Dear Group, How does one protect from "urban thugs" or thugs in general when on a bicycle? As Aaron points out, what was done to him by the occupants of a white truck was felonious. One thinks of city crime as when someone is robbed or "rolled" in the big city. And this seeming motiveless act is not that. With the thugs roving in cars in Madison, one cannot just avoid an area of higher crime. Cyclists or pedestrians would not think of moving through high crime districts of Milwaukee or Chicago. Once the owner of one of Ripon's largest businesses was "rolled" on Rush Street in Chicago and even rings were pulled off his fingers, worth much it was said. He was with others at the time of the assault. But in Ripon it was generally felt he should not have been taking in the "night life" in such an open way. Aaron's assault was at night from his posting, but the incident against Dar was in the middle of the day, if I have that correctly. Is all this random or is their some sociopathic problem in Madison and being small geographically in the middle, crime is not segregated?
Maybe Washington DC might be a place to learn how bicyclists treat safety in certain neighborhoods. When I lived there, high crime and low crime areas might be just a block apart. On Capitol Hill, if a flat didn't come with window bars on any floor lever, criminals would watch with binoculars and clean places out before a person settled in. Maybe correspondence with bicycle groups in the District would reveal precautions which might have become "unwritten rules" of safe cycling at all hours of the day? Eric Westhagen _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
