Vote on the top 5 trails in the US to be photographed for Streetview.

Please Vote for the Capital Crescent Trail in the Google Map Contest of the top 5 trails in the US to be photographed for Streetview. Just click on the website below to vote for the Capital Crescent Trail -- it takes less than a minute. Then click on Capital Crescent Trail, MD/DC (under Parks and Trails), then scroll d...own to click on &quot;vote&quot;. <a href="http://bit.ly/392kG6">http://bit.ly/392kG6</a>;
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Aggressive drivers alert

Please note that aggressive driving is generally more pronounced before Thanksgiving. I recommend trying to take less traveled roads and/or going out of your way to be courteous to drivers (like pulling off to the side from time to time.) Or at the very least just try and stay cool and don't let them get to you. After thanksgiving things tend to go back to they way they were (just so you know its not a sign of things getting worse.)
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You never know who you'll meet while cycling.

One thing I love about cycling, its a social activity. You are not separated from your fellow human beings by walls or metal cages and you can met some very interesting folks like this couple I ran into on Sunday:
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On 01.06.2003 we started our tour around the world in Limburg, a small city about 80 Km north of Frankfurt in Germany. Our plans were to travel around the world with our bicycles (and somertimes with a folding canoe or our packrafts) within 3 or 4 years. The reason for this tour is to see the world with our own eyes, instead of believing the bad news on TV. We are going to to meet the people in every country, to built up our own opinion, and so far we have only very good experiences.

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Shortchanges in Md. commitment to pedestrians

The Baltimore Sun has had several articles/letters to the Editor of late describing the lack of spending Federal Aid on bike/ped issues and the States response on how that it is spending more then just Federal Aid to address this problem. So the question is do we have a problem or not? So by way of analogy lets look at the issues this way:

Lets describe the problem like having a house with a leaky roof, and there is aid to home owners to do home improvements such as fix a leaky roof. So when the the report came out stating Maryland uses very little aid in home improvements the State of Maryland says now wait a minute we are spending more then just aid money on home improvements. Just one problem with this response, the roof still leaks.

To understand a bit better why the roof still leaks you need to know that the roof in this analogy is maintained by three major divisions, State, Counties and Baltimore City. So what the State says is only about their section of the roof and not about the other sections. And if you look at the home improvements bills on where and how the money is being spent you come up with something rather shocking.

Let's say your bedroom is under a section of the leaky roof that is not maintained by the State, so you ask the state for aid to fix your roof and the state says sorry. the only thing we offer is half priced decks, do you want one? So while a deck can qualify as a home improvement for this aid, fixing leaking roofs is the higher priority by Federal policy and one would think it should be a higher priority for the state as well. To understand how this came about we need to look at the State's policy of getting Federal Aid to go further.

It sounds like wonderful idea getting Federal Aid to go further but let's apply the same principles to another Federal Aid program, food stamps. Only a small percentage of the population benefits from this program, but if we were to change the program from supplying most of the money to buy cheep necessary food to one where we would require a 50% match for high priced items, let's say something like an expensive steak, more people would benefit and the quality of life for more people would be improved. You cannot argue that the money is not going further but is Federal Aid supposed to be like an extravagant Christmas present or is it to address a need?

So the question comes down to what is better, mostly funding a lot of cheap improvements or limited funding to a few expensive improvements? Or it might be better to look at the qualifiers for each principle in order to control the budget. Under the State's current system they essentially set a high project cost and if the locality is willing to spend half that cost as the main qualifiers. The other system looks at the most needy and what is necessary to fix that need. So what should we stress the extravagant or what is necessary to fix a problem?

