- August 1st 2014: Liberty & I were biking North on Hennepin going through DT. An officer was driving in the left lane, I in the bike sharrowed/right turn only lane. Officer slowly meanders into the bike lane, no blinker & slows his car so much that I needed to pass him. As I was passing him he had his head completely down & looking at his phone. We both stopped at the red light & I said to him as his window was down Who am I supposed to call when YOU are the one Im calling about? No response from him at all. I call 911 & give my report. - October 22nd 8:15 AM: Officer Erik (c?) Beard calls to discuss this incident. Come to find out he is the training officer who will be adding Bike Commuter/Safety/Awareness into his training after today. We talk for 45 minutes on the work I do, the best way to complain about incidents we experience & how we can work as a community to lessen the aggression out there. - Call. Report. EVERYTHING. 911 is there for ALL AGGRESSIVE Drivers, an officer can be sent to the scene. Gather all the information you have. Take a photo of the license plate, person, car. Write things down so you dont forget. Memory gets jumbled in times of emergency. I call on EVERYTHING: you ran me off the road & then jumped out of your car & kicked my bike out of my hands you blue & white cab driving insane person? 911. You parked in the bike land & didnt move when its blocks from my daughters school, on University heading East & I have to move into rush hour traffic with my daughter attached? 911. You tell me I dont know my bike rules & that I need to stay on the sidewalk & call me some sort of non creative name? 311. - Officer Beard was the most helpful man today. We talked about how positive preventative work is the best thing we can do as civilians & reporting is the next best thing. 311 is there to collect this data & create a pile of bike reports for them to see. This creates change & soon well have a good crew of officers that will be able to work with us when we show them we are positive, humans & not drunk kids riding our bikes around town. He was responsive in how to take the info I gave him & make a better awareness for training officers. THAT IS AWESOME. - Make your voice heard. He gave me the number of my Community Crime Prevention of my precinct. He advised me to work with my neighborhood in creating prevention for less reaction. What other actions can we take as a cycling community? How else can we make our voices heard? Thoughts? Discuss my friends...
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:58:40 +0000
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