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Bicyclists attacked in Cambridge, Arlington

Cambridge Police have released a photo of a pedestrian they say used his shoulder to push a bicyclist off her bike in Inman Square on Sept. 22.

If he looks familiar, contact police at 617-349-9384.

YourArlington.com reports on a separate incident the same day in which a war of words between a motorist and a bicyclist that started when the motorist wanted to turn right at an intersection but the bicyclist stopped ahead of him refused to get out of his way ended several blocks later with the motorist using his car to hit the bicyclist. According to police, the motorist claimed he only wanted to scare the bicyclist for daring to call him a "fag," not hit him.

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Comments

Calm down dude. This ain't your show.

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Joker from early batman episodes

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John Oates (Hall & Oates)
Got old..

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maneater...

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Col. Sanders?

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The correct answer is Jon Keller.

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It looks like Eddie Murphy playing Mr. White 30 some-odd years later.

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that's the best resemblance posted yet....leave the cyclists alone, Eddie.

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I'm seeing Burt Lancaster as Doctor "Moonlight" Graham

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Joe Piscopo playing Frank Sinatra

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Fire in the sky.....ouch!

Classic skit.

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His name is actually Joe. He's a coworker of mine. I learned about the incident from another coworker, who called up Cambridge PD after seeing the photo of him.

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none of you can recognize Stan Lee?

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That's totally Dick Van Dyke
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001813/

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Today I...

...saw a cyclist run a red light.

...saw a motorist texting while driving.

...saw a pedestrian jaywalking.

Now we don't need a 50+ comment thread.

EDIT: God damn it -_____-

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.. would be a fun game. Although quickly won, it seems.

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you mean quickly lost.

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...saw a Commuter Rail conductor not collect fares
...saw a fare gate left open at a T stop

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at night. But he did have lights.

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We want them!

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What does that mean "shouldered?" Can someone speculate on the relationship between his shoulder and the cyclist? I'm having trouble picturing how one could push someone on a bike with their shoulder.

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Sort of like this but with less arm action. (note: I'm not slamming police in general here, it's just the best example I could find quickly)

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though. Not only did he assault the biker, but he also falsifyied the arrest report. Thanks to camera's he was convicted, but somehow walked away without even so much as a slap on the wrist and let the tax payers foot the settlement bill.

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kinda of like shoulder check, but without the skates, or the ice, or the pads.

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Odd that "shouldered" in referring to shoving or hitting someone with your shoulder seems to have caught on, while whenever I am telling people about the time I saw someone use their fist to do something similar, people look at me funny when I use "fisted". Talk about your double standards.

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Or Football of your choice, even. It is when you throw your shoulder into someone.

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Guy allegedly shoved his shoulder into hers, knocking her off her bike and causing her to hit her head, giving her a concusion, as he strolled away.

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If Right on Red is allowed and you're unnecessarily preventing someone from turning, then you're a) impeding traffic and b) an asshole.

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Obviously not. No right on red allowed - as is the case pretty much anywhere in Arlington.

Nobody legally operating a vehicle is required to get out of your way anyway.

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What? Arlington has plenty of intersections that allow right on red. It's mainly the intersection in the center that forbids it.

You can turn right on red if you're coming up Mystic Valley Parkway going onto Mystic (and the reverse, going from Summer St. onto Mystic). There's no sign there that forbids it. It's forbidden on Mystic to make right on reds, however.

That doesn't absolve the driver, however. The bicyclist is entitled to be in the lane, just like a car. You wouldn't expect a car ahead of you to have get out of your way to let you make a right. Sure, both bicyclists and drives may try to accommodate right-turners by hugging the left part of the lane, but that's not required.

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You missed the IF before Right on Red is allowed in the comment you snarked about.

And, FWIW, I agree with both of you anons.

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no right on red? get out much? keyboard warrior is ignorant.

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was 'faggot', not 'asshole'. Perhaps the offensive bicyclist can be charged with a civil rights violation for using such an offensive trigger word?

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The witnesses said otherwise.

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...she'd be a bicycle.

Irrelevant, dude.

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Markkkkkkk?

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One of those lovely friends of his who still equate motor vehicles with virility and dominance.

Like that loser known for trailing cyclists on back streets early in the morning and blasting his horn because there isn't room to move aside for his specialness.

Actually, the article gives his name and address.

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The article give the info on a driver in the second incident. The person whose picture is shown was a pedestrian who shouldered the cyclist in the first incident. P.S. not that markk.

