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October 03, 2008
Hell on two wheels
Cyclist in Rain, originally uploaded by Tapio Hurme.
Cyclists here in Chicago - including myself - are notorious for selectively applying the rules of the road. The Police Department occasionally cracks down on cyclists, but pretty soon they forget about it. In Oregon, however, they are more fanatical about bicycles, as evidenced by two recent events. One involves a cop on a bike, the other involves a man on a bike attempting to evade the police:
The first incident happened 1 p.m. Wednesday in Salem when OSP Trooper Perry Rhoades was patrolling the Capitol Mall area on a bicycle and spotted a 1997 Ford four-door driving recklessly near the State Capitol building and nearly striking pedestrians in a crosswalk on Court Street near Winter Street.
Rhoades caught up with the car and made several attempts to get the driver to stop, including riding alongside the driver's door and ordering the female driver to stop. The driver, identified as Suzanne L. Futrell, age 44, from Dallas, refused to stop and yelled through her rolled-up window that she didn't do anything wrong.
Futrell allegedly continued driving in a reckless manner including driving through a red light as Rhoades continued to try and get her to stop as speeds reached about 25 mph.
Wowzers! Officer Rhoades, that is bad-ass. I must say I admire anyone who will chase a car down, on a bike, and then arrest her. Though how stupid do you have to be to think you're going to run away from the police in the middle of a city?
Elsewhere, Robert Frank of Eugene, Oregon had a serious case of bike elitism. Not satisfied to ride his bike with traffic, he rode along a rural highway in a westbound direction in an eastbound lane. He refused to acknowledge the presence of a police car that tried to stop him, but was eventually captured:
Two other troopers set up near milepost 11 and as the bicycle approached, Frank tried to go around the patrol car and was tackled off the bike. Frank resisted arrest but was taken into custody at 7:50 a.m. on charges of disorderly conduct an resisting arrest. He was also cited for failing to obey a police officer.
Dios mio, people! This one story contains pretty much the ying and the yang of traffic idiocy: the reckless driver and the irresponsible cyclist. If there is one lesson to be learned from this, it's listen to the police. The two villains in this story might want to think about that when they have to explain to the judge why they shouldn't get $1000 fines.
entry no. 1222
Posted at October 3, 2008 04:35 PM