Free Republic

AZUSA (CBS) — Police say a woman in Azusa was riding her bicycle into cars on purpose so she could pressure drivers into giving her money. One of the motorists called police after the 20-year-old woman was found crawling out from underneath their car near East Arrow Highway and South Azusa Avenue at about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. The woman fled and officers found her nearby. Paramedics treated her for some scratches and officers issued her a citation for alleged hit-and-run. Azusa police said the suspect, Celina Pangburn, of Azusa, also tried to pull the same stunt a few hours earlier...

A new Los Angeles law makes it a crime for motorists to harass bicyclists, verbally or physically.

ST. FLOUR, France - Tour de France riders were furious after two of their number were injured in a crash involving a television car on Sunday's ninth stage. Spaniard Juan-Antonio Flecha crashed to the ground while Dutchman Johnny Hoogerland went flying into a barbed-wire fence. "He was lying in the barbed wire, completely in it, in the barbs, his pants were completely off, he was completely naked," said Michale Cornelisse, the sports director of Hoogerland's Vacansoleil team after rescuing his rider from a ditch. "I just saw him flying through the air. He has deep cuts in his legs, he...

UC Berkeley freshman Devin Shoop got a $220 ticket in September. His crime: locking his bicycle to a railing instead of a bike rack. He got another ticket two weeks later: $220 for rolling his bike through a stop sign instead of fully stopping. Now he has to go to traffic school to keep a moving violation off his driver's license. Jorel Allegro, a junior, earned his $220 ticket in October for coasting through the campus dismount zone instead of walking his bike as required. California's law requiring the same traffic fines for cars and bikes isn't new. But at...

BARTONVILLE — Area bicyclists have launched a statewide petition drive, hoping to keep other cities from adopting rules like Bartonville’s new ordinance, which limits the size of bicycling groups riding through town. More than 2,000 people have signed the petition denouncing the ordinance, according to Robin Stallings, executive director of Bike Texas. The petition went online Aug. 25. About 20 percent of the signatures were gathered at the Hotter’N Hell Hundred bike races in Wichita Falls last weekend. “Most of those names are from North Texas,” Stallings said. The group plans to leave the petition up a while longer, since...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A tennis pro, self-styled master natural healer and crystal therapist was charged Monday with trying to run down and kill four bicyclists last week in San Francisco. David Mark Clark, 39, of Albany was arrested Friday after he went to Albany police to report that his Nissan Rogue crossover sport utility vehicle had been taken at gunpoint. The Rogue was abandoned at 17th and Missouri streets Wednesday night after the hit-and-run driver struck his fourth victim and crashed the vehicle. Clark, who has no criminal record, was charged Monday in San Francisco Superior Court with four counts...

On a windy Monday night, Pete’s Candy Store—a bar in Williamsburg with a railcar-shaped performance space in the back—is crammed to capacity with the thin and the bearded. Almost no one is drinking. The mood is pregame, expectant and nervous. We’re at one of the oddest New York City powwows in recent memory: a panel designed to quell a metastasizing dispute between bicyclists and Hasidic Jews. Except no Hasids are present. For a moment, it looks like the bicyclists will have to debate themselves. At immediate issue is the Bedford Avenue bike lane. It’s the longest in Brooklyn and runs...

A doctor convicted of assaulting two bicyclists by slamming on his car brakes after a confrontation on a narrow Brentwood road was sentenced today to five years in prison. Christopher Thompson, wearing dark blue jail scrubs, wept as he apologized to the injured cyclists shortly before he was sentenced. "I would like to apologize deeply, profoundly from the bottom of my heart," he told them, his right hand cuffed to a court chair. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Scott T. Millington called the case a "wake-up call" to motorists and cyclists and urged local government to provide riders with...

ONE of the great battlefields in the war between bicyclists and pedestrians in New York City is the Brooklyn Bridge. Pedestrians think all bicyclists are out-of-control maniacs; bicyclists — the majority, anyway — are just trying to avoid cars and not break a sweat. The stripe painted down the center of the elevated Brooklyn Bridge walkway, to separate bicyclists from pedestrians, has become a line in the sand. We need to erase that line once and for all. There are various reasons for the battle of the Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn seems to sprout bike commuters, as do its vaguely do-it-yourself...

August 22, 2009 10:44 PM Al Pefley New developments in a recent incident in Boca Raton, where a man was attacked by a group of bicyclists. Police have just released 911 calls from that night. "911. What's the address of your emergency?" "Um, a bunch of guys on bicycles are beatin' the crap out of this guy," one caller said. Calls poured into 9-1-1 from drivers who watched as an elderly man, 69 year old Miles Barish of Delray Beach, squared off with a group of bicyclists on A1A. "911. What's the address of your emergency?" "A1A and Palmetto Park....

A rookie cop - the son of a highly respected New York City detective - has been stripped of his badge and gun after being caught on video viciously attacking a bicyclist who was part of a Times Square demonstration. ' The startling YouTube video shows Officer Patrick Pogan, 22, apparently setting his sights on - and then tackling - a bicyclist as he pedaled along Seventh Avenue as part of last Friday's controversial Critical Mass ride. Christopher Long, 29, was among a throng of riders as he whizzed toward the corner of West 46th Street at 9:30 p.m. and...

