If this were in America the comments in the newspaper would have been screaming for the parents to be locked up for allowing their children outside on bicycles in the first place.

I think the break down would go like this:

70% wondering “where were the parents?”

10% saying that the “Lance Armstrong wanna be’s” got what they deserved

10% wondering why their hard earned tax dollars are spent on bicycling paths if “idiots” and “suicidal maniacs” continue to ride on the street

10% bicyclists who try to talk sense into the trolls but are dismissed as “idiots” or “gay” or “liberals”

You got that right Frank – CBS, the NY Post and plenty of others would have been out there asking why any parent would let their kids ride a bike in NYC.

We need to change that!

I’ll add this: last year I talked to a news crew from channel 7 on the street for a story in my Red Hook nabe (I think they were asking about the rodent population, I didn’t make the cut) and after I was just hanging out and chilling with the camera guy talking about shooting video. It was a a pleasant talk.

Then, I told him I was a bike rider and his first reax after that was, “You ride a bike? Are you one of those guys riding down Broadway taking up room I could be driving on?”

J. Knecht, that’s not really true. Mass media in New York still takes a windshield perspective, but only a minority of New Yorkers own cars and an even smaller of minority use cars for commuting. The media perspective influences the general populace, rather than following it.

Laws should be more harsh towards reckless driving. In the States, drivers get away with murder, literally. Drivers who kill peds and cyclists might get a citation, that’s it. Especially, here in NYC. So if you wanna plan a hit, just run a person over with your car, done deal. How about making drivers pay $1000 for a safety class and revoking their licenses if they fail to attend or pass a class.

I lived in Holland for 10 years. Biked everywhere, not one incident. The law is always on a cyclist’s side, no matter how at fault a cyclist could be. NYC, different story. A large percentage of drivers are totally oblivious of their surroundings. I commute to Midtown from Forest Hills 5 days a week, I had so many near misses, was cursed at, called gay/lance wanna be, etc. And I do consider my cycling to be rather defensive.

To sum up, we need stricter laws, better driver and cyclist education, honest media coverage and just simple respect for one another. SHARE THE ROAD.

um, wow. That is incredible. Thanks.

Clarence, actually I have read this level of reporting. Brad Aaron in Athens GA for the Flagpole (in the South, which is hard to do this kind of reporting). Brad Aaron also wrote for Streetsblog NYC.

Also Clarence, the bus idea is good. what about an am-radio like morning program where you get call-ins from bus passengers discussing newspaper headlines and the bus trip. (travel times, delays, unruly passengers, or the positive vibe) Not so much digital but narrative on radio. Maybe would be a very fun thing for streetsblog to expand into especially with all the “smart” phones. dunno.

word

-jh

I am a pedestrian in nyc. I prefer any transportation over auto. But, I will say I am routinely avoiding near misses with cyclists traveling the wrong way down one way streets. Even with bike lanes. Don’t get me started on sidewalks. That said, and not to blame the innocent, to enforce permanent license removal on drivers is hippcratical without required licensing of cyclists. As a pedestrian I worry more being struck by a bike than a car. There’s just no warning, or regard for designated rules at times. Again, I’m pro cyclist.

Clarence,
Great post and a fascinating video. Makes we want to visit Holland again.

This morning while reading this discussion, I was listening to WNYC’s excellent weekend program “On the Media.” I think you and the folks at T.A. could make a good pitch to editor Brook Gladstone about this crazy barrage of anti-bike coverage over the last two months. They are great reporters of reporters, so to speak, and I would want you to encourage them to ask some of these questions:
1- Why is this negative coverage happening so frequently, at only certain news outlets? (CBS2, Post, and now Daily News)
2 – Why in the middle of the winter, when many cyclists aren’t even out there?
3 – Why is this one issue where the point/counterpoint style is not used (how often do you here cycling or safety advocates giving there take to respond to claims of “the sky is falling!”)
4 – What is the connection between commerical sponsorship (i.e. car ads) on T.V. and in print and the editorial approach of these media outlets?
5 – How is the coverage of street safety here in NYC different (if at all) from other cities, as we are a non-car owning majority city, a city filled with transit riders, walkers, taxi riders and yes cyclists?

Clarence, if you visit in person, there is a nice bike lane approach to the Varrick Street studios – Prince Street Bike Lane! Just watch out for the fabulous looking SoHo people hanging out in the lane! lol

Fondly,

Ben from Harlem

Here is Marcia Kramer and Randy Mastro’s latest Prospect Park West hit-job. It’s quite effective, no? I’m particularly impressed with “investigative reporter” Kramer’s total inability to pick up the phone and call any of the thousands of people who support the PPW redesign.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/category/video-on-demand-news/?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=5560195&flvUri&partnerclipid

Wow, with that report CBS now had basically declared they are for its removal with its extremely biased reporting this time. I mean not talking to ANY of the advocacy groups once again.

And how many times did they show that one clip? Seven times? Eight times?

Marcia is an extremely weak reporter. Someone has to counter this.

I’m no Dutch expert, but it looks like this is local news coverage from a suburban city smaller than Syracuse. Hard to make the parallel to NYC news organizations. There’s a lot more going on here in the big city.

Streetsblog Readers,

I submitted my story pitch directly to the Contact Us link on WNYC’s On the Media home page.

In addition to this, remember how many fellow blog readers have suggested contacting reporters directly.

The reporters are creating “reality” and presenting it as “facts,” even if we find their reporting work to be sloppy and one-sided. So, just as frustrated citizens need to contact politicians about misguided policy, so too should frustrated viewers/readers/listeners contact the editorial boards, producers, and ombudsmen at the offending media outlets to let them know that as consumers of their product, we are unhappy with their work.

