I got several answers to my national posting on violence against bicyclists in
relation to the three (were there more?) recent incidents of motorists trying
(and in some cases succeeding) to knock bicyclists over. The responses seemed
to fall into these two veins:
1) get the police involved
2) get the media involved
I have been hesitant to recommend making a big deal out of this to the media
because is just one more thing that makes bicycling seem dangerous (thus
discouraging people from biking) and it might spawn copy-cats. The people who
recommended this tact thought it would encourage witnesses to step forward and
highlight to unknowing people (how could they not know?) how dangerous it is to
push (or startle) a bicyclist on the road.
In Chicago they are trying to get undercover police on bicycles in the areas
being targeted (with no success) and group riding and buddy matching
(underway).
In Fort Collins, CO they had a rash of this kind of thing (but with baseball
bats!) a few years ago and the media coverage helped catch the kids that were
doing it.
There doesn't seem to be any pattern to latch onto here in Madison yet...so I'm
not sure how the police can help at this point.
-Dar
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