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We're getting half the story.

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The half where this became a police matter, and witnesses corroborated what the cyclists reported?

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then my wife and I are prison bound. If you ride your bike at either of us on a sidewalk or in a crosswalk, we're going to do our best to put your ass down.

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I believe it is assault and battery.

On a sidewalk you might have a claim to self defense, but don't bank on it unless it is a very narrow one.

If you are walking against the light, the crosswalk doesn't mean shit for you having any claim to being there. Get your ass on the curb until the little man appears, or expect a lawsuit and an arrest for your trouble.

You sound like one of those superlosers who jaywalks and then screams "red light blahlbhblbhblahhhhh" at cyclists proceeding on the green light.

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You sound like one of those entitled cyclists who yells at pedestrians to get out of the way while you're riding down a narrow sidewalk right next to the marked bike lane you refuse to use.

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Cute.

I don't ride on the sidewalk, with rare exceptions (construction, etc.) Then I slow roll unclipped or walk it.

The bike lane is easier to use when there aren't idiots parked in it, driving down it, or walking three abreast.

But you probably walk in bike lanes and where it says NO PEDESTRIANS and then whine when called on it. Like when one whole side of the Longfellow was supposed to be for bikes and the other for walkers, but entitled peds clogged it constantly whining their 'but reeeeedddd liiiiiiiggggghhhhtts ..." and "shuuuutrtt uppppp" refrains. Yeah. Entitled.

I walk around the city too - I just know what the lights mean, what the rules are, and what a "no pedestrians" sign looks like.

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When you're on foot, you're a perfect pedestrian.
When you're on a bike, you're the perfect cyclist.
When you drive, you're the perfect motorist.
And when you post on uhub, you're perfectly rational and civil.

And did I mention totally believable?

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Car: no collisions in 33 years (oddly enough, not even hit by other motorists beyond a couple of low-speed, no-damage bumper bumps)

Bike: no collisions in 44 years (two road hazard falls, but no collisions)

Walking: no impacts with cars or bikes in 49 years

I'd say that speaks to my competence in travelling the world. I can't say that is perfect, and the not being hit by other motorists or cyclists is likely mostly good luck, but I can definitely say that I've paid a hell of a lot more into car insurance than I have ever gotten back.

I bet I'm heavily subsidizing your motor vehicle fetish.

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The worst I've ever done is left my car at a meter for too long. The worst that's happened to my car is it was hit while parked in its parking space at work.

You on the other hand are going to have to do a lot better than 'trust me' given your...excitable personality when even talking about cars and pedestrians...who are apparently entitled scofflaws if they're guilty of the crime of not being you.

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At least buy me a beer.

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And what if I have right of way? I was crossing at a 4-way stop today, surprisingly all cars did stop for me. Except some biker decided that he wanted to blaze through the intersection anyways, missing me and a few other pedestrians by less than a foot. We almost certainly would have gotten the losing end of the collision, but would any of us have been justified if he somehow ended up on the ground?

Not saying that's what happened in the original story at all, but let's stop pretending like all bikers are perfect and anyone who disparages them is automatically a criminal.

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I was walking on the sidewalk and some other pedestrian blazed by me, missing me and a few other pedestrians by less than a foot.

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Except there are no laws about pedestrians passing each other. Bicyclists are required to, well, stop at stop signs.

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I've been screamed at by motorists for doing so when on a bike and in a car.

Here's a challenge: go to a 4-way intersection and make a video. See if you can go more than 5 minutes without a motorist running the stop sign. Count the relative numbers of motorists and cyclists who even bother.

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Funny you say that, because pedestrians are technically supposed to stop and check too. I'm actually curious now which of the three groups violates this the most.

Though regardless, let's just all use our brains a little more at dangerous intersections - whether you're on two foot or two wheels or four.

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In Harvard Square, pedestrians slam into you. My sister has bruises up and down her arm as some jerk slammed into her and knocked her take-out out of her hands (and all over her). No apologies from him, no nothing. When confronted: still, nothing. Some sort of completely unnecessary physical contact occurs nearly every day to me there. Somehow some people grew up thinking it's okay to touch - if not, assault - strangers. It's worsened over the last eight years.

