New York City Settles Case Brought By Critical Mass Riders Harassed By Police

New York City has settled a lawsuit brought by five bicyclists who were allegedly harassed by police officers during Critical Mass rides. The amount of the settlement was just shy of $100,000. This story was reported in yesterday's New York Times. Read the full story by clicking here.

Illinois Senate Passes Red Light Camera Bill

Yesterday, the Active Transportation Alliance reported the following:

"Today, the IL State Senate passed Senate Bill 935. This bill allows local governments in the Chicago and St. Louis areas to use red light cameras to improve road safety.

The bill, once passed by the House and signed by the Governor, will require two independent verifications of a violation before a citation is issued. It will also give motorists the right to review video evidence and contest violations via a secure web-based portal."

A lot of folks won't like this, but I view it as a victory for the most vulnerable users of city streets, bicycles and pedestrians. Knowing that the the eye in the sky is watching, hopefully motorists will approach intersections, were accidents tend to happen, with added caution.

Elderly Man Crosses Center Line, Slamming Into Three Teens On Downstate Illinois Bicycle Trip

Three Chicago high school students were struck by an elderly man yesterday as they rode their bicycles in downstate Illinois as part of a spring break bike trip. One of the girls, Faith Dremmer, 17, was killed. The other two, Kaia Tammen, 18, and Julia Baird, 18, were seriously injured. All three girls were wearing helmets at the time. The incident was apparently caused by an 86 year old Enfield, Illinois man whose van crossed the center lane of traffic then slammed into the three girls, three friends who attended the University of Chicago Lab School. The incident occurred at around 2:00 p.m. at Shawneetown/New Haven Road and Ponds Settlement Road, north of Shawneetown. The source for this post is The Chicago Breaking News Center.

Recall of 3T Aerobars

The U.S. Product Safety Commission and 3T have announced the recall of Ventus Ltd™ and Ventus Team™ Bicycle Aerobars. There have been complaints that the rubber grips at the ends of the bars can slip off, causing a fall hazard. According to the Commission's recall notice, "Two incidents were reported to 3T involving adults with minor abrasions." Meh. Doesn't sound too scary, but if you spend $1,200 on a set of handlebars I suppose that sort of thing ought not happen. If you have these bars on your bike contact 3T for a fix kit.

Lifting the Veil On Carbon Fiber

It seems that for the last ten to fifteen years carbon fiber has been the sexy bicycle building material. It is light, stiff and expensive. It looks exotic. It is not a metal, and how cool is that, right? Well, sometimes not so much. It can fail in frightening ways. How much is really known about this material is a question recently asked by the folks at mountainbike.com. Last week they published a fascinating article on how carbon fiber bike frames and components are made and how and why they can fail. This is must read stuff for the attorney handling or considering a product liability action and for the consumer thinking about throwing down big bucks for a bike made of what the magazine calls "Black Magic." Here is a link to the full article. Here is a sampling:

Why carbon in the first place? For one, there's what engineers call the "black aluminum" analogy: A sheet of carbon composite would be just as stiff and strong as an identical sheet of aluminum, but a third lighter. Then there's "tunability." While metal frame shapes are by nature isotropic (they exhibit the same properties of strength and stiff ness on any axis), carbon fiber composites are anisotropic (those properties exist only along the axis of the fiber direction). So a skilled composites engineer can "tune" the way a tube responds to diff erent loads simply by orienting the carbon fibers in various directions. There are, of course, drawbacks. First, you need said skilled composites engineer. You cannot randomly orient fibers and expect a good result. The art lies not in merely alternating the ply orientation, but also the direction and number of plies—the layup schedule. Second, because manufacturing is incredibly labor-intensive, with almost everything done by hand, it must be obsessively controlled for quality.

* * * * *

At C-Tech, a programmed machine cuts giant rolls of three-foot-wide prepreg sheet into an array of smaller pieces needed to assemble a frame, from swaths of intermediate or high-modulus fiber large enough to cover an entire down tube to small, twoinch- square swatches of high-strength standard-modulus fiber that will be valuable reinforcement structures. It's an exacting process—each ply of carbon must be cut to size, and with the proper fiber orientation.

Once the plies are ready, they are shipped to the layup room. There, workers assemble a layup kit and follow the layup schedule to precisely assemble whatever part they're working on. A single frame built at C-Tech may have as many as 500 individual plies of carbon, of varying modulus, sizes, locations and fiber orientations. Because of this complexity and the level of human involvement, the layup room is both the nexus for quality control and where most of the headaches lie.

"You can do everything right and have a great engineer and design and materials, and if the layup guy had a bender the night before and forgets a part of the frame, it's toast," says Tomac general manager Joel Smith, who moves his entire family to Taichung, Taiwan, for three months during the prime manufacturing timeframe to ensure quality at Tomac's partner factory, A-Pro.

Illinois Senate Bill Would Strengthen Anti-Buzzing Law

The buzz out of Springfield is that Illinois' anti-buzzing statute is about to get a whole lot tougher. Yesterday, the state senate passed a bill amending a statute which already prohibits motor vehicles from passing less than three feet from a bicyclist on a roadway. The bill, introduced in January by Sen. Ira I. Silverstein, makes it a crime for a motorist to pass "unnecessarily close to, toward, or near a bicyclist." A driver may be charged with a felony where violation of the law results in "great bodily harm" or permanent injury. The bill also makes it a crime to throw objects at bicyclists.

The bill has been sent to the Illinois House where it is expected to pass.

Will the passage of this law make cycling on Illinois roads safer? Probably not. But it adds an arrow in the quiver of civil practice attorneys and criminal law enforcement officers when going after drivers who injure bicyclists. Bravo.

Police Looking For Driver Who Killed McHenry Bicyclist

I have learned from the Active Transportation Alliance that a McHenry County bicyclist has been killed by a hit a run motorist. The following details are being reported:

"Police are looking for the driver of a pickup who killed a cyclist in McHenry County and then fled the scene. Authorities are looking for the driver of the truck, described as a dark-colored, full-size, newer-model pickup, possibly a Chevrolet, with a single exhaust pipe. Anyone with information is asked to call the sheriff's crash investigation office at 815-338-2144 or Crime Stoppers at 800-762-7867."