"we're paying lots of their bills" - hunh, and I thought it was Wall Street that got that $800 billion bailout a few months ago. Granted, some of that money went to Charlotte, the new de facto banking capital of the US, but NYC is still home to the Goldman Sachs of the world. Maybe *we* are tired of sending billions of welfare for the wealthy to your island.

I'm glad you're proud of where you live. Maybe if you weren't such a dickhead you could see that others can be proud of where they live as well.

Let me see if I've got it straight, then... North Carolinians (or Southerners?) are responsible for the biker being shot in the head. And we should avoid people who are different. Right?

Wrong. We are ALL appalled at this biker being shot and his shooter's charge being reduced. And I am personally appalled at your razor-thin world view. Get a clue.

Though isn't the venue to explain why most of America is a trashed wasteland I wouldn't want to live in, Zeno, nor how living in stunts your moral and aesthetic senses, you might start with these bits of canon:

http://www.amazon.com/Suburban-Nation-Sprawl-Decline-American/dp/0865476063

http://www.amazon.com/Getting-There-Struggle-American-Mathematics/dp/0226300439

As for the illumination possible via my advocacy of parochialism: Is it not only natural that people are separated by culture, language, and geography?

You suggest I'm an enlightened genius for writing you off as different and therefore avoidable. But I see precious little evidence that universalism is the enlightened stance.

Incidentally I do think the story about Asheville's failure to prosecute for murder, belongs on the NYC Streetsblog, because we _are_ in union with North Carolina, we're paying lots of their bills, and their votes affect us. Hence the Streetsblog Network. But man, do I wish this all weren't the case.

http://www.qando.net/?p=3931

I live in this part of the country. I would like to know why I am awful. As awful as I am, though, I am thankful that I am not like the enlightened genius who made this comment.

P.S. fred, you completely miss the importance and relevance of all of Innocent Bystander's excellent comments. s/he is writing about how s/he sees bicyclists as typically perceived by "everybody else" (a/k/a non-bicyclists). Your (and others) failure to see this makes it that much harder to understand what is going on and how to address it.

It's why this kind of thing happens as the rule, rather than the exception:

http://www.thewashcycle.com/2009/05/more-on-why-the-virginia-beach-homicide-was-not-a-crime.html

Read this set of articles from Bicycling Magazine from 2008, "Broken". This is an organizing opportunity in Asheville, just as it became one in California due to all the deaths there:

http://www.bicycling.com/article/1,6610,s-3-12-16637-1,00.html

There is no question that laws with regard to bicycling as well as "accidents" resulting in fatalities, between cars and bicyclists and pedestrians need serious revision.

Thank you for illustrating so clearly why cyclists don't get more respect.

Lose the persecution complex. Stop engaging in hyperbole. Grow up.

'cuz to everyone not on a bike, the cyclist is:
- The loser who can't get a driver's licence
- The kid with arrested development who didn't read the "grow up" memo
- The loser who can't afford a car and probably (if adult and male) lives with his mom and dad
- The show-off who can't get out of "everyone's" way when we have something important to do (be it heading to an emergency or to the donut shop)
- The unsteady joker (ever notice how cyclists are portrayed in the media as weaving)
- The (if male) sexual suspect
- Doing something French or Dutch, i.e., un-American, probably cheating at it, too.

With apologies to John Lennon, "the n-word of the road".

For those of us who brave this, kudos. Diez's day will come.

And, I wasn't kidding about the racial angle even though it was two white guys (I think) involved in this. In the south, the overwhelming number of bike riders are poor black people who can't afford cars. (Though I haven't been down there is five or six years and am not planning any trips off the block) You see little dirt bike trails running along the side of the highway, cutting through the woods and the swamps. Yeah, North Carolina is more civilized (if your standard is Mississippi almost anywhere is civilized), and yeah Obama and all that but still. Black people, families, riding their bikes, even in rural areas, as a way to get to their jobs and the Piggly Wiggly, because they can't afford cars and are making the right economic choice, are subject to all types of harassment from people not infrequently firing off a shot in their direction but more commonly yahoos winging empty, and half-empty beer cans at them, yelling the old fashioned epithets at them, the whole enchilada.

And why do assholes do that? My theory is that it is the culture of entitlement that carries NASCAR daddies back to old Virginia, but I admit to not really knowing, its just a theory, you tell me. And, because they know they can get away with it and will never have to face that kid in the doo rag or that old man in a flannel shirt in July ever again in their social space of the New South.

While I loved Kendra's description of how hard Asheville is working for bikes and hope she has lots of success I hope she also includes in their outreach something for poor people. I would love to see the little improvised bike paths improved so rural poor people don't have to ride on the shoulder or in the ditch. I think they have actually planned an laid out a pretty well thought out grid for important bike commutation routes. I'd love to see some infrastructure money going into that.

