- Extra police will be riding along with Critical Mass cyclists during the rush-hour, end-of-the-month mobocracy this Friday night.
Posted on 04/25/2007 9:17:48 AM PDT by SmithL
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has a lot riding on the next Critical Mass bike free-for-all, with the basic question being whether he can control the city's streets come Friday night.
Newsom has ruled out any attempt to stop the rush-hour ride, contain its route or keep cyclists from their mass running of red lights.
Instead, police will beef up the number of cops monitoring the monthly ride to 40 officers on bicycles, Hondas and Harleys. That's about twice as many as rode along with last month's ride.
Cmdr. Stephen Tacchini, who will be in charge of the police force Friday night, said there will be no change in the department's hands-off policy when it comes to trying to control the ride. The cops, however, will be there to prevent or stop property damage or fights if they break out between cyclists and frustrated motorists.
Tacchini has also been talking with members of the city's bike community. The Bicycle Coalition, which protests that it has nothing to do with organizing the ride, is nevertheless putting out the word through its newsletter for its members to be safe and cautious and to try to keep tensions down.
"In my conversations, everyone seems intent on making this a safe and peaceful event," Tacchini said.
All the planning is being done in the hope of avoiding what happened during last month's edition of Critical Mass, when a confrontation between a minivan-driving mom and several riders ended with one of the cyclists breaking her rear window with his bike.
...Stories of the two incidents renewed long-simmering ill will between drivers, some of whom see Critical Mass as nothing more than anarchy, and cyclists who feel they're targets of road rage every day.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
- Extra police will be riding along with Critical Mass cyclists during the rush-hour, end-of-the-month mobocracy this Friday night.
Don't most San Franciscan bikers ride side-saddle?
Anarchy is a San Francisco value.
I would think that most would ride without the seat... just leaving the post.
I wonder what the air pollution is like on those days. All those cars stuck in traffic must really trash the planet.
This is s joke right? He’s a democrat. The guy could get elected in SF even if he had been dead for a couple of years.
His Clintonesque use of office has only endearded him even more to those who miss the daily Bubba lies.
They don’t think they have to obey the traffic laws, and I honestly hope that any of them who flout the laws get injured. Maybe drivers coming from side streets with a green light should push right through the corkers (the cyclists who illegally hold up side street traffic so the group can run red lights) and into the crowd.
In Germany I once barely managed to avoid hitting a cyclist who ran a red light (very common, and illegal). Normally I would have been presumed at fault if I’d hit him, but in this case I had a Polizei right behind the cyclist who would have seen everything. Damn, I had a chance to teach a rogue cyclist a lesson, but I was too nice. It would have taught him a much better lesson than the warning that the Polizei gave him.
Good thinking. I didn't see that angle. Greenies push for fuel-efficient vehicles, but efficiency drops to zero for any car stuck in traffic.
Overtime bonanza for SF police!
Lots of lost productivity as workers clear out of the city before the loons take to the streets.
Liberal utopia.
That won’t help. In Seattle last year some under-cover cops were caught up in the traffic jam during one of these freak shows and ended up giving a couple of miscreants a hickory shampoo. The cops were punished and I’ll bet the SF cops know they’ll be targets too if they intervene with the anarchist behavior of the CM idiots.
Newsome will have better luck giving all the victims of this protest a Lewinsky than making the CM freaks behave.
Yep...wouldn’t want to violate the “hands off” policy. Newsome is an anarchist imo
Not only that, but then they give the hybrids special permsission to use the HOV lanes, which keeps the dirtier cars stuck in traffic. Perhaps we need to rethink this, and let the older, smellier cars use the HOV lanes while the hybrids cleanly sit in traffic.
-PJ
hickory shampoo! Now that’s a good one! lol
Rodney King was once (quite justifiably) treated to one of those.
Hizzoner would have thwacked them out of the way, but quick.
Yes!
This is what happens when children are allowed to run the place.
The people that run the city are cut from the same cloth as these brats.
Newsom is getting a dose of his own medicine - he refuses to abide by federal law on illegals, drugs, etc. so why should these guys obey the city laws?
They used to do those rides here all the time. They only thing they accomplished was a lot of spent fuel and ticked-off voters. Hopefully they won’t be back.
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