So while the State is funding a diverse range of bicycle and pedestrian projects under its section of the roof but in administering Federal aid to the other localities it has only funded one type of bicycle and pedestrian project. Nothing against that one type of project but one really has to ask if other types of projects are good enough to be funded through specialty funds for State roads why not on the other roads as well? Which comes back to the point, being 49 out of 50 in spending Federal Aid and being the 6th worst with the pedestrian fatality rate is a major problem on more then just State roads. And the State despite making good effort on its roads is making it extremely difficult for everyone else by not following Federal policy in administering Federal funds. We need everyone to demand more diverse bike/ped projects on more diverse types of roads. We need to demand to focus on areas of need and not just on look how much money we spent (and still did not fix the leaky roof.)

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Loch Raven Night Riders Beware

Passing this along as a PSA to those who ride the trails at Loch Raven after dark.

It has been reported that the Park Police snagged 6 to 10 riders on the Providence Rd singletrack climb off of the fireroad from the Seminary loop. This happened on Wed night.They were halfway down the climb when they surprised the night riders between 7P and 730P. All riders were given tickets ($100) and were required to ride the road to where ever they parked their car.

Spread the word not to night ride in those areas.
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Former Asheville fireman gets 4 months for shooting at cyclist

ASHEVILLE — A former Asheville firefighter will spend 120 days in jail for shooting at a bicyclist, narrowly missing his head with a bullet that pierced the man's helmet.

Charles Alexander Diez, 42, pleaded guilty Thursday to assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, but testified during his sentencing hearing that he only fired a warning shot and didn't intend to hurt Alan Ray Simons.

“I was the one who felt truly, truly threatened,” Diez told the court. “It was not my intention to shoot him.”

Simons described being confronted by the 17-year Fire Department veteran on the morning of July 26 as he was riding his bike along Tunnel Road with his 4-year-old son in a seat on the back and his wife on another bike.

He said Diez yelled at him from his car, claiming he was putting the boy's life in danger by riding on the busy roadway.

“We were out for an enjoyable ride, minding our own business,” Simons said. “At any point, he could have left.

“When I got to his door, the gun was pointing at my chest. I turned to walk away, (and) the gun went off. He chose to pull the trigger.”

Superior Court Judge James Downs sentenced Diez to 15-27 months in prison, with all but four months suspended for 30 months. If he runs afoul of the law during that 30 months, the full sentence could be imposed. Diez will be subject to a curfew after his release and must complete an anger management course. He also was ordered to pay Simons $1,200 restitution to cover medical treatments for damage to his eardrum.

The presumptive sentence for someone convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill is 20-39 months under state sentencing guidelines.
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Cyclist victim in LA road rage case seeks letters to DA

Patrick Watson, one of the cyclists victimized by Dr. Thompson in the now-famous LA road rage case, is asking cyclists to write to the DA (Mary Stone, mstone@da.lacounty.gov) in support of strong sentencing. You should especially write if you are a resident of LA County, and a constituent. But this case is of national importance, so all letters are encouraged.

Mr. Watson writes:

&quot;As some of you have no doubt heard, the jury has reached a verdict in the Thompson case. The jury found the defendant guilty on all seven counts charged:

- Count 1: Reckless Driving Causing Specified Injury (victim: Ron Peterson)
- Count 2: Battery with Serious Bodily Injury (victim: Ron Peterson)
- Count 3: Battery with Serious Bodily Injury (victim: Christian Stoehr)
- Count 4: Reckless Driving (victims: Patrick Watson and Josh Crosby)
- Count 5: Assault with a Deadly Weapon (victim: Ron Peterson)

NOTE: The jury also found that the defendant had committed a Special Allegation of &quot;Causing Great Bodily Injury&quot;

- Count 6: Assault with a Deadly Weapon (victim: Christian Stoehr)

NOTE: The jury also found that the defendant had committed a Special Allegation of &quot;Causing Great Bodily Injury&quot;

- Count 7: Mayhem

If you are unaware of this case and the verdict I copied some links below for you to review.

The range for the defendant is anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison and the District Attorney is anticipating that the defense will submit a boatload of letters to the judge and/or the probation department on his client's behalf. Please, if anyone from the community who has views on the sentencing you are also allowed to write the judge and/or probation officer.

