“Bucchere was going far too fast, but he may have run a very late yellow rather than a red, a mistake made worse because of the pedestrians entering the crosswalk very early. Everyone was being too aggressive in their commuting, but Bucchere’s aggressiveness held the highest risk for others.”
And here’s some more:
“The case interested me because press reports indicated that data from Bucchere’s Strava account — an app that bikers can use to track their rides — had been used to show how fast he had been going and to prove he had ignored stop signs. District Attorney George Gascón told me the Strava data was part of the reason the city had decided to bring such severe charges against Bucchere. ‘It implies he was trying to compete with himself,‘ Gascón said. Bucchere’s online comments also played a role. ‘His helmet was more important than a human being.’”
Take a look for yourself, read the whole thing. And then decide if the prosecution of Chris Bucchere has anything to do with a so-called “lynch mob.”
And for all you StreetsBlogSF fans out there, ask yourself this:
There’s no need to use Strava to see how much over the limit you are. No, you can just look up at the electronic signs what use radar to tell you how fast you’re going.
But don’t try your speed runs in the daytime. That would be a little hazardous…
“Last month, four major cities—San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, and Seattle—put statistics on things like crime reports, restaurant ratings, bed bug complaints, and public restroom locations online at cities.data.gov.”
So can we easily look up info about bed bugs in San Francisco on this newish website?
Nope!
Also:
“…a major frustration in urban centers is the amount of time spent trying to find a parking spot. To address this problem and improve air quality, San Francisco launched SFPark…”
So has SFPark reduced the amount of time spent trying to find a parking spot?
Nope!
And has SFPark improved air quality?
Nope!
SFPark is all about getting more money to the SFMTA, IRL.
Continuing:
“…consider the Bike Accident Tracker, a tool created by the Bay Citizen that mapped all reported bicycling accidents in San Francisco over a five-year period. On the map, the intersection of Market and Castro was identified as a hot spot…”
Uh, I think we kind of already knew about hot spots as the MSM regularly reports on them and it’s been doing that for donkey’s years.
Continuing:
” Just this past April a cyclist hit and killed a pedestrian at that same intersection, according the San Francisco Chronicle. If accident data were integrated with a site like Google Maps, making the critical information more easily available, is it possible that the deadly accident at Market and Castro could have been avoided? I’m not sure, but it’s worth looking into.”
Cyclist Chris Bucchere really, really liked Strava.com, and he really liked going fast downhill in urban areas, and he actually raised the idea of Strava segment “winners” (so-called “Kings of the Mountain”) “winning” coffee as an incentive/reward just a few days before the death of Sutchi Hui. I’m totally baffled how hot spot data dissemination would have affected anything.
All right, well that’s the first webpage of the article by Alissa Black (an ASU student?). I think I’ll stop here.
Uh, the reason why data about which hotels have bed bugs isn’t more widely disseminated is because the hotel industry doesn’t like that kind of thing.
And the reason why people walking into San Francisco restaurants don’t see a letter grade displayed out front is because the Golden Gate Restaurant Association doesn’t want that kind of thing.
I don’t think the writer of the linked bit above understands how SF works.
[UPDATE: Attention nerdy white engineering types / transit activists who have some connection with Strava, Inc / Chris Bucherre / Kim Flynt. It's too bad that your NVIDIA co-worker / cycling buddy /KOM competitor / team $pon$or killed somebody / got killed / got sued but I don't really have anything to do with that. Feel free to call me a "dumbass" for revealing that people (paralegals? associates? concerned investors?) at the O'Melveny(sp?) law firm Google such search terms like "STRAVA lawsuit" and "STRAVA vicarious liability" and whatnot - that's your right as Americans. Feel free to band together on the Twitter and rap about how you white engineering types / transit activists are getting effed, somehow, yet again. But dudes, you gots ta chill. Take the emotion down a bit, why not? And think, maybe after Strava is gone, whenever that is, your cycling teams can get funding from somebody else, right? I said that Strava might get sued and you all pooh poohed that. And of course Strava got sued (you know, for wrongful death, right on sked, right before the statute, IN ADDITION to other stuff, like IP patent stuff from before). And I said that Chris Bucchere, the man what made some Mission Cycling members ashamed of their jerseys, might do hard time for the death of Sutchi Hui and you all pooh poohed that as well. And of course Chris Bucchere just might do hard time. But look above and see that this post is directed to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, not to you macho white engineering types / transit activists, you dig? The SFBC feels that it has some power over cyclists. The SFBC feels that cyclists have already cleaned up their acts in response to the recent cyclist-caused ped deaths. The SFBC hectors people about stopping before you hit the start of the crosswalk and/or the stop line. And I'm showing them how maybe they're not 100% always right about everything they say. That's all.]
Just one problem with Market Street’s excessively-wide crosswalks is that people need to stop far away from intersections, sometimes even behind stop lines.
So what cyclists tend to do at red lights on Market is to weasel past the stop line and through the crosswalk so as to be ready for the green.