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This question comes up frequently. A brief reading of the M.G.L.s and case law will help you out. I've done it for you. There's a little known sub-section of 168, c. iv., paragraph A. that says:

"If you haveth the right-of-way, partake of it. How so ever, if your right-of-way be impeded by horse, cart, buggy, or other manner of vehicle or walking body, then your right-of-way is revoked. The only manner of reclaiming your right-of-way is by directly striking the involved party but only if your vehicle is larger than theirs.

Case law in O'Flannery's Produce Cart v. Martinelli's Penny-Farthing (1889), from the SJC upheld this claim when Martinelli refused to yield and O'Flannery took back his right-of-way but upset the apple cart to do it.

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I'd tip thou a hapenny but I don't know how to insert it into mine own glowing portal.

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Do a search on "pedestrian hit at stop sign"

Note how many cyclists ACTUALLY hit pedestrians versus the motorists who hit and gravely injure pedestrians.

STRAWMAN

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So because cars do it, it's okay for cyclists to? I think you have the strawman there.

Let's all just be a little more careful of where we're heading. And yes, that includes pedestrians who blindly step into the street or don't bother to stop for bikes when necessary.

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Really? Do you yell 'loser' or f'ing loser at them, orhow about the F-word (homophobic slur)? Does this apply to anyone who accidentally ends up in a crosswalk?

Wow. Just, wow.

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If you are walking against the light, the crosswalk doesn't mean shit for you having any claim to being there. Get your ass on the curb until the little man appears....

Swirly, does the cognitive dissonance associated with your perceptions of bikes vs. pedestrians and cars vs. pedestrians ever give you a headache?

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You must be a masshole if the concept of people following road rules - including pedestrians - causes cognitive dissonance.

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I found this:

Why does that matter? Because crosswalks are a shield from liability. If you get hit in one as a pedestrian, it’s pretty much automatically the driver’s fault. Even if they had a green light, the crosswalk still protects you.

from http://bikesafeboston.com/post/58148423230/the-invisible-zebra

I'm curious to know how true it is. If true - it would negate everything SwirlyGirl says on the matter about waiting on the walk signal.

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They kind of outrank speculation by a blogger. So does information on a law firm website: http://www.bwglaw.com/pedestrian-accidents.html

Pedestrian accidents typically occur while crossing streets, but can occur while walking on the side of a street, in parking lots, recreational areas, and when cars crash onto sidewalks. Pedestrians can be injured by cars, trucks, motorcycles, or even bicycles. Massachusetts law favors the rights of pedestrians over vehicles of any type. Usually pedestrians have the right of way, but the right of way is not absolute. A pedestrian crossing a street in a crosswalk, or at an intersection with either the "Walk" signal or on a green light, has the right of way. Massachusetts General Laws chapter 89, § 11, provides:

"When traffic control signals are not in place or not in operation the driver of a vehicle shall yield the right of way, slowing down or stopping if need be so to yield, to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a crosswalk marked in accordance with standards established by the department of highways if the pedestrian is on that half of the traveled part of the way on which the vehicle is traveling or if the pedestrian approaches from the opposite half of the traveled part of the way to within 10 feet of that half of the traveled part of the way on which said vehicle is traveling."

TL/DR: if you have the signal or light in your favor, you have the right of way when using the crosswalk (turning vehicles must yield). If you are obliviously stumbling into the street against a red light, or just obliviously stumbling into the street away from a crosswalk, you do not have the right of way.

Pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way at unsignalized crosswalks. I have nearly been plowed down on my bike and screamed at in my car by oblivious/aggressive motorists when stopping for them. This part seems particularly difficult for motorists to understand.

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Always a motorist to blame when you stop. Always a pedestrian to blame when you don't. Nooiiice.

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Fixed that for you.

Given your ignorance/avoidance/disdain for actual laws, I hope you are still enjoying my substantial subsidy of your multiple vehicles crashed regularly out of aggressive entitled rage.

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You're in one of your moods again. Or I should more properly say that you're in your one and only mood again.

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Funny how you conveniently left off the next paragraph of the law:

No driver of a vehicle shall pass any other vehicle which has stopped at a marked crosswalk to permit a pedestrian to cross, nor shall any such operator enter a marked crosswalk while a pedestrian is crossing or until there is a sufficient space beyond the crosswalk to accommodate the vehicle he is operating, notwithstanding that a traffic control signal may indicate that vehicles may proceed.

TL;DR
The law applies to bicycles as well. See the part where it says "notwithstanding?" It doesn't matter if the pedestrian is crossing legally or not, you have to yield or at least give them room. You can't buzz them on your bike and squawk about your right of way. If you did that to me I'd knock you on your ass too.

