This is America
Don’t catch you slippin’ now
Seriously, don’t slip. It will both literally and metaphorically cost you an arm and a leg in the states.
Ambulance in my area
Bikes: a transportation vehicle with health benefits. Ambulance: a transportation vehicle for the unwell.
Bikes are the natural enemy of the ambulance. A war between the bike clan and the ambulance clan is on the horizon.
Solution: Ambulance bikes.
(A show like Top Gear but for bicycles could be pretty awesome.)
It exists
It does not transport people but it is great for places with a lot of traffic to have a first responder on site quickly before an actual ambulance arrives.
This seems great for large parks and pedestrianized areas. This bike can probably get to a patient a lot faster than an ambulance trying to fit down a walking path. They can start assesing and treating as other vehicles arrive.
We got those here in NL, although they don’t transport patients afaik.
It would collapse on itself due to paradox
Nah, I could see it being pretty great. Reviews of new high performance bikes of all kinds, interesting challenges, builds. For instance, build and test something that will force cars to give you the legally required clearance.
Heck, they could even do a Vietnam trip and go down the Ho Chi Minh trail, which is a famous example of the bicycle’s utility.
Like brothers and sisters
The Ankh-Morpork Ambulance Guild strikes again.
Sounds like it’s time for Vetinari to have a word with them.
A hypercompetent autocract whose only concern was the perfect management of his city was the only unrealistic thing about Discworld.
It has to do with morphic wossname. On the Disc only one person gets to play City Skylines, but he gets to do it with infinite detail.
I mean kinda, but he used his authority very sparingly.
GDP📈
A new way to make money! Much easier than waiting for someone to need an ambulance!
Infinite money hack!
How the fuck is this “fuck cars” content? I hate cars as much as everyone here, but I don’t think we can replace ambulances with bikes
You, kind sir, deserve a reward.
Bravo!
The point of an ambulance is to get to the hospital as fast as possible, while have other people keeping the person stable. They also need to not leave the person exposed to all the various debris that is thrown up by fast moving vehicles. This is an awful idea.
It is “fuck cars” content because 1. the lack of proper bike infrastructure is what led to the crash, and 2. making road victims have to hire lawyers just to get their medical bills paid.
Maybe playing devil’s advocate here, but if it was the ambulance’s fault then the ambulance company’s insurance should be paying for all of the medical bills, including the ambulance ride. And the bill for the ambulance ride pays the EMS workers salaries and the vehicle maintenance.
The amount of profiteering in the medical industry is obscene, but I’m not sure this is an example of it…
I’m not a lawyer, but it strikes me that this could be exactly what is happening. The ambulance company’s insurance wouldn’t pay the hospital directly, they aren’t health insurance. So instead, the cyclist’s health insurance footed the initial bill. Then they went after the cyclist for his deductible/copay/whatnot. Now he has to get the money from the ambulance company. If this was vehicle on vehicle violence, he would have gone to his auto insurance, who would have in turn went after the ambulance company’s insurance, but he might not have auto insurance or auto insurance might not be willing to get involved because he wasn’t driving. So he has to go direct to the company. Wouldn’t be shocking if the company pushed off any non-legal petitions from him because he doesn’t have the name weight of an insurance company with lawyers on retainer, so now he is seeking a legal remedy. Insurance doesn’t just work always, there is often a degree of negotiating and litigation involved in these exchanges, especially if one party disagrees with another on matters of liability
It’s called a ‘for profit business’, look it up, people!
they couldve gotten way more than $1,800 if they hit a few more cyclists on the way. theres plenty of room in the back of an ambulance
Meanwhile in Russia(and pretty much rest of Europe): citizems get full healthcare and even foreigners get some of it. For free.
This is what happens if any foreigner for example breaks bone in Russia:
- Emergency, including emergency specialized, medical care is provided to foreign citizens in case of sickness, accident, trauma, poisining and other cases requireing emergency treatment. Such medical treatment provided by state and municipal healthcare organizations is free of charge.
Oh lol, America is now officially worse than Russia. Well that didn’t take long.
America is a third world country with a Gucci belt.
Sue them for 1 million. Profit.
Trumps america, not 1,800 3,000! It would be communism otherwise!
He was on a bike… it wasn’t worth abandoning the car
Look at the picture in the article and read the story. The biker was trying to ride past the ambulance near the curb as the ambulance was turning.
The biker felt entitled to do whatever he wanted instead of waiting his turn and got himself ran over.
It’s called a right-hook. Cars pass bicycles, then turn right immediately in front of them, causing the cyclist to hit the car. Quite a few cyclists have been killed this way.