NYC cycling suffers from a lot of the same problems. I find it so ironic that cyclists are seen as hated elite bourgeosie when in NYC to my naked eye there appears to be way more poor people, usually Latin American laborers, biking to work than anyone else. Granted, they aren't very recreational and our culture pretty much invisiblizes them as much as humanly possible but, even in Manhattan, there are a lot of poor people, strivers either too smart or too poor to waste their money on a car (or even a MTA Metro Card) who are on two wheels. Finding a bicycle politics that appeals to these people and motivates them to involve themselves in things, could do a lot to cool the spandex wearing bourgeoise image of NYC Cyclist.

So right now I see it as, entitled white guy, usually angry at poor people who dare ride their bikes, is outraged when he sees a guy riding his kid and comes up with an outrageous act of sociopathy.

I hate to gow Sharpton on you guys and I even hope Kendra and the bicycle activists in Asheville turn out to be black and maybe I have an activism flaw that always wants to draw more issues into a situation than are supported by the raw facts. And, as usual, I apologize if my opinions offend anyone. Nonetheless, if a culture of entitlement and privelege made this asshole think (though I'm thinking there is maybe not a lot of thought going on there) that he could get away with it, I know from personal experience what a lot of these guys think they can get away with, and how often race and ethnicity is at the root.

A number of reasons. Depends on whether the act in question meets the statutory definition. According to the post, the rejected charge wasn't merely "attempted murder," anyway, but "attempted first-degree murder."

Accomplishments made in 2008 toward Bicycle Friendly Initiative in Asheville
2009-12-31

* City Council passed the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan.
* Black Mountain received notification they received a $250,000.00 "Safe Routes to Schools" grant to improve sidewalks to the Elementary and Primary Schools.
* The city of Asheville Council agreed to take responsibility for sidewalks to Emma Elementary School and apply for a "Safe Routes to Schools" grant.
* Asheville received notification they received a $250,000.00 SRTS grant to help with construction of the Emma Elementary School sidewalks.
* A sidewalk and high visibility crosswalks were installed at Vance Elementary School on Sulpher Springs Road in West Asheville.
* Held a successful "Strive Not to Drive" event which included a mayor’s bike ride which included many public officials both city and county, UNC-Asheville participated in and committed to work to make our community more friendly to bicyclists and pedestrians.
* Taught a League of American Bicyclists "Road One" class and had 9 people successfully pass and two more private classes.
* Had one person become a League Certified Instructor and one person reinstated to teach safety courses. This gives us 4 LCI’s locally.
* Had five people trained to be instructors in a pilot program of LAB & NBDA called "Safe Cycling".
* Finished a pilot Driver’s Education program at Erwin Middle School to teach new drivers about driving around bicyclists and pedestrians. We held five classes and trained 150 students.
* Trained five individuals to expand the Driver’s Education program to more schools.
* Held our first "Healthy Buncombe Kids Safety" class at Erwin Middle School with their students in the Bike Club.
* The city installed shared use arrows "Sharrows" on South French Broad Avenue.
* Healthy Buncombe Coalition completed a successful "Downtown on the Move" program, installing routes signs for three downtown walking routes, a map of the routes which include restaurants and businesses when downtown workers can walk to complete their errands or have lunch.
* The Bike/Ped Task Force received a liaison from the Asheville Police Department and began working together. Set up a program of ticketing bicyclists who are not obeying traffic laws by running stop signs, red lights, riding at night without lights, riding against the traffic flow, and passing cars on the right at stop lights.
* The city installed traffic calming devises on Kenilworth Road and Kimberly Avenue.
* The Bike/Ped Task Force completed our update of the Bicycle Transportation Map, had it printed and began distribution of it.
* Healthy Buncombe received notification we received another "Eat Smart Move More" grant for our children’s Bike Safety program. We plan to hold four bicycle skills clinics in the spring of 2009 two of which will be in West Asheville along with a mapping program to encourage families to walk and bike more.

FWIW, here are two relevant NC statutes:
http://tinyurl.com/mbjwav
http://tinyurl.com/nceyfs

But could second degree attempted murder apply?

What surprises me is that the charge, "assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill", only gets you 20- to 25-months.

I hope they at least take away this guy's driver's license for the rest of his life.

I like that prosecutors need permission from grand juries to indict citizens.

Sometimes, citizens are d-bags, and miscarry justice. But far better the occasional grand jury err on the side of caution, than prosecutors be able to bribe the grand jury into indicting whomever they please.

The problem is that people in that part of the country are awful and not like us. We should have as little as possible to do with them.

I will not be going to Asheville, NC