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If you ride your bike at either of us on a sidewalk or in a crosswalk

Gosh, I missed the part where that happened here, and where the pedestrian's only option to not be hit was to "put [the cyclist's] ass down".

Here's a way to help you and your wife avoid fines, prison and higher insurance rates: if you are involved in an accident, particularly if another person is injured, and you could have avoided it by some reasonable and obvious action, and you didn't -- in other words, if you chose to do something that made the accident more likely if not certain -- you will get hit in the wallet at the very least. Are you really so self-righteously stupid that you think this is a good outcome?

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Last year, my wife was walking down the sidewalk when a bike rode at her head on. Her only options were to get hit or jump into traffic. She stood her ground and pushed the cyclist into a hedge. She got cut up and bruised pretty badly, but she was still standing and the cyclist wasn't. I'm proud, and she's not sorry.

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Pedestrians are the lowest on the totem pole in Boston. I know I'm going to get the lame ass 'cool story, bro' comment, but I will say it regardless: I am sick and f'ing tired of nearly being run down by cyclists when I'm in a crosswalk. My MIL has a bad back. She can't dash out of the way of cyclists who don't believe in stopping for pedestrians who are legally crossing in crosswalks. When she visits I'm going to walk with her and not sprint out of your way, so get over it and slow the fuck down assholes. We have a legal right to not be gunned at by dicks in lycra. And yes, the most dickish cyclists are wearing lycra! Typicall what I see in Boston are people who are dressed as if they just left work or are carrying groceries are dressed like normal people, as opposed to cyclists who are in their 'look at me I'm in my cyclist costume!!'

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Cool story bro.

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I'm guessing they do, since they're willing to accuse this guy publicly, but I want to know from which camera.

Without video evidence, the headline could as easily be "Bicyclist Rams Pedestrian, Injures Old Man's Shoulder".

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Such as the person who took the photo police distributed.

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No Adam. Either there were witnesses or there weren't. But I realize that journalists can't avoid that knee jerk reaction to add the 'A' word to their reporting as much as they can.

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No, I don't. If I had said something like "police said there were witnesses," would that be better?

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there were witnesses there, and can't determine such from other sources, then how about this instead: Just don't mention witnesses at all. And this constant use of 'alleged' as a descriptor, especially where it doesn't involve criminal actions or charges (which BTW is the intended and only legitimate use of the word), just makes journalists sound unintelligent and above the level of their readership.

For the record, in the early 1980s, I was considering pursuing a journalism major. Towards that end, I took some basic journalism courses. Most of todays 'routine' practices such as attaching "allegedly" to everything and "spoke on condition of anonymity because they're giving us confidential information" would have rated a D were I to submit it to my professors as an example of reporting. Then again, that was when journalism was taught and practiced by real journalists, and not the corporate lawyers.

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I didn't mention witnesses in my original post and brought them up only in response to somebody questioning whether there were any.

... spoke on condition of anonymity because they're giving us confidential information" would have rated a D were I to submit it to my professors as an example of reporting.

I also went to college in the 1980s (but at a school that didn't consider journalism a liberal art, so I couldn't take any classes - and now they have an entire journalism department, oh, well). I agree "sources" are often overused, but if you took journalism back then, surely you remember the Watergate reporting based on anonymous sources.

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Just don't mention witnesses at all

Exactly! Leave the reader wondering how the man's picture just magically showed up for the cops to hand out! That would have added to the comments nicely!

Also, if I had the time, here's where a link to a lexisnexis search would go for "time range: 1980-1989, keyword: alleged" to show you how dumb you are. You'll just have to imagine clicking the link and seeing thousands of articles instead. See, you're so dumb.

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Thanks for doing us a solid and staying out of journalism, anon. Have you also considered also staying out of commenting-anonymously-on-the-internet?

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Alleged anon commenter

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Yes, and either the cat is dead or it isn't. We won't know because it's still in the box. However, we could say that the cat is still allegedly alive, but we won't know for certain until we open the box. That's not knee-jerk. You don't know if the cat has died yet or not.

Not only are there allegedly witnesses (as in we don't know if there's a witness in the box or not, all we have is a closed box that police say a witness is inside of). But technically until their story is vetted they only allegedly witnessed a crime even if they actually exist and claim to be witnesses (and seriously, we're talking about a simple case of battery...I doubt we're going to need the life story of any witnesses and can take them at their word. I'm just pointing out all the ways you're wrong about whining about the use of "allegedly").

