaica Plain residents lobbying for bike improvements once antiquated highway overpasses are torn down.

Meanwhile, at 698 feet, the longest bicycle and pedestrian bridge ever built in Boston is expected to open this month. The North Bank Bridge, paid for with $10 million in federal stimulus funds, begins under the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge in Charlestown’s Paul Revere Park and ends in Cambridge’s North Point Park. Looping like a giant steel roller coaster over four sets of railroad tracks and a boat ramp, it is a sight to behold, whether you own a bicycle or not.

With so many people buzzing about biking — none louder than Mayor Tom Menino — could Greater Boston transform before our eyes into a world-class bicycling region like Copenhagen, where a third of the workforce pedals to the office each day? Is the Big Dig, which redefined the city a decade ago, already passe? Transportation planners and bicycle advocates say we’re on that path but still a long way from achieving such dreams, in part because we haven’t always pedaled forward.

Read the rest of this article here.

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Evil, Jerk Face Doctor Gets Five Years In Prison

Remember that asshole “doctor” (do no harm…what?) who pulled in front of those two cyclists in California then slammed on the brakes, he got five years in prison for that. Good to see just a little justice in this world, I would like to think that when you intentionally try to kill someone you go to jail for it (even if the weapon is a car). Now if only we can make it so when you shoot a guy in the head you get the appropriate sentence.

A former emergency room doctor who deliberately braked so that two bicyclists rammed into his car in a road rage assault was sentenced Friday to five years in state prison.

Christopher Thompson, 60, wept and apologized to the two injured riders before he was sentenced in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

“The physical and mental scars are my fault,” he said.

…

Prosecutors had sought an eight-year term while Thompson’s attorney argued for probation.

Thompson, who worked at Beverly Hospital in Montebello, has been jailed since he was convicted in November of assault with a deadly weapon, battery with serious bodily injury, reckless driving and mayhem.

Thompson deliberately hit his brakes, causing the bicyclists to hit the back of his Infiniti sedan on July 4, 2008, prosecutors said. One rider smashed through the back window, breaking his nose and front teeth. The other crashed to the pavement, separating his shoulder.

Read more at the globe

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