SIERRA VISTA — The cyclists involved in the tandem-bicycle versus-deer accident on Oct. 12 are still recovering from broken bones and a concussion. The couple attribute their survival of the crash to their helmets, and expressed gratitude to the Huachuca City Police Department and Fry Fire District first responders, as well as the assisting motorists and the Sierra Vista emergency room staff for their quick and competent help. And while they recover, they would like to remind the motoring community to respect and be courteous to the bicyclists and motorcyclists that share the road. About 6:20 a.m. on Oct. 12,...

It's your typical "only in San Francisco" story, one that pits cars against bicyclists, politicians against planners -- and right-turn bans against reality. The issue: a $26 million Central Freeway on-ramp, at the foot of the newly built Octavia Boulevard, that you can't turn onto from the city's main drag, Market Street. It took 14 years of debate, three ballot measures and a dozen designs before Caltrans crews set to work demolishing the earthquake-damaged Central Freeway and turning Octavia into a $62 million, tree-lined boulevard. Once work got started, bicyclists -- a potent force in city politics -- took aim...

When the United States refused to ratify an international treaty that would impose limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases, four twentysomething Pittsburghers decided to take action. They formed Car Free Pittsburgh which, for now, promotes walking, bicycling and public transportation. The group is part of the World Carfree Network, a loose-knit coalition of more than 40 groups dedicated to eradicating cars, which they say hurt the environment, the economy and society. The car-free movement is growing in the U.S., although more slowly than in other countries. An estimated 100 million people participate in International Car Free Day...

August 26, 2004 -- The "Bike National Convention" may have just had its tires slashed. The NYPD yesterday announced a crackdown on a group that promotes monthly mass bike rides and has promised traffic-disrupting events during the GOP convention. The group, Time's Up, founded the so-called "critical mass" rides on the last Friday of each month. The crackdown was spurred by Time's Up's planned Bike National Convention, timed to coincide with the Republican gala. On Tuesday, the riders evoked Paul Revere's famous ride, with bicyclists chanting, "The Republicans are coming!" along Lexington Avenue. A police source said that caught the...

NOTE: I did not write this diatribe, I will voice out in the "afterward". This weekend lots of folks are gonna be tearin' it up in NYC at the Republican National Convention, showing not only the country, but the rest of the world that not all of us are "united" behind the Bush administration and their "War on Terror." "Bring the war home," went a slogan for the Weather Underground. Similarly, Fugazi said, "There will be two wars." As long as the power elite wages war abroad, we will inevitably feel the effects at home: immigration restriction, and hightened racism,...

CLEVELAND - Bicyclists are demanding that the nation's largest radio group be punished because disc jockeys at three stations made on-air comments they say encouraged drivers to throw bottles at bike riders or hit them with open car doors. They say the morning show hosts at Clear Channel Communications stations in Cleveland, Houston and Raleigh, N.C., also suggested motorists blast horns at cyclists, and speed past them and slam on their brakes in front of them. "DJs encouraging the masses to hurt people in any form is insipid, and should not go unpunished," said Edwin D. Reeves, 30, a cyclist...

Why A Naked Bike Ride? Every day we are bombarded with countless messages demanding our obedience to the corporate dictates of a consumption dependent society. Little regard is paid to the future of our planet and generations left with a legacy of waste and environmental contamination. How many countless times each day do our media masters spin the same message: Unless you buy this, you are not worthy. Unless you look like this you should be ashamed. By cruising naked down the spending frenzy capitals of the world, we are saying.NO! ...a fancy new car is not a mark of...

SAN ANTONIO -- Authorities said a thong-wearing bicyclist committed suicide when he fell 100 feet to his death at Big Bend National Park in June. Joseph Gottschalk, 52, earned the nickname "Thong Man" by showing his buttocks during leisurely bike rides around San Antonio -- first near his southeast San Antonio home, then into other neighborhoods. His death was ruled a suicide Saturday due to "a preponderance of evidence," Brewster County Justice of the Peace Shirley Williams said in Sunday editions of the San Antonio Express-News. Gottschalk's naked body was found by passing hikers June 21 below a cliff at...

Joseph H. Gottschalk, whose habit of riding a bicycle while wearing only a thong brought him both local celebrity and notoriety, was found dead over the weekend in Big Bend National Park. Park officials said hikers spotted some clothing near the edge of a cliff some 30 feet from the South Rim trail Saturday afternoon. Peering down a sharp drop, the hikers saw Gottschalk’s naked body on a wide ledge about 100 feet below, park spokesman David Elkowitz said. A search-and-rescue team used pulleys to raise and retrieve Gottschalk’s corpse, and a Brewster County justice of the peace examined it...

Bill would exempt bicycle riders from stopping at stop signs (Salem-AP) - A bill that has passed the House would exempt bicycle riders from coming to a full stop at stop signs and flashing red lights. They would still have to ride at a safe speed and give the right of way to vehicles or pedestrians approaching an intersection. Cyclists had complained of the inconvenience of getting in and out of toe clips at the signs and lights. The bill goes to the Senate.

Jefferson, Colorado- A group of bicyclists in Colorado may have incurred a record fine recently if dollars per mile are counted. Violating a well-posted closure of a National Forest and ignoring a monitor yelling for them to stay out, a group of bicyclists chose to continue on their ride over a short section of trail from the top of Kenosha Pass to Jefferson Lake in Park County, Colorado. The Colorado National Guard, summoned by the monitor, met the cyclists at Jefferson Lake after a ride of less than five miles, according to local sources. Fines for closure violations are currently...