How Many Bananas?

Last week, while out for a ride, I stopped at a Halal cart for a falafel.  It got me to thinking about how much the definition of "street food" has changed here in New York.  

In addition to falafel, hummus and those tasty chicken-and rice or lamb-and-rice dishes the Middle Eastern street cooks/vendors offer, it's possible to buy tacos, pizza, curries, waffles, sushi, various kinds of sandwiches, fried chicken, lobster rolls, crepes, salads, meat-on-a-stick and cupcakes as well as familiar fare like ice cream and almost anything based on coffee or tea from various trucks and carts all over the city.

It wasn't so long ago that "street food" in the Big Apple meant "dirty water" hot dogs (with mustard and barbecued onions), knishes and pretzels that were baked dry, then burnt on the hot plates the vendors used to warm them up.

Ruminating about such urban delicacies (as if I don't have better uses for my brain cells!) led me to recall the days when "energy bars" hadn't been invented.  Back then, we carried "trail mix" or other combinations of dried fruits, nuts (and, for some of us, chocolate) as well as other fruits--especially bananas.

In fact, when I was co-editing a club newsletter, we had a five-banana rating system for rides.  The most difficult rides, of course, got five while the easiest rides were marked with only one.

That system would have been entirely useless had someone shown up to ride in this:

From Extreme Mobility

A Story I Didn't Want To Repeat

One of the things my students learn--if they don't already know it--is that the same stories repeat themselves, whether in literature, the other arts, journalism or "real life".

As for the latter:  Yes, another story repeated itself in life.  In fact, it's one I wrote about just yesterday in this blog.  Unfortunately, it's not the sort of account I, or anyone else, enjoys repeating.  But here goes:

Another motorist drove into the back of another cyclist in Florida--in more or less the same part of the Sunshine State, no less.  

Frank Atkisson in the Florida State Legislature, 2003

Yesterday, I told you about Alan Snel.  He survived the ordeal, although he still has a lot of recovery ahead of him.  Frank Atkisson, on the other hand was not as fortunate:  The force of 26-year-old Kristie Jean Knoebel's car ended his life shortly after he was struck while riding at around 7pm the other day.

Although Snel's experience garnered a lot of attention among cycling advocates and journalists--Alan is both--it didn't reverberate through the general population the way Atkisson's unfortunate encounter has.  At least, his tragedy has caused the general public--in Florida, anyway, to take notice.

You might say that it's because Atkisson, unfortunately, died.  But another reason is that he served in the Florida House of Representatives for eight years, and was also a city council member and the mayor of Kissimmee as well as a Commissioner in Osceola County.

I don't want to trivialize his death, or even to seem overly cynical, when I say that his visibility to the people of Florida--especially to his fellow politicians--might be the impetus to make conditions safer in what is the deadliest state for cyclists.

Maybe, just maybe. We can always hope.  But for now, we can only mourn him--and be thankful that Alan Snel is still with us.

What's A Cyclist Worth? In Florida, Not Even A Fine

I don't think of myself as a vengeful person.  At the same time, there are people I want to see punished, or at least castigated, for their misdeeds.

Moreover, I have come to realize that you can tell what a person's status is, or was, in his or her community or society by the sort of penalty meted out to someone who commits a crime against, or otherwise causes harm to, that person.

Now, I'm not going to say "Don't get me started about drivers who get off scot-free when they run down cyclists!" because, well, I am going to rant about that, whether or not anybody gets me started.

Specifically, I am going to rant and rave about one particular cyclist who was so victimized.  He has survived the ordeal, albeit with a fractured spine and deep bruises.  He hopes to get back on his bike sooner rather than later, but he still faces a long recovery from the injuries he incurred a month ago today.

A 65-year-old motorist named Dennis Brophy, of Fort Pierce, Florida, was in the process of inhaling a "breathing treatment" when he drove his 2016 Chevy Cruze straight into the back of a cyclist who, like him, was traveling south on Old Dixie Highway.  Brophy admitted he suffers from sleep apnea and said, according to the incident report, that he was "blinded by the light" and "never saw" the cyclist he struck.

That was at 8:03 am.   The cyclist would spend the next two days in the Lawnwood Medical Center's ICU.  Meantime, Brophy went home without even a citation for plowing into the cyclist, whom he could have just as easily killed.

Alan Snel, after a motorist struck him from behind

That cyclist is Alan Snel.  Perhaps you know him from reading his "Bicycle Stories" blog.  You may also know, or know of, him from his extensive cycling advocacy, or from his work as a journalist in Nevada and Florida.  It seems, though, that to Florida law enforcement officials, he was--as he says--"collateral damage", or simply someone who got in the way of a motorist who couldn't be bothered to swerve a couple of feet out of his way.

Alan's bicycle

Although I have had some very pleasant experiences of cycling in Florida, I also realized that it is a very auto-centric place.  From what I have seen, I would guess that the vast majority of cyclists are adults, many of--as we say--"a certain age".  Yet, too often, people entrusted to uphold the law and support public safety seem to see cyclists as people who won't grow up and drive and who therefore "bring it on themselves" when they are endangered or, worse, injured or killed by motorists.

Alan's helmet

I was not surprised to learn that more cyclists are killed by motorists, in proportion to the population, in Florida than in any other state.  Furthermore, in every year since 2010, Florida's rate has been around 50 percent higher than the second-deadliest state in each of those years: Louisiana.  And in most of those cases, like Snel's, the driver faced minor or no charges.

Alan, in better times

As Snel recovers, he still needs money to cover living and other expenses.  So, friends and other supporters have started a YouCaring fundraiser for him.