"The death of a pedestrian makes hell for all riders"

Apols for commencing another thread on the Mentone incident, but Treadly & Me has published this superb review of events and media. Terrific article, here's a salute from another member of the blogosphere, on ya!

The death of a pedestrian makes hell for all riders
http://treadly.thingoid.com/2006/08/31/james-gould/
Posted on Thursday 31 August 2006

The death of James Gould has been much on my mind since I first heard the news on the weekend. As with any senseless road trauma, I am horrified at Mr Gould’s death and I have found the eyewitness accounts of Mr Gould’s dying moments particularly harrowing. My condolences go to his friends.

With regard to the cyclist, I feel sympathy for anyone who inadvertently takes a life but this incident occurred as a direct result of his own recklessness and he will need to reconcile his conscience to that as best he can. Certainly a fine for failing to stop at a red light is not sufficient penalty for the loss of life.

The broader implications—for the Hell Ride specifically and Melbourne cyclists in general—is likely to be profound, and without wishing to disrespect Mr Gould’s memory I would like to discuss some of these things here.

(more in article)

What I don't understand is... where was he in relation to the other
riders? Was the rider solo? If he was at the front of a pack then did
the whole pack go through the red light? If he was in the middle of a
pack how did he hit the pedestrian? Did the pedestrian step out into
the middle of a pack?

None of the media reports I have seen have explained these details.
All (or many) of the riders are equally guilty - not just the poor
bloke who hit him.

-- ff

all of the riders are equally guilty of what????? and how so? and how do you know?

<cynical> We're all guilty of chinese whispers.</cynical>

do we get prawn crackers with that??

On 2006-08-31, frackshat@gmail.com (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> What I don't understand is... where was he in relation to the other
> riders? Was the rider solo? If he was at the front of a pack then did
> the whole pack go through the red light? If he was in the middle of a
> pack how did he hit the pedestrian? Did the pedestrian step out into
> the middle of a pack?
>
> None of the media reports I have seen have explained these details.
> All (or many) of the riders are equally guilty - not just the poor
> bloke who hit him.

OK, so I've read two second hand reports. I assume, these being
posted to publicly available lists, that I can reproduce here:

==================================

urbanbicyclist <urbanbicyclist@gmail.com> to cm-melb

Hi everyone,

I have just heard a second hand eyewitness story about Saturday
morning from staff in a city bike shop. Clears up alot in my mind
about what happened.

The lights were a pedestrian only crossing.

The lights had changed to red for traffic and the bunch of cyclists
had come to a stop.

The pedestrian started to cross in front of the stopped cyclists.

A cyclist at the back of the group went up on the outside of the group
and used the red light as an opportunity to overtake all the other
cyclists who had stopped. This is the cyclist who hit the pedestrian.

So images of a pedestrian defiantly stepping into the middle of a
speeding peloton as the lights changed are obviously not accurate.

And images of a hundred cyclists speeding along through red lights,
all individually powerless to stop the group and ploughing into a
pedestrian, are also wrong.

====================================

Aaron Christiansen to bicigaga
This is an excerpt from an email doing the rounds from someone who WAS
in the bunch at the time of the incident.

------------------------------------------------------------------
I was there and saw it all.

The front part of the group (in which Degers was part of) made it thru
the Pedestrian crossing on a green light, as it turned red the back
half of the bunch stopped, as did some cars.

Some hero wearing Portfolio Partners gear decided that he needed a
head start and went around the bunch between the riders and stopped
cars and thru the red light to get a head start or catch the guys who
made it thru and ended up collecting the old guy.

Within 60 seconds of this poor bloke, hitting the deck there was a
Doctor on the scene who just happened to be riding past. She did
everything she possibly could given the situation she was faced
with. She removed his Dentures and cleared his airways, checked pulse
etc and ensured that he was not moved due to the risk of possible
injuries. The ambos were not far away either.

This poor old guy was out on his morning walk, doing the right thing
by crossing the road at the lights and gets cleaned up by a moron who
shouldnt really be on a bike at all.

We are all guilty of running a red light or 2, however, have any of us
done it without first checking to see that is all clear?

More importantly, it was a Pedestrian crossing. They do not go red
unless someone pushes the button to cross. Therefore, if a pedestrian
light is red then there must be someone waiting to cross.

The person who ran the red light deserves everything he gets.

