I'm not sure I agree with the subtext.

As someone who both drives as part of her job and bikes to work, I find that bicyclists are in a pinch due to lazy regulation. Legally bikes are vehicles in BC - because the province saw them as a luxury item when they wrote the law. Saying, "this is like a car" is the only way of articulating safety rules in conversation with motorists. Idaho, by contrast, actually took a look at how bikes work (they're small, manouverable, don't do that much damage when they hit a car, and are a pain in the ass to get going from a full stop) and revised their laws accordingly - red car lights are bike stop signs; stop signs are bike yields. And they've kept it on the books for decades. I'm not entirely sure what the multiple lane rule cited here refers to, but when I bike on a 3-lane road with 1 lane of parking, I have the choice of either getting tailgated and possibly killed or getting doored and probably hurt - I choose the latter until I run into a wide vehicle or one where someone might open their door, so there's a bit of back and forth between lanes. I signal as possible, but since people often pull into my lane without shouder checking, I sometimes have to change lanes fast and that requires two hands.

By contrast, when I'm in a van delivering film gear, I really don't give a damn if someone is bicycling on the road like a fool. As long as the only thing they're going to run into my 2-tonne steel box on wheels, it's their neck to risk. I don't have any major physical disabilities so If I don't like being a motorist sharing the roads with human power vehicles, I can suck it up and bike.

Unfortunately, because of a few yahoos, most motorists assume that all bikes are driven incorrectly. When biking, people will honk and gesticulate at me for, say, executing a left turn into the closest lane of traffic, as per the law on left turns, or kicking off of the sidewalk via a curb cut (am I supposed to *walk* my bike onto the road?). This extends to accidents - at work, a crewmember backed up into traffic, and a cyclist went through his window. The emerg responders blamed the cyclist for things like going top speed (30km/hr, down a hill, on a bike route), even though he had right of way. Had it been a car going at its legal limit of 50km/hr (about 2.7 times the kinetic energy per unit of mass and at least 10x the mass = 27 times the impact), both vehicles would have been fucked and someone could have been very badly hurt. So yes there are some yahoo jocks pedaling their bikes like complete tools, but at least they're being yahoos on bikes and as opposed to behaving like that behind the wheel of a car. But if we made some cycling rules that actually make sense, and did not treat bikes as cars (and then perhaps enforced them), they might start to obey them.

Work in progress

 Food for thought:

Accomplishments and failures over time

Read more... )
Wanted: Cranky Political Agitators

I would very much like to get a bunch of people together to run as a Rhino-style team in the Vancouver elections. I specifically want to find people who are willing to address issues which often go completely overlooked in municipal elections.

This is something of a departure from the more traditional Rhino approach of conventional-style satire (think absurdist plus Air-Farce). And I think this change is a worthwhile one.

I now have the time to do this.

If you know anyone, send them my way.
People ask me "why Rhino" and I have to answer that I don't really know the answer m'self, but Im interested. My primary interest is in the provincial election - those are the most Gong Show of the three scales. But I can see federal and municipal potential.

Federally, we need to get the party recognized, so I'm signing people up. I still have forms.

Municipally, I have a uh... 'vision.' It involves Sam "Runs over the poor in his wheelchair" Sullivan's suspiciously more generous (and totaly unregulated) donors in a lake of alligators, with the people who played power games with Vision and COPE serving as chum to arouse the reptiles' interest.

I mean something serious by this: I can't stand the NPA and I really like COPE... at least siginificantly more than I've ever liked any other non-fringe political party, but, even after the Wal-Mart, the end of housing for the non-rich, the broken transit promises, and even during considering scrapping the ethical purchasing policy,  people just don't seem interested in municpal politics, let alone serious municipal alternatives. It feels almost as if Rhino is the only way of getting some bloody participation on the local scale. So be it.

Given that participation is somewhere around 25%, that leaves a goodly number of potential converts.

Here's my idea: Vancouver has the Work Less Party, The Naked Garden Party, the Sex Party and so on. Why don't we see if we can get everyone together and form a whole slate of nuts? Not just for the election, but for any municpal meeting?

If you know anyone in these parties, send them my way.

Also: Capri Hall, October 14th. Work Less party Masquerade. $10 to get in; $5 with costume.
[edit]

A question for you: What were your impressions of the recent Vancouver election? What about 2002? How did COPE come across? How did Vision come across? The NPA? The Green Party? What role did and could the internet play in all this? What is yor take on municipal politics in geteral? Comments please!
Tell your friends, post it on forums.

You can vote if you:

* are 18 years of age or older
* are a Canadian citizen
* have lived in B.C. for at least six months
* have lived in Vancouver for at least 30 days

So bring ID with an address and some back-up ID. Stamped letters and parcel-wrappers are good.

to find out where to vote, go to http://www.vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/election2005/wheredoivote.htm

for descriptions of all candidates in their own words, go to
http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/ctyclerk/election2005/pdf/2005candidate_profiles.pdf

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the_fantastic_ms_fox

August 2017

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