ROAD WARS on NBC
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Roadblock at 02.4.07 - 1:29 am
ok so lets see how this story goes... the nbc news at 11 on tuesday (I think) is doing a story on "Road Wars" (announced with a dark ominous voice in the promo.) it's about the "war" between cyclitsts and drivers. someone tivo that shit. I'm gonna be out riding.
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aye, we need a youtube o that shit, cause some of us don't have cable... I wanna see how they deal with this topic...
FuzzBeast02.4.07 - 6:18 pm
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I hate how our media turns complex issues into "wars": war on terror, war on drugs, war on poverty, etc.
Just based on the short promos and the inflammatory title, sounds like this story stands to paint cyclists and motorists as enemies, instead of two legitimate users of public roads that can peacefully coexist. I hope our local news doesen't end up escalating conflicts between bikes and cars in order to get higher ratings.
There's a contact email link on the KNBC website in case anybody wants to comment: www.nbc4.tv
angle02.5.07 - 6:42 pm
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wow couldnt have said it any better^^^^^
I of course will wait for the actual piece before declaring a judgement but just the promos themselves feel really ugly. like instigation ugly....
any one wondering why I didnt want to invite these talking heads to cover the toy ride?
Roadblock02.5.07 - 6:47 pm
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so anyone have a digital copy of this? I still wanna see...
FuzzBeast02.5.07 - 9:49 pm
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I just saw the promotion after the news this evening.
The actual piece runs on the 11:00 news on Tuesday evening.
Wild Bill02.5.07 - 11:56 pm
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ah, sorry, I misread that, I thought it had already aired.
FuzzBeast02.6.07 - 12:46 am
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On a more interesting press note:
NPR TOMOROW : NPR radio will be having a broadcast on Fixed Wheel Bicycles at 9:am . Or see Archive later at NPR.about Fixed Wheel Bicycles on NPR.org the problem is, I don't know which show it is called. Probably "All Things Considered."
Joe Borfo02.6.07 - 1:11 am
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The fixie NPR piece is on something called "Day To Day" - I just heard an ad for it.
I'm also trying to hold off judgement on "Road Wars" until I see it, but I'm having a hard time doing that, as you can tell.
angle02.6.07 - 3:01 am
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OK, I don't think this is it but I saw an ad about bikes and dieting....Has the War on Fat begun? Maybe it's just Fatwatch 2007. Whatever it is, pay no attention to the republicans behind the curtain...
420LaHaRR02.6.07 - 9:05 am
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Under the guise of "there's no such thing as bad publicity" I'm excited to see this topic being covered and so I'm going to hold off judgment as well for the time being. Having said that, the tone of the promo piece I saw last night seemed slanted on working the problem instead of the solution. I'll be TiVoing for sure.
Agent Orange02.6.07 - 9:59 am
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the type of people who bring us news are the type of morons you find speeding around carelessly on the west side in sports cars or escalades honking at you ignorantly not knowing anything about anything outside of their plastic little celebrity world. these are the people who can't comprehend that someone would actually
decide to ride a bike rather than drive a car. they think you're broke and lazy, not health conscious or environmentally conscious. they are the type to yell out the window "get a job!!" and speed on by. I prefer not to have them talking about issues I care about.... but that's what you get from the commercial media.... garbage in garbage out.
Roadblock02.6.07 - 12:10 pm
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ooops damn, I guess I made a judgement before viewing.... damn....
Roadblock02.6.07 - 12:11 pm
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Did you hear that guy who yelled "get on the sidewalk" at wolfpack last night? Probably a news anchor.
Thanks for posting about this show. It's good to keep up on how the NBC-digesting public might perceive us. If I see drivers wearing flak jackets on my commute to work tomorrow, I'll know whats up.
City Hobgoblin02.6.07 - 12:16 pm
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it's not cable yo, it's network tv. your standard tv monitor will have the channel frequency preselected [channel 4]. everyone can watch. but yes we should grab it and put it on youtube.
word.
GOpez
Eddie GOpez02.6.07 - 12:41 pm
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"day to day" what a load of shit on a shingle that show is.......
Roadblock02.6.07 - 1:22 pm
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Ha ha ha! Oh man, we non-Messenger fixed gear riders just got BUSTED on by that NPR "day to day" story! The pod cast is up, as is the transcript:
"It's that "look," says Vincent Betette, that seems to have caught on with the young and hip crowd. "We have a name for them," he says. "FAMS: Fake-a** messengers. That's what we call them. They got our bags, they got our bikes. It's a fashion accessory now.""
