Was reported to have been “bleeding badly,” but actually didn’t look to be in bad shape at all:
This is what the crew was working on:
Maybe they’ll finish this relatively minor project one of these years.
My accident reconstruction capabilities, which were untaxed by this straightforward fender bender on nearby Hayes, are unable to make sense of this one on Page near Clayton:
This damage was caused either by a Panzerkampfwagen Tiger B heavy tank or a Mercedes Benz E350
So yes, the SFMTA gave pedestrians more than 40 seconds to cross Fell north-south at Baker before the recent fatal accident, but it set up the signals to only give 12 seconds of red, flashing DON’T WALK DON’T WALK
This must have been due to one of MUNI’s “I’s” – Ideology or Incompetence.
Anyway, the SFMTrA but up some posts, but the SFMTA took them down.
Now comes the SFMTA with some beige paint, which means, uh, IDK:
Maybe they’ll make this a bulb out?
Who knows…
These guerrilla-installed white posts went in on October 5-6. I was thinking since I saw them still there on the evening of October 9th that maybe the SFMTA might be tolerating them. But no, all these posts are gone now, as of the evening of October 10th anyway.
One problem with bulbouts is that they embolden pedestrians, as here, but I don’t know if our non-transparent SFMTA would agree with that.
Installing a couple bulbouts here wouldn’t be crazy. It would take the five lanes you’d have to cross to get out of traffic down to four, pretty much, at the cost of two parking spaces.
The existing timing* seems generous to me, even during rush hour, so I don’t understand how the recent accident occurred.
*43 seconds or so, which is about 20 seconds more than other nearby intersections on Fell west of Masonic, at least during rush hour.
We’re in Cali, right? So you know what a freeway is. So don’t call a freeway a “highway.” In California, a highway is any old street. For example:
“CVC 21201 (d) A bicycle operated during darkness upon a highway…”
This use of highway in this context means any public street. I guarantee it. (But you can ride your bike on many sections of California freeway – see below.) So you can’t say that Frisco only has two highways (but if you do, people will know you mean freeway through context, I guess.)
What I’m saying is that you use highways to get to a freeway, how’s that?
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Libel and slander don’t necessarily mean what you think they mean 100%, sry. Your rule of thumb will keep you out of trouble almost all of the time, but things can get tricky when you get down into the weeds. So yes, you’ve got the dictionary definition right, but there can be exceptions, the same way the duck-billed platypus is an egg-laying species but also a mammal. The solution is defamation and defamatory.
Let’s try it out. “Dear Sir, your words are defamatory. I shall contact my solicitor to begin an action for defamation.” That works, baby. (Or, you can call yourself an “editor” of an online entity what’s called “Beyond Chron” and then threaten to sue the real Chronicle. Like you’ll say “I’ll consider my options” of suing the real Chronicle for defamation, something like that. And then people will chuckle because they know you’ve already decided not to sue our local paper of record.)
And really, this difference doesn’t really matter. It’s like what’s a fruit and what’s a vegetable. There’s no reason to get into the distinction most of the time.
(But feel free to mock those who confuse these terms, or use the term “liable,” – I won’t take that away from you.
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Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference betwixt a shotgun and a rifle, especially from far away. So the term you use is long gun. Easy peasy. I saw the use of this term exactly once in our local Paper of Record, and I thought, wow, that’s how you do it. But then the hed was changed an hour later, presumably because readers were confused. Or maybe the issue had been cleared up by then, IDK.
Another thing is that a rifle can kill you from 500+ yards away and a shotgun can’t.
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An accident is something what occurs not on purpose and a collision is when two or more things hit each other, more or less. (And let’s not get into allision.) But you see, they’re not really substitutes for each other. Sometimes collisions are accidental and sometimes accidents involve collisions. Most accidents involving cars are the result of negligence and some are the result of recklessness. Most bike accidents are the result of pilot error, you know, just falling down, but some involve hitting or getting hit by a car and that may or may not be the bicycle rider’s error. You need to look at each case to find fault.
Now if a tennis pro who’s into crystals starts running people over on purpose in the Mission, well, that’s not an accident, but later on you might say that you have a trick knee now due to a traffic accident even though this guy targeted you, that’d be OK. If you have reason to believe that some car crash was committed on purpose, you can say, “That was no accident.” And then it could be attempted homicide or vehicular manslaughter or battery – it could be a lot of things, but not an accident. Anyway, if a collision was the result of negligence or recklessness, then it quite rightly can be called an accident. (And of course, I’m more of a San Francisco bike rider and more of a San Francisco pedestrian, measured any way you would like, by miles, hours, years, decades on these streets of San Francisco, than anybody who harps on you about the difference between accident and collision. Think on that.)