If the driver of a car runs a red and collects someone then they face
serious criminal charges. I hope this guy does too.

I guess the Hell Ride will be a good thing to avoid for a little
while.
------------------------------------------------------------------

It is unfortunate that the media can only sell their stories by
leaving out salient facts or observations and "beating up" easy
targets. It seems curious to me that the reaction of people, (even
cyclists!) upon hearing of this tragedy is "avoid the Hellride for a
while", yet many cyclists die on our roads due to driver negligence
and the response seems to be more along the lines of "oops".

It would be interesting if we as cyclists could communicate our
displeasure at red-light crossing cyclists and support for road
sharing attitudes - publicly. Dutchy!?

Even though the cyclist's actions were mind numbingly stupid, I can
imagine he would be going through some pretty ordinary emotions /
feelings himself at this time. It's not often our foolhardiness causes
the death of another human being. As much as I think he's a twit, I
also feel for him and I'm not picking up a stone.

Aaron

====================================

So it doesn't look to me as the whole bunch was guilty. Any more so
than a caravan of cars would be guilty if an unrelated car at the back
decided to overtake the rest that were stopped at lights.

I like the media reports, "up to 50 cyclist rode off after the crash"
(paraphrased). What are they meant to do? Crowd around so that the
ambos can't reach the fallen? Once a nurse/doctor is on the scene (60
seconds after the crash, in this case), there is no need for more
"help". Basic training I received in an introductory first aid course
was to take control if there is no one with first aid training, and if
there is already someone with training present, and a small number of
people helping, then quickly get everyone else out of the way.

--
TimC
It is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt ax. It is equally vain
to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. -- Edsger Dijkstra

TimC quoted some guy called Aaron who wrote:
>
> It would be interesting if we as cyclists could communicate our
> displeasure at red-light crossing cyclists and support for road
> sharing attitudes - publicly. Dutchy!?

I've got it. We need "Red means stop Dickhead!" jerseys.

--
BrettS

Motorists could have matching "Greg! The Stop Sign!" bumper stickers.

BrettS wrote:
> TimC quoted some guy called Aaron who wrote:
>
>>
>> It would be interesting if we as cyclists could communicate our
>> displeasure at red-light crossing cyclists and support for road
>> sharing attitudes - publicly. Dutchy!?
>
>
> I've got it. We need "Red means stop Dickhead!" jerseys.
>
> --
> BrettS

Will that all fit on a shirt?

You might end up with "Red means stop" on the front and "Dickhead!" on
the rear.

Friday

Its good to get all this into perspective.

Careful.. some people can get a little narky.. and Usenet is _forever_.

Wish I hadn't read that. Now got Shirley Bassey stuck in my head, echoing away....

On 2006-09-01, gplama (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
>
> TimC Wrote:
>>
>> OK, so I've read two second hand reports. I assume, these being
>> posted to publicly available lists, that I can reproduce here:
>>
>
> Careful.. some people can get a little narky.. and Usenet is _forever_.

Damn. It's been years since I've used x-no-archive, and forgot it even exists.

Oh well, all my posts have the
X-yes-we-have-no-x-yes-achive-today: NO
header.

That'll cover it. For some reason, I want some bananananas now.

--
TimC
Is it because do me reconcile my life that I say perhaps your plans
could have caused this that you are going through all this that you
came to me? --emacs doctor to TimC

gplama wrote:

>
> Careful.. some people can get a little narky.. and Usenet is _forever_.

It isn't usenet that is the problem. You can fix that with crunge
addresses and usenet posts eventually fall over the edge..

It is the "lists" that you subscribe to that do not tell you that they
spam your posts all over the internet so every spammer can grep your
valid(?) email address.

<frackshat@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1157066980.681463.13040@74g2000cwt.googlegroups.com...
> What I don't understand is... where was he in relation to the other
> riders? Was the rider solo? If he was at the front of a pack then did
> the whole pack go through the red light? If he was in the middle of a
> pack how did he hit the pedestrian? Did the pedestrian step out into
> the middle of a pack?
>
> None of the media reports I have seen have explained these details.
> All (or many) of the riders are equally guilty - not just the poor
> bloke who hit him.
>
> -- ff
>

All the others stoped for the red light, the pedestiean started crossing as
the cyclist passed the other stopped cyclists. That's my understanding,
anyway.