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7217570
City Hobgoblin02.6.07 - 2:26 pm
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I still think it's funny that messengers get all the credit for "rediscovering" the fixed gear... some of knew about them a long time ago because we studied bicycle history... and switched to them, not to be fake ass messengers, but because it's our mode of transportation, and for the same reason messengers ride em, less shit to break.
FuzzBeast02.6.07 - 2:38 pm
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It's not a bad story, but it's hard to capture all the subtleties in a short radio piece. Messengers may have brought fixies back for most people, but roadies have been riding fixies in the off-season for a long time to stay in shape and improve cadence. There are real benefits to riding them, it's not just some knee-jerk fashion thing.
That said, please put a brake on your bike if you're not good at skidding.
cabhauler02.6.07 - 3:03 pm
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so what are single speed freewheel riders consider to be?
superfish02.6.07 - 4:13 pm
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I tivo'd the news just to watch this. Pretty short, not much information. "Cars are on the road, people on bikes are possibly putting themselves in harm's way" got it.
monovsstereo02.7.07 - 1:40 am
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"Waaah, they took our bikes (which we took from velodrome racers of a hundred years ago) and our look (which we took from hardcore punk rockers of twenty years ago) and our bags (which we took from...OK, I'll give 'em the bags). Now we all have to go out and get boneshakers so we can be unique again!"
PC02.7.07 - 1:46 am
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from what I remember, while courier bags have been around for centuries, modern courier bags take many of their design elemsnts from postal/newspaper bags as well as linesmans bags (which are designed to access one handed.
FuzzBeast02.7.07 - 2:00 am
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That's it, I'm getting some panniers! No more messenger bag for me!
:)
But seriously, the "you're a poseur" game has no end and it's really quite pointless. We all get inspiration and make changes to our steez and our ways at some point.
Smile and keep pedaling!
cabhauler02.7.07 - 2:07 am
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Monica Rules! I had no idea that one of our own would be feature in this thing, let alone be the most sensible, reasonalble voice in the entire clip.
The story is not quite as sensationalist as the title implys. However, it seems like a terrible bit of irresponsable journalisim to quote a person on the street saying "bicycles belong on the sidewalk" and not get a response from anyone.
Oh, well.
All in all, I think this story is a net gain.
trickmilla02.7.07 - 10:21 am
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I'm not sold. the framework of the story tilts the cyclist as someone who is (unjustly) trying to invade the space of cars.... where as in reality the framework of the story should have been" cars are not aware of cyclist's right to the road and therefore conflict occurs." they could easily have recited the vehicle code on the matter... it's not as bad as the promos made it out to be but combined with the promos and the framework of the story it didnt help cycling's cause.... it kind of hurt cycling's cause...... as though we are yet another form of traffic threatening the morning commute. we have every right to be on the road.
one thing I did trip on was the 110 freeway being a former bike path project.
Roadblock02.7.07 - 11:27 am
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Well-spoken, Roadblock. I also thought that the only solution they really offered was to segregate bikes and cars with no encouragement to drivers out there to be more aware or cautious. Kind like saying, "Yeah we gotta deal with them for now but hopefully they'll soon be out of our hair."
They also mentioned riders who "run stop signs and red lights or ride against traffic" but basically pretended like a driver's shit doesn't stink. I don't know about how any of you feel about this but I'm pretty much sold on the idea that about 95% of all car/bicycle collisions are the driver's fault. I would love to see some kind of statistic to back this up.
For those of you who haven't seen the NBC piece, here it is!
http://video.nbc4.tv/player/?id=60821
.K
onethirtynine02.7.07 - 6:05 pm
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Like this one guy said:
"We've got more bike lanes and dedicated bike paths than we ever had before, and the Los Angeles River -- we're about to expand, along the Los Angeles River the bike path ... for another couple of miles."
More than ever before, yeah and one is more than zero, that still doesnt SOLVE the problem, it's like adding more freeways because there's automobile congestion.
And a couple of miles to the LA river bike path, that's cool, but how about putting paths on routes that, you know lead places. I mean it's really nice to have a route that gets you from NoHo to Downtown(ish) cool, now how about expanding, yanno, going east west, i mean for those of us who don't drive deathmobiles, our only option to get to Santa Monica or anywhere on the west side is 3 hrs on a bus stuck in traffic, or to ride a bike on roads with a "bike lane" that stops randomly for miles, in some of the busiest areas of the roads. Yeah there's more, sure, but that still doesnt solve the problem.