Perhaps Marcia Kramer and the various Post editorialists assume that they speak the majority opinion, so what they say is true. We need to remind them that an ever-growing minority of New Yorkers are cyclists, but a far larger group is New Yorkers who walk. All pedestrians in the city are in danger every day due to aggressive turning, speeding, and red light running.
In fact, earlier today, while crossing 125th street, a man in an SUV nearly hit me (let’s say within one foot of my foot!) while making a right turn across the crosswalk (when I had the signal). I held up my hands, like “Don’t shoot!” and mouthed “Watch out!” He slowed down and flipped me off with a scowl. I was stunned. Only to arrive at the opposite sidewalk, the same man unrolled his window, gave me a menacing look and growled, “You’ve got something to say to me?” I was frightened and said nothing, but I imagine if I told him something about yielding to pedestrians he would have kicked my ass.

So yes, Marcia Kramer…the real danger is bicycles. Sheesh.

Wow. This is particularly meaningful to me, having lived through something so very analogous and yes, it was treated in exactly the opposite manner:

Three bikes crushed by a driver of a large vehicle. Minor injuries, lots of terror. The media and online “haters” blamed the victims.

Video and more here: http://bclu.org/20070511/

True, that incident differed from this one in that a protest/demonstration was involved, and the attacking vehicle’s windshield was fractured after the terror began and after bikes were crushed.

Background: During a Berkeley Critical Mass ride on May 11, 2007, an angry driver confronted the crowd with his “Huge American” car, coming right up to the demonstrators, and then slowly but surely accelerated into the group, pushing them bodily at point-blank range, catching one and then another cyclist against his bumper. The cyclists were pulled out thanks to others (that’s how the second cyclist was trapped). Terror came quickly as people were trapped and it appeared to some they were sucked under the bumper, and given what was happening people rightfully feared the driver was going to flee the crime, creating a bloodbath along the way. (That is why my camerawork switched from the pushing of the van, which was established, to identifying who the driver was, as his windows were tinted.) Although the driver thankfully stopped, the act did real harm, crushing three bikes and injuring two cyclists.

The police (as is the norm) exonerated him, even with the three bikes stacked under his wheel and even though he admitted brandishing a knife-like weapon on the crowd; the media was biased as usual (one station even edited out the part which shows the van driving forward, another got an interview by lying that they would focus on that most important part when really they sought a deceitful hit piece); and some even made accusations that the cyclists were fabricating evidence, protesting that the B-roll supplied to the media had two different cameras’ video edited together, criticising the camerawork for ignoring the action to identify the driver, and focusing on whether the broken window was deliberately edited out (one of the riders broke the window and admitted it publicly and to the police; this happened after his bike was crushed and it was not done to hurt anyone; the crack was small on the scene but days later for a newspaper photo it had become immense).

The police, with a long history of instigating violence at the rides, even claimed that the bicyclists lifted the van and put their bikes under the wheel. They waived off uninvolved witnesses, drivers, who supported the cyclists, and refused to take statements from the victims and refused to execute a citizen’s arrest for the victims.

As the videographer/legal observer, I was personally targeted by angry driver types who were encouraged to do so by misrepresentation. My phone rang off the hook that week and even a year later I was receiving harassment calls, so deep was the denial (and opportunism). A fair hearing of what happened was out of the question. Worth noting that the only reason we went to the media was because we anticipated a one-sided story. There had already been a similar case from across the bay in San Francisco which was conflated at length, and we thought if only there had been video of what really happened (driver attacking crowd), it would have been different. This videographer did get a very positive story in the media at that time showing that drivers do attack the crowd, but it was soon suppressed and taken off the website.

At the scene, a resident of the area said that surely the cyclists had run a red light (she assumed), and thus gotten what they deserved. She was far from alone as we found out in coming weeks. The idea that bicyclists are fair game to run over is that endemic! (Other residents were horrified and fair, to their credit. This was in a wealthy and insular part of Berkeley, a very car-dependent area where there’s a reason that “Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard” changes name to “The Alameda”.) Note that Berkeley is deeply divided by class and race, as well as politically, and that the separatist hills set opposes sharing the streets time and time again. Opponents even sued to stop a 4-block bicycle lane in the area that would have saved another resident’s life (he was gunned down in the crosswalk, speaking of being “fair game”).

There is an updated video which has never been posted, similar to the one linked here. The newer video incorporates a discussion with the police which was never posted publicly. It was created for the complaint process against the police, but the complaint was forfeited due to a technicality when the lead complainant didn’t show up for the (repeatedly delayed) hearing. I can make it available if it’s helpful.

I love the end of Marcia Kramer’s latest video stand up while she talks about how much congestion there is on PPW there is an ambulance double parked (hey, that’s fine) a FedEx vehicle double parked behind it, and ONE car driving for about 7 or 8 blocks. Probably less congestion than on any average NYC street anywhere.

Also here is what I would love to see, did CBS 2 get the entire clip of what happened after ambulance went by? I’ll bet once the light ahead went green the cars sped up just fine.

Marcia just hasn’t a clue in how to report, she obviously has lost her training. Here would be some angles of her to take:

Has she ever even asked or reported on what “Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes” wants to see as a better bike lane on PPW?

Has she ever sought out some transportation experts to examine the street design to see if it works? Maybe someone like Sam Schwartz who is well respected by everyone?

“I submitted my story pitch directly to the Contact Us link on WNYC’s On the Media home page.”

Awesome — thanks!