Raw Food Farmer's Market Rampage?

Celebrity raw food chef Juliano

adding a pinch of panache to the mix..

To me, the below car/bike situation is more analogous to when the guy drove through the farmer’s market in Santa Monica and killed ten people in 2003. That guy didn’t do that because he had a vendetta against raw foodists or because he was sick and tired of seeing Juliano (of Juliano’s Raw restaurant), prancing around in a crop top with his pubes hanging out in front of the Goji Berry Hut; they just happened to be on the street he drove down when his brain plaque got the best of him.

The driver's story: the car accelerated when he pressed on the brakes! I’ve heard of this happening, but only on mobility scooters in assisted living facilities. That is Juliano up there

How Does it Feel to See a Car Run Over Your Cyclist Buddies?

Here’s a Fox News interview with a guy who was in the pack of cyclists in Mexico that the drunk ran over.

 

Unfortunately, I know what it’s like to watch a car run over one of your friends at speed. My buddy made it out of the ordeal with a shredded knee, but that was it. Not exactly a superficial injury, but nothing lasting. I can tell you that when you see a car run over your friend, it’s a definite shit your pants kind of feeling. I thought my friend was dead, but I instinctively started chasing the car instead of going to check up on him.

 

It may have been a good idea to check on him first since he was lying in the middle of Sunset Blvd., but hey, that’s how I reacted. Dudes stopped, had been working 19 hours on an art department gig (set construction and styling for films, videos and commercials in case you haven’t absorbed this beta by living in Los Angeles).

 

It took the cops more than an hour to show up when my friend was run over. Three different squad cars passed, in spite of me screaming and waving my hands every time I saw one. When we called 911, they put us on hold repeatedly then finally dispatched a cruiser that took an hour to get to the scene. They didn’t do anything even though the car was clearly at fault (turned life in front of my friend who was riding through a GREEN LIGHT AND HAD THE RIGHT OF WAY).

 

The worst part (after we knew he was okay)? His bike, a one-of-a-kind Ibis fixed gear got worked in the wreck. Ouch!

 

Don’t want to get run over? Read this, or what the hell, it’s an academic study from 1993, here’s the whole text, it could save your life. And it has priceless headers (Fear from the rear? Wasn’t that an early Janine flick?):

 

Car-Bike Collisions

Car-bike collisions have been studied more intensively than any other type of cycling accident because these are the kinds of crash that most people assume are the most common and that people fear most.

Even for cyclists who ride extensively in traffic, collisions with other vehicles are among the least sources of risk.

Most collisions result from cyclists disobeying traffic rules or riding unpredictably (more on this later). Young children and teenagers usually cause their own collisions. The vast majority of car-bike collisions are preventable or avoidable.

Fear from the Rear

Most cyclists fear being hit from behind. Contrary to popular belief, almost all car-bike collisions result from conditions or actions that occur in front of the cyclist, most often in turning and crossing situations (e.g. intersections, driveways, lanes). Worrying about traffic overtaking from behind frequently causes cyclists to ignore more serious hazards ahead.

Most cyclist rear-end collisions take place at night, among cyclists riding without lights or proper reflectors (a particular danger on rural roads and highways).

Motorist-caused, car-overtaking-bike collisions account for about 0.3 percent of cycling accidents.

Being in the right place at the right time

Riding on the wrong side of the road (facing traffic) and riding on the sidewalk are two of the most common errors cyclists face. Many cyclists make these mistakes because they were taught to ride this way as children. Riding slowly on the sidewalk may be acceptable for children up to about age eight (See 10 Steps to help your child cycle safely elsewhere on our web site), but riding on the wrong side of the road is never acceptable. The safest place to ride a bike is on the road, as part of the normal and expected traffic flow.

A word about riding in the "correct" position

In the chart above ("Cyclist's Position before Collision"), it appears that many cyclists were riding correctly when struck by automobiles. In these instances, cyclists were riding on the right side of road, but were riding in such a way that other drivers were unable to see them or unable to interpret their intentions.