FuzzBeast02.7.07 - 7:02 pm
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Oh and the piece should have mentioned the CVC, I mean it is kind of central to the debate aint it?
FuzzBeast02.7.07 - 7:03 pm
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Yeah Monica rules, I liked her message the most (surprise.)
Coming in a close second was the hilariously uninformed "bikes are for sidewalks, not for streets." Thanks lady!! Got any more idiotic opinions for us?
I think Michael Clarke's quote "there is no sense of sharing out there" is way over the top -- Admittedly I don't ride Westchester to Burbank, but I'd say 99% of the drivers I experience on my daily commute are courteous and respond to my hand signals. Of course that other 1% can really mess up your day.
So I think the infrastructure is the biggest problem: no bike lanes OR sharrows. Totally agree with Fuzzbeast. And I think that city council guy is full of shit because I haven't seen squat done for cyclists lately (please correct me if I'm wrong.)
City Hobgoblin02.7.07 - 7:54 pm
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Although I'm much for sharrows (I don't like the "there's a bike lane so that's where the bikes belong" attitude painted solid line lanes bring) the real solution is beyond even infrastructure, which is awesome, (dedicated bike paths, if maintained, can rock... you get to see crap no one else does, plus they always have awesome fun little bridges and crap, amongst all the safety stuff and all that jazz) however, segregating from the roads entirely will never happen, which is the one issue I have with cycling based infrastructure. If people are riding more, which is always the case for bike paths, they get people riding, but not on the road, when a bicyclist has to ride on the road, say from their house to the bike path, or to some place where bike paths don't go, then the safety factor starts to drop. People become less used to dealing with bikes and the whole issue arises again.
To me, the real solution is education. For both cyclists and for motorists. For cyclists, it should be to know their rights as a cyclist, to know that they can be and should be riding on the road (with traffic!), and how to do it safely.
For motorists, it's the same thing, however it should also include teaching people how o deal with a bicycle in the lane, at a stop light (waiting so far back from the bike that the sensor doesnt pick up anyone there doesnt help much), when getting out of a car (no more dooring (hey that's an actual word)), and just general awareness of bicycles and how to deal with them.
As for people complaining about cyclists not respecting certain traffic systems, like stop signs or lights, maybe part of the issue is the traffic systems themselves. Civil engineers often don't design roadways with the non-motorized in mind. How many people, after waiting for several minutes on an empty road, have run reds at night because the sensor won't pick up something like a bike, and there's no way to activate it? Or running a red at a t junction when going straight? How many people have run stop signs? Say, when they're at the bottom of a steep hill, or halfway up, because, rather than taking braking and or climbing into consideration, especially on lower traffic roads, the one with slightly more traffic often gets the right of way?
The issues are complex, and neither segregating bikes to dedicated bike paths, nor painting a 2 foot wide set of white stripes nor all the sharrows in the world will solve them, there are other things that need to be approached, including the attitudes of all involved and the very basic infrastructure commonly used by all.
FuzzBeast02.7.07 - 9:14 pm
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Wow, lots of great commentary in this thread.
Here's what I wrote in the comments section at the KNBC site:
It seems to me that "Road Wars" was made with the foregone conclusion that bicycles can function in Los Angeles only by having them completely segregated from automobile traffic, and every interview and example was carefully edited to ultimately support that position. No other options were seriously considered. Davis, CA was held up as being a model for L.A., but after doing a quick Google search, I found that Davis covers about 10.5 square miles with a population of around 65,000, as compared to L.A.'s 470 square miles and 3,800,000 people. In order to completely and consistently separate bikes and cars, as in Davis, bike paths would have to cover a significant portion of this city, cutting through a great deal of developed commercial property, and be constructed in such a way as to accommodate a rapidly growing cycling population. I think the financial and practical likelihood of this plan ever being implemented is very, very slim.
Contrary to the tone of your piece, transportational cycling in Los Angeles can actually be a very rewarding, and often pleasant, thing to do. There are many techniques in urban planning, some of which have already been mentioned in posts here, that would ease conflicts between cyclists and motorists, and be much more viable for L.A. I hope that the next time you choose to film a segment on cycling, it is not as ill-considered and needlessly inflammatory as "Road Wars".
angle02.8.07 - 5:26 am
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Yeah, lots of good comments here. One small correction I feel compelled to put in regarding Davis: yes, they do have a lot of dedicated & segregated bike paths (that actually go somewhere) but there are also a lot of places where bikes share the road with cars and the infastructure has been designed with that in mind (bike lanes, bike signals, bike parking). Of course, it's an ongoing battle at times, but cycling is away of life there for more than just a few because of decisions that were made years ago.
mr rollers02.8.07 - 8:34 am
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That's interesting about Davis - I didn't think it made sense that cars and bikes could be completely separated there, although that's what the segment implied. Just another example of what an incredibly poor piece of journalism that was.
angle02.8.07 - 4:46 pm
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The media in this country is such a joke, from the national level to the local dim bulbs. Then again, they are doing a fantastic job of creating the society they and their commercial interests crave to develop. Mindless garbage for mindless zombies.