As the defense will probably argue that no one else's opinion is relevant to this defendant, the District Attorney will indicate that we are offering letters toward the issue of general deterrence, in other words, simply because the defendant was in his car does not change the blunt nature of the unmitigated assault on the cyclists and that drivers everywhere must become aware that they have to share the road. To that end, anyone who would like to contribute a letter or an e-mail may send it to the District Attorney's office (below) or to the District Attorney herself, her e-mail address is also below. She will package all the letters and e-mails for us and submit them with her motion so the judge gets them all at once instead of a slow trickle. She plans to file the motion at the end of next week [Friday, November 20, Ed.] so it would be great if she had the letters/e-mails by then. And, yes, the more, the better.

Please address your letters appropriately, like we were able to touch on in court, which is that cyclists are not some alien breed of monsters that are claiming the streets, but regular people, fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, police officers, bankers, lawyers, doctors, teachers.... So, if anyone is writing a letter, it would be nice if you could begin with an identifying fact such as what your occupation is and that you are a motorist and a cyclist. I truly appreciate everyone's commitment to this request and I hope you all feel the same as I do in making sure the defendant serves his appropriate time in prison for all 7 counts the jury found him guilty on and not just a slap on the wrist and probation. Please make your voice heard as I spent a great deal of my own personal time throughout this entire process and because I'm passionate about trying to make our community a better place to ride our bikes. Also, please forward on to your cycling community and make your voice heard throughout your area. This has resulted in National attention and the more letters from across the country the louder our voice will be heard.&quot;

For background on the case, Patrick also posted some links in another forum. <a href="http://forums.bicycling.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2181017265/m/4641029846">http://forums.bicycling.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2181017265/m/4641029846</a>;

Write to DA Mary Stone here:

mstone@da.lacounty.gov

Or,

District Attorney's Office
Attn. Mary Stone
11701 S. LaCienega
Los Angeles, CA 90045

Please spread the word!

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Per mile car tax + rush hour surcharge

[Baltimore Spokes: fairly impressive benefits of the plan.]

[Dutch] Cabinet finalises kilometer tax plan

Monday 16 November 2009

The Netherlands is set to become the first country in Europe to replace road tax with a kilometer charge for all motorists, over 10 years since the idea was first put forward.

If the legislation is passed by parliament, motorists will start paying tax on every kilometer they drive, which the government hopes will reduce traffic jams and pollution.

On Friday, ministers agreed that the tax will be three cents a kilometer when the charge is introduced in 2012, rising to 6.7 cents by 2018 - for the greenest cars . But if revenues generated by the tax are not in line with expectations, the tax can be adjusted, the transport ministry said.

Rush hour

The tax will be higher during the rush hour and for more polluting vehicles.

To make sure motorists are not worse off, road tax will be scrapped and the purchase tax on new cars will be reduced. Some 60% of drivers will be better off, the government claims.

The transport ministry said on Friday it expected fatal accidents will fall by 7% and carbon emissions would be down by 10%. Traffic jams will be halved and the amount of kilometres driven will go down by 15%.

Each car on the roads will be fitted with a GPS device which will use satellites to monitor where and when the car is driven and send the information to a central billing point.
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Bicyclist dies after group ride

This past weekend, a bicyclist had a heart attack shortly after completing a group ride in Harford County. After completing a ride from Harford Community College to Havre de Grace, the group decided to hit Starbucks to get their caffeine fix and while there Greg Krause had a &quot;medical emergency.&quot; He was taken to Upper Chesapeake where he passed away a short time later.

Anyone who knows Greg or just wants to pay respects to a fellow bicyclist, you can see information on the planned gathering at <a href="http://www.chesapeakespokeswomen.com/">http://www.chesapeakespokeswomen.com/</a>;.

The moral of this story is that while we are in better shape than the average person (because of our love for bicycling), keep up with you medical wellness check-ups for those medical problems that may not be obvious!

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