As here, on Market at Third Street:
Click to expand
Now this kind of behavior is contrary to the party line of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
To wit:
“On a daily basis, be a bicycle ambassador by being a great representative of San Francisco’s amazing, diverse and growing community of people who bicycle. Stop behind the crosswalk, give pedestrians the right-of-way and others will follow.”
And this is in the post-Bucchere, high-enforcement world of 2012.
You talk about safety for all but then tell pedestrians absolutely false statements about how they Always Have The Right Of Way – is that responsible behavior?
And you think that The Media is your problem, SFBC? Sure seems that way, based upon what you say.
“With huge numbers of people biking to work on a daily basis, it may be time to look into licensing commuter bicyclists so they must take the same DMV tests motorcyclists and motorists take to ensure that they know the laws. It also seems that offenders should face some of the same punishments motorcyclists and motorists face, like points against their license. And if they’re going to be commuters, thus increasing the chances of accidents on city streets, perhaps they should also have to carry insurance. I’m not advocating these measures for the person who bikes through Golden Gate Park recreationally, one or two Sundays a month; but for everyday commuters, I think it makes sense.”
Oh, hold on, this post will need a photo.
Type Marina District into the Google, and this is what you’ll get:
Hair lightened and teeth whitened – I’ll have to try that one of these days.
Now, where was I? Oh yes, uh, I seriously kind of don’t think you can require licensing and insurance for people who go to work on a bike and not for the people who go about solely in Golden Gate Park.
And points at the DMV, well, that would seem to penalize those with driver licenses more than those without, capiche?
And Davis, CA? Is that our lodestar now, law enforcement-wise, rich white Marina Lady?
This example here is from the place where McAllister meets Jones meets Market, in the corrupt Twitterloin / Tenderloin / Civic Center / Mid Market area.
President Chiu stopped his Public Bike because he had a red light – this intersection now has a three-way light sequence, what with the recent changes for the 5 Fulton bus. (Note that this is the best place on the west coast to buy a stolen iPhone.)
Click to expand
A quick look up Jones (which is hardly ever busy) and he’s off:
Next stop, City Hall:
This is the proper technique of running a red light on a bicycle in San Francisco.
Strava fans should note that bikes in the 415 are for getting around, not for racing.
And bikes are especially not for going at or near 35 MPH at Castro and Market…
Now, it’s flagged for being dangerous (what, just yesterday?), but not before tons of people attempted to beat Kim Flynt’s time, to become “King of the Mountain” (KOM) once again.
Here are the deets from a Reader Just Like You, Brandon:
“BTW, speaking of Strava and the cyclist who died in Berkeley in 2010 trying to reclaim his recently eclipsed “KOM” on the South Park Drive descent in Berkeley’s Tilden Park, the same segment has now reappeared on Strava again: http://app.strava.com/segments/1243472
The full descent segment was flagged after Kim Flynt’s death, but a Strava user has redrawn the segment now starting it a little below the top and ending it enough before the bottom to get around the software blocking the segment.
Note that Kim Flynt’s once “record” descent is now all the way down in 7 way tie for 16th place:
16 Kim Flint Jun 06, 2010 66.4km/h 152bpm 300W – 1:56
And the fastest time was set just a few days ago now:
Tim Medina May 20, 2012 72.6km/h 168bpm 155W – 1:46
That’s over 45 mph avg (with a max. of 54 mph)!”
What’s the speed limit there, 30 MPH?
Does Strava encourage speeding? For example, how fast was Strava fan and cyclist Chris Bucchere going down Castro before hit collided with pedestrian Sutchi Hui? (Has there been a measurement done from the video yet?) Shouldn’t Strava ban segments with speeding in them?
Strava wants new customers, Strava wants to make money, right? This is how they do it, they let riders do what the riders want and then when the media focuses on a particularly dangerous segment, it all of a sudden gets flagged and goes down the memory hole.
This is the first I’ve seen of these things, so here’s a photo of one of the new “bike boxes,” or whatever they’re called:
Click to expand
I wonder, does Strava have a Wiggle segment? You know, so people could keep track of their times and race each other, you know virtually, you know, as Chris Bucchere used to?
Boy, the Internet is full of criticism these days over how the SFPD and the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office have been handling the cyclist Chris Bucchere vs. pedestrian Sutchi Hui case.
And yet, what have they done wrong so far? Nothing that I can see.
Wisely, they aren’t trying to prove things that are tough to prove to the very high standard required, so stuff like who used Chris Bucchere’s online accounts to post his post-accident thoughts and what color what traffic light was when – that stuff, isn’t going to matter all that much if a criminal trial comes.
As you can see, there aren’t any stop signs there.
But maybe the captain was talking about Castro Street?
If that’s the case, the question then becomes what would motivate a cyclist to behave in the ways alleged.
But we’ll find out soon enough…
*And the other part of Divisadero up in Pacific Heights far to the north? Wow, that’s probably the last place in the world where you’d want to be blowing stop signs on a bike.