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A blog is a weB LOG – it’s the whole enchilada. A single entry into a blog is called a post. I am astounded at the number of people who don’t get this, even after a quick mansplaining. So, the post is the tree and the blog is the forest that the tree is in.
Now one time some lady who got rich off the Chron, through marriage I guess, paid some lawyer to send me a long-winded letter about how I was going to get sued for slander libel, ah defamation, that’s that ticket. Now he was only writing me concerning one post, but his demand was for me to take down my blog, you know, which at that time was made up of thousands and thousands of posts. You see, he was confused. (And then he said I wasn’t allowed to tell anybody about this matter, so of course I posted his letter on my blog the next day. (In poker terms, this is called going over the top.) Good times. And I kept the offending post up, ’cause it was all good. And of course I never got sued IRL. You gotta know how to handle Trump-like individuals, know how to call their bluffs.)
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A jumbo jet is a Boeing 747, mostly. You can also throw in the Airbus A380 – now some call it a superjumbo, but you can also call it a jumbo. Both of those aircraft are also widebodies, with twin aisles. And narrowbodies have just one aisle, typically with five or six seats per row. Moving down, you’ve got your regional jets and your corporate jets and then your general aviation jets. That’s it.
Oh, there are some widebodies that aren’t jumbos, like the Boeing 777, that can carry more passengers than a smaller jumbo, like the comical-looking 747SP. Certainly this stubby jet is huge, it’s just so short that it went obsolete pretty quickly. So then along came larger and larger twinjets with only a single deck, but they end up having more capacity than a “jumbo.” Oh well. I didn’t make the rules, I just ‘splain them on my blog.
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And if you aren’t sure, never say gas, say fuel. This will keep you out of trouble.
So a military tank might run on gas, but most likely not. The same thing with vessels. And some cars run on diesel of course, Usually, there’s no reason to be specific.
FIN
And here are some of your bikes operating legally on freeway areas, one in San Mateo County and the other in Marin:
Here it is:
Here’s how things used to be – dark, wet and smelly:
Area Yelpers are not yet yelping about the improvements, but they will, someday, I’m sure:
All the deets, from our feds:
The major phases of the Baker-Barry Tunnel preservation project are complete. Crews have addressed fissures and cracks in the tunnel wall, pumped polyurethane into the gaps around the tunnel lining, and installed a new, more energy-efficient lighting system. The historic tunnel is now preserved to bring the next generation of park visitors to the Marin Headlands.
Parking and pull-outs are now open to vehicles on Conzelman Road east of the McCullogh traffic circle.
For a summary of the work to date and photos inside the project, read this recent article in the Marin IJ.
About the Tunnel Preservation Project: Safer Surfaces. Better Lighting.
This project repaired the tunnel’s concrete structure. Repaired cracks and leaks resulted in a slippery film of sediment that created a safety hazard for vehicles and bicyclists.
A new tunnel LED light system will reduce energy use by an estimated 40% from what was the single largest energy user at Golden Gate National Recreation Area! The new lights also better illuminate the tunnel for vehicles and bicyclists.
We also replaced water and sewer lines mounted in the tunnel. The outdated water and sewer lines were subject to frequent breaks which resulted in tunnel closures.
As seen from the Golden Gate Bridge.
None of the others looked like this, AFAICS.
The lines running from lower left to upper right:
Boat vs. whale has been in the news lately…
The preferred word these days is “collision.” Or maybe crash. But collision is #1. So much so that you can read the word four times in three sentences when some reporters report on traffic accidents:
Now let’s hear from a junior SFMTA spokesperson (Total Cost Of Employment = five figures per month) on the topic of traffic accidents:
“When describing traffic collisions, most of us have grown up using the word “accident.” But traffic “accidents” are preventable, which is why we at the SFMTA refer to them as collisions or crashes.”
Let’s see here, if you crash into something, either you did it on purpose or it was an accident, right? Preventability doesn’t enter into the equation. At all. And if we’re searching for a term for a preventable accident, why not use “preventable accident?”
Moving on:
The words we use can have a powerful influence on the way we view traffic injuries, and calling them “accidents” implies that nothing can be done to stop them.
I’ll disagree again here. Calling an accident an accident does not in any way imply that that nothing can be done to stop them. In fact, studying accidents, like “airplane accidents” for instance, is a really excellent way to determine who was at fault and what can be done differently in future.