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Feel free to ignore if you're just here for the bike argument...

The point of the Schrödinger's Cat thought-experiment is to describe a system where the cat is actually both alive and dead at the same time.

It's intended as an example of quantum superposition working on a large-scale system. A cat is in an enclosed box with an aparatus made up of a Geiger counter, a radioactive source, and a bottle of cyanide. If the counter registers the decay of one of the atoms in the source (a quantum event), a hammer breaks the bottle and the cat perishes.

If the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum superimposition is correct, then the experiment creates a universe in which the state of the radioactive source - and therefore the cat - is not just unknown, but is actually undetermined - until observed. What constitutes an 'observation' is still a matter of spirited investigation and debate.

This thought experiment has been amazingly fruitful, with physicists coming up with many alternative theories that attempt to resolve the paradox of the Copenhagen interpretation - because trying to imagine a cat that is both dead and alive makes our monkey brains hurt.

I'll end this here because I could easily go on for a page or two just covering the basics of these, and that would suck when there's righteous bike/ped anger to be thrown about!

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Who came up with "bostonplans.org"? Was "planning.boston.gov" taken?

The anonymous registration makes me wonder if the BRA even owns the domain name. Maybe they came up with a convoluted lease arrangement.

https://who.godaddy.com/whoisstd.aspx?domain=bostonplans.org

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It's almost as if you commented in the wrong thread.

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YourArlington.com reports on a separate incident the same day...

Odd, I haven't seen Markk around for a while...

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commie!

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So sad when grown ass adults can't act like adults. Here's an idea - try getting over yourself and follow the rules. If you accidentally break a rule, say your sorry. It's really not that hard folks.

And this goes for everyone - drivers, pedestrians, cyclists. You are not special snowflakes and you know very well what the rules are and who has the right of way. People just think they are special and that rules don't apply to them. Guess what, you're not.

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You are not special snowflakes and you know very well what the rules are and who has the right of way.

Agreed with the former, not so sure about the latter. Certainly these comment threads seem to suggest otherwise, perhaps beginning with exactly what "right of way" is and exactly what it entitles you to do.

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that people don't honestly know who has the right of way. They know, they just don't care because they are jerks.

Cyclists know they are supposed to follow traffic patterns. This means that when pedestrians have the walk light, they have the right of way. Those that plow through are jerks.

Pedestrians know what that red hand means at a walk light - it means don't walk. People just don't care because they are jerks.

Drivers can see bike lanes and know what they are, they just don't care because they are jerks.

Amazingly most people know all this stuff and act accordingly. It's the jerks who make it hard for the rest of us and make the situations worse.

There are probably many drivers who don't understand the extent of which they need to share the road with cyclists, but I don't think that is the main problem. Most do know they are supposed to share the road but they are so impatient they think their own feelings are more important than road safety.

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I DO sometimes ride on the sidewalk, but in areas where there are rarely peds and the road is not sufficiently safe for me to bike. If I encounter a ped, I try to get out of the way as much as I can or ride on the grass, but I always say, "OH, sorry" to acknowledge that I'm in the wrong. People are generally cool with that (even though they would have preferred if I just stayed in the road.)

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We all gotta get around! Trying to make room and saying sorry now and then will only make the world a better place.

Kumbaya and all that shit.

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I need more people like you in my life.

We all make mistakes, we all bend the rules every now and then. 90% of the time if you admit it, most people won't care as much and will just move on with their day. The problem is 90% of the time...we don't admit it.

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Its amazing how those two little words can drastically change an outcome. We should all try to use them a bit more.

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Gary C, thank you for being courteous! For every entitled ahole on a bike that nearly runs me down when I'm carrying my groceries, a person like you restores my faith that there are decent city cyclists.

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IMAGE( http://img.michaeljacksonspictures.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/popcorn.gif )

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Hitting someone with your car is not an accident.

Pushing someone down is not an accident.

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I hadn't got my daily dose spelling/grammar/7th grade English class/Webster's dictionary correction for the day.

Seriously, calm down Francis. I was just trying to make a funny with the GIF since any Uhub regular knows that any bike thread always has a ton of comments. sheesh.

(and yeah you're right it was intentional, not an accident.. I've changed the title to reflect that. Sheesh.)

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Is the line. Sheesh. It's a classic.

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