...in the face by a University of Memphis student. You can read the full article which appeared in Friday's Daily Helmsman here. There should be a follow-up on Monday with the offender's name, that is if University officials have located him. Though it shouldn't be hard to locate a 6'5" 250lb man if you have his license plate number, unless of course you don't want to find him. I'm just saying that the officials have the pertinent information and it shouldn't take a week to track down a student. Is the University protecting an athlete? Shouldn't having had your near perfect basketball season record stripped away be enough warning that you shouldn't try to cover things? This is all speculation and hopefully we'll find out Monday. If you can't get to campus to grab a copy you can always follow up with dailyhelmsman.com.
In reaction to this assault we are planning a bicycle rally on campus in the near future. Details are still being worked out but it would most likely consist of an early morning (8 AM) moderate paced group ride around campus (Patterson, Zach Curlin, Central), an information booth on campus throughout the day, then another moderate paced group ride in the afternoon or evening (2 or 5 PM).
If you are upset about the obvious lack of knowledge of the law (especially from Keitra Jones who works in Police Services) the please write a letter to the Daily Helmsman here.
If you need to reference City of Memphis or Tennessee State cycling laws you may follow the links we posted last year: Cycling Laws... Again
10 comments:
this is not nice sorry zac and this is charles
Yeah that sucks super hard; sorry, Zac.
Keep us up to date on the bike rally on campus, Cort.
Ignorance is Bliss. Sorry to hear about this. Hope Zac's alright.
Holy crap dude, thanks for letting us know. Please keep us up to date on the ride.
Why did he get hit?
this is unbelievable. why wasn't there a story on any of the other media?
I spoke to Zac today. He said that the police brought the suspect in for questioning where he claimed 'self defense'.
maydaymemphis: I'd hate to say it was because he was riding his bike in the street, but I think that's it.
Suzanne: I'm not sure why other media has not picked up on this, hopefully they will.
I got hit on campus last month while riding down Walker. It was still daylight, I had my flashers on and yet some yob pulled a U turn in front of me giving me no time to react and I slammed into his rear quarter panel. I was about 20 miles into a ride so I'm hopped up on endorphines anyway and now I'm hit with a surge of adrenaline and I just unloaded on the driver John McEnroe style. I wasn't hurt, but put a big ass dent in his car. It was weird, I went to another place mentally and said some nasty shit which I subsequentlly felt a little ashamed of. Then as I'm yelling at him though his open window I realise he had been on his phone which sent me into a bigger tirade.
I used to enjoy riding though campus thinking that at least there should be some educated drivers that might be a little more cognisant of my exisitance, but clearly I'm wrong in this regard.
I hope they nail that asshole who hit your friend.
not that any of you don't already know this, perhaps, some of you have an even better grasp on the finer points of the law than I, but from where I come from self defense implies one is defending themselves not starting a fight just so we are clear. Hopefully the cops will do their job and arrest this turkey. And after they arrest him maybe the judge will throw his book at dude. Fingers totally crossed. Sweet piggy justice.
I've had simular experiences. In fact, I've had several with police officers (not physical) who were ignorant to laws, and couldn't accept the FACT that cyclists ARE traffic.
On the front page of yesterday's CA it reported a study that Memphis is the 5th most hazardous city in the US for pedestrians, so no wonder cyclists aren't safe when people walking aren't even safe here.
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