Ghost Bikes: Cyclists as victims

Ghost bike for Ethan Wong

Way back in 2006 I began to see a pro-bike ideology emerging from my encounters with the city's bike people:

Calling this mish-mash of historical ignorance, self-righteousness, self-congratulation, and anger an ideology is of course overstating the case. Still, add all the nonsense up and you have a more or less coherent point of view.

Add self-pity to that list. Whenever anyone is killed while riding a bike---regardless of who was at fault---"ghost bikes" are often installed near the location of the accident, along with flowers, stuffed animals, and candles.

To get the full flavor of this addition to victimology, you have to read Streetsblog, where you learn that there's a war happening on the streets of the country, and cyclists and pedestrians are taking a lot of casualties in attacks by motor vehicles, aka "death monsters."

A former Streetsblog editor, Bryan Goebel, is now bike correspondent for KQED News, where we find the latest ghost bike and its backstory.

The ghost bike practice can slide easily into outright propaganda and demagoguery, like it did after Nils Linke was killed in 2010 by a drunk driver on Masonic Avenue.

Local anti-car bike demagogue Michael Helquist used Linke's death as part of his campaign to screw up traffic on Masonic Avenue:

Since the bicyclist's death Friday night---one that many observers are attributing to the lack of a separated bike lane---city officials have taken another look at traffic calming on Masonic to determine what might be implemented now to complement the longer-term planning project underway.

In reality Linke was hit in the Masonic/Turk intersection (German cyclist’s death found to be a homicide) where even a separated bike lane couldn't have protected him (and he wasn't wearing a helmet).

Ghost bike memorial for Nils Linke

An earlier ghost bike story for KQED by Goebel.

Hysteria and anti-hysteria

Does this look like a clock?

Of course the cops and authorities overreacted to that kid's clock/"bomb." We're talking about Texas, after all. They should have let him talk to his parents right away, and the handcuffs on a skinny little kid were over-the-top.

But when you look at the picture above, you can understand the initial reaction by the school and the cops. And he activated the clock in his English class, which is the kind of thing a 14-year-old kid will do to get attention. This incident had nothing to do with "Islamophobia" or his skin color. Can anyone think if he had been a white Christian there would have been no reaction to this device?

Naturally, the ultra-left Alternet twists the incident to fit their ideology.