Jeronimo02.9.07 - 4:50 pm
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we should make this entire city watch "
Contested Streets"
It's a brilliant movie and shows how cities like Copenhagen have made major infrastructural changes to encourage and incorporate bicycles as a main mode of transportation.
redridinghood02.11.07 - 11:41 am
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Love us or hate us, just don't ignore us.
As someone has already posted - media coverage is media coverage...
No matter how poorly it was done.
BillyB02.11.07 - 8:22 pm
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the state of affairs in this country is that programs dedicated to "news" are no longer about facts and investigating all points of view to present an accurate picture of reality (if it ever really was), it's about embedded PR puff pieces imposed by lobby groups, celebrities and product marketers mixed with a somewhat accurate but uselessly long winded weather report and precious few bits of actual information valuable to me as a voter.
Roadblock02.11.07 - 10:11 pm
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In the end, I think its best that at least somthing is getting out there. It sucks that this piece is the same crappy journalisim that has kept me away from TV news for the last 15 years. In the end, though, having Monica's words out there, its kind of worth it.
The biggest journalistic gaff is the line where the narrator says that Monica "claims" that california law gives cyclists a right to use the road.
Wait ... sombody "claims" there is a law on tthe books and a major news outlet can't have an unpaid intern or an actual reporter spend 5 minutes verrifying that "claim"?
Thats absurd!
I just hope that a few people out there had their curiosity piqued enough to check out the bike coalition and/or find out the facts.
trickmilla02.12.07 - 11:10 am
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trickmilla man I'm on board with you brother. fuck cable fuck commercial news media. just by virtue of these companies including the word "news" in the title of these broadcasts leads people to believe they are getting actual educational information. so people trust it and take it as truth. but the reality is that these droids that write, distribute and speak the news are the very product of the decline in quality of education in our country. these people dont think critically about shit.. they weren't taught to. I mean look at these fuckin people... are they real? take away the teleprompter and these people wouldn't be able to talk coherently about much of anything relevant in the world. news anchormen are basically c list actors one or two rungs below soap opera and porn stars.
Roadblock02.12.07 - 11:49 am
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True True.
Unfortunately these knuckleheads have a huge soapbox.
Lets make sure they are aware of the disservice they are doing to motorists and cyclists alike.
WRITE THEM and respectfuly encourage them to set the record straght:
Here is what I just wrote them:
Your news clip Road Wars ( http://video.nbc4.tv/player/?id=60821 ) Contained some serious errors and misinformation.
1) Bicycles have a right to be on the road, not because that what Monica Howe "says" but because the CVC 21200 says so.
2) Your article quotes an unnamed person on the street saying bicycles belong on sidewalks. It universally agreed by safety experts (and backed by statistics) that sidewalk riding is MORE dangerous than street riding . Furthermore, it is illegal in some areas to ride a bike on the street.
3) Your reporting on Davis advocates a "separate but equal system" for bikes. But bikeways, bike lanes, bike routes do not substitute or disallow bikes from using the road. They augment roads by creating alternate routes that help control traffic by adding safer alternatives for bikes. By law and by practicality bikes and cars still have to interact in Davis and all other California cities.
Misinformation with a political slant is to be expected from most news organizations and frankly, doesn't surprise or upset me much.
However, when the misinformation contributes to and exacerbates a situation that is already dangerous to riders and drivers, that is a public disservice that could have fatal implications.
I suggest that you do a researched follow up story to correct the errors in Road Wars and help educate cyclists and drivers about the proper and safe use of roads by cyclists and motorists.
Thank You,
Patrick Miller
http://www.nbc4.tv/contactus/index.html
trickmilla02.12.07 - 12:03 pm
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Funny how you have that dilweed Moyer included in the pic you posted. Ever sincen that goober came on the air first in the 70's, I had an idea that he was a prick. That was recently confirmed to me by a friend who is in the employ of KNBC, stating that he was the worst person they have ever had to deal with there.
Jeronimo02.12.07 - 12:22 pm
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