Cyclists riding in fear of being struck from behind usually place themselves in situations where collisions become unavoidable. For example, they often ride too far to the right, even in lanes that are too narrow to share with other vehicles. This practice encourages other drivers to pass when it's unsafe (reinforcing the cyclist's fear of traffic approaching from behind) and makes cyclists less visible to other drivers at intersections and driveways (increasing the risk of being in a collision with these drivers).

Agencies reporting these collisions often note that the cyclist had the right of way. Although motorists are technically at fault in these types of collisions, there are still techniques that cyclists can use to prevent these situations from occuring.

Rank Ordering of Car-Bike Collision Frequency
by age of cyclist and location of accident (most frequent at top of list)

A. Child - Urban
1. Cyclist running stop sign
2. Cyclist exiting residential driveway
3. Cyclist riding on sidewalk
4. Cyclist riding on sidewalk hit by motorist exiting commercial driveway
5. Cyclist swerving left from curb lane
6. Wrong-way cyclist swerving left
7. Cyclist riding on sidewalk hit by motorist turning right

B. Child - Rural
1. Cyclist exiting residential driveway
2. Cyclist swerving about on road
3. Cyclist swerving left
4. Cyclist entering road from sidewalk or shoulder
5. Cyclist running stop sign

C. Teen - Urban
1. Wrong-way cyclist hit by motorist restarting from stop sign
2. Cyclist turning left from curb lane
3. Cyclist exiting commercial driveway
4. Wrong-way cyclist running stop sign
5. Wrong-way cyclist head-on
6. Right-of-way error at uncontrolled intersection
7. Motorist entering commercial driveway
8. Cyclist running red light
9. Cyclist turning left from curb lane, hitting car coming from opposite direction
10. Wrong-way cyclist hit by motorist turning right on red

D. Teen - Rural
1. Cyclist turns left from curb lane
2. Wrong-way cyclist head-on
3. Wrong-way cyclist hit by motorist restarting from stop sign
4. Cyclist turning left from curb lane, hitting car from opposite direction
5. Right-of-way error at uncontrolled intersection

E. Adult - Urban
1. Motorist turning left
2. Signal light change
3. Motorist turning right
4. Motorist restarting from stop sign
5. Motorist exiting commercial driveway
6. Motorist overtaking unseen cyclist (mostly in darkness)
7. Motorist overtaking too closely
8. Cyclist hitting slower-moving car

F. Adult - Rural
1. Motorist overtaking unseen cyclist (mostly in darkness)
2. Motorist overtaking too closely
3. Motorist turning left
4. Motorist restarting from stop sign
5. Cyclist swerving around obstruction
6. Cyclist turning left, hitting car coming from opposite direction

Source: Forester, John, Effective Cycling, MIT Press, 1993

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Per the Mexico car/cyclists collision (synopsis: drunk driver blacks out, swerves into a pack of cyclists in a race, kills several, really fucks up many), yeah this stuff is godawful, car shouldn't have been there. but to me, this simply reaffirms how insane the streets are on bike, foot, or in a car. cyclists happened to be there, but this dude would have run over anything that was in his path.

When i was a kid, i was at a parade with my parents and saw a street cleaner drive into the parade and run over a marching band. tubas and toms were flying everywhere. turned out the street cleaner was drunk.

The night before i graduated college, my brother was driving my car on the freeway to get to my graduation and a drunk driver collided with him head on--the dude entered the divided highway from an off ramp driving the wrong way. Both cars were going about 70 when they hit. My brother had to spend the night in the hospital for observation and was understandably rattled, but he was fine.

My other brother's best friend when he was a kid got killed when a drunk driver blew a red light and plowed the pickup truck he was riding in the back of. His sister in the front seat lived. If it had been a pack of cyclists at that intersection, the drunk driver would have killed the cyclists.

I don't think blacked out drunk drivers are very discriminating when they kill people.

So to me, events like this are tragic and terrible but more representative of the huge problem with drunk driving (cops driving drunk has been in the news quite a bit lately) than the more predictable and specific tension of cars and cyclists maliciously antagonizing each other or being unprovoked victims of bad driving/riding, etc.