2012-01-25 03:50:38.713123+01 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
Shadow forwarded along UT San Diego/Wall Street Journal: More riders trying 'fixie' bikes with one gear, many risks, and I didn't think it was that important, but it's been sitting in an open browser tab, and...
They're illegal in many places. Laws in most states where fixed-gear riding is popular – including New York, California, Maryland and Oregon – require that bicycles be equipped with a brake that enables the operator to make the braked wheels skid on clean, dry pavement. Still, fixed-gear cyclists and lawyers in those states argue, often successfully, that the rider should count as the “brake” if he or she is able to achieve the same effect.
and I had a half-formed thought that related to that article on autonomous cars that I just blogged, which had a bit about the technical challenges to bringing these things to market and a huge bit about the legal challenges to making our driving that much safer and more convenient, and...
Today I had an electrical inspection for my shop. The city is requiring me to install motion and light sensors on my exterior lights, or to change them from standard screw-in Compact Fluorescent to something else. There's enough spill-over from the lights in the back yard that we can't go to bed with them on. Motion and light sensors seem only make it more likely that I'll leave them on. So I'm about to be out $50+installation time for some pieces that I'm just going to yank out when they go bad, if not before, after the inspection is done.
As I said, it's a half-formed thought, but I can't help but feel that these are all indications of flaws in our legal system somewhere.