Car brain drivers then blame the cyclist.
To be fair, almost no drivers are taught to look in their right hand mirror for cyclists or pedestrians when turning right. Their focus is usually on the oncoming traffic lane. We need to address things like this and train drivers better rather than expect drivers to clue in themselves.
Yep. And even though I’m also a cyclist, I’ve almost made the same mistake while driving.
It’s really an issue of the traffic design. For example, we tend to slap bike lanes just to the right of traffic lanes and hope it all works out fine. And it is fine…until intersections where cars might be turning…
What? At least in Germany, this is literally the most important thing in tought in driver’s education to always look into the mirrors and over the shoulder to check for traffic (pedestrians cyclists, …) before setting the flashers and turning right (or left).
For the most part in north america, drivers are only really taught to look for other cars. The only exception is cross walks and even then people nearly run over old ladies as they cross. Even in front of the police they probably won’t even give you a warning if you nearly hit a pedestrian in an intersection. I’ve seen drivers honk at children crossing at a deignated crosswalk in a school zone.
Kinda sad something like that requires explicit training. I live in a city with a lot of cyclists. I don’t even have a car, just occasionally borrow my friend’s during the few times I actually need one. And even I check the mirrors for cyclists before turning. No one had to tell me to, it just makes logical sense if you give the slightest damn about the safety of anyone else on the road besides yourself.
People would gladly run over pedestrians if it was legal. Cars do something to our brains that make us more selfish
You mean the part of the article where it says the ambulance “turned into him”?
You’re making assumptions based on vague wording in the article and your preconceived notions of cyclist behavior. You don’t actually know what happened.
I’m making facts based on the picture.
You’re asserting your view based on an ambiguity. The picture and story could easily depict the ambulance overtaking and turning into the cyclist. You seem dead set on making this the cyclist’s fault when that assertion is just not supported by the facts given in the article.
Most of the people in here are dead set on assuming it’s not the biker. So what are the odds that the ambulance was just passing the biker and cutting him off at the turn? I’d call it less than 50/50.
But move past that and keep going. If the biker was just cut off right before getting to the intersection, then that also means the biker didn’t stop at the intersection.
That means that at best the biker was partially at fault.
That means that at best the biker was partially at fault.
I disagree. I think a likely scenario is that the cyclist was riding close to the right curb, and was being passed by the ambulance that then makes a sudden right turn, turning into the cyclist, as the article states. How would that be any fault of the cyclist?
You’ve driven me to this, you monster…
Here’s the intersection:
No stop sign. The cyclist did not have to stop. Why do you think it’s more likely that the cyclist was attempting to overtake the ambulance rather than the ambulance overtaking the cyclist?
It’s very unlikely that the ambulance would drive by and turn right in front of the bicyclist (which would still show that the bicyclist didn’t stop at the intersection) and the article didn’t state that at all.
The article doesn’t state much, but you’re willing to make a lot of assertions about the situation anyway. In your last comment you said there was no way the cyclist wasn’t at least partially at fault. I replied with a possible scenario where the cyclist was not at fault. The bicycle doesn’t have to stop at the intersection if there’s no stop sign. I don’t see one in the pictures in the article. If the ambulance didn’t see or otherwise ignored the cyclist, a right hand turn directly into the cyclist is a very real possibility. That happens far too often.
All I’m saying is that there is not enough information in the article to ascertain what actually happened, and yet you’re very eager to blame the cyclist. You have a clear bias, and your conclusion, while possible, is not the only one that can be drawn from the limited information in the article.
You’re right, this fucking cyclist had the audacity to be riding in the road, which is clearly designed for automobiles. Pedestrians and cyclists need to stay in their designated zones, it’s not a motorists responsibility to drive safely. /s
In the road isn’t a problem if you stay in the lane where you belong. The cyclist tried passing on the shoulder cause he didn’t want to obey the laws.
This is one of the most American things I’ve ever read.
lacks guns and burgers but I’ll take it
The driver was distracted because he was eating a Big Mac while cleaning his pistol.
If only there had been a good ambulance with a gun.
If America the legal battle will cost the EMS a huge part of their budget.
Not even close. Notice the date it was posted.
That’s awesome! But as an outsider, the ambulance story still seems more “American” to me. There’s been a significant shift in how America is perceived here over the last 30 years.
I’m an outsider and I stand by the 4th of July vet shooting an eagle free story.
That made me swell with a sliver of American pride. Which is a pretty remarkable achievement this week.
150 shots with a .22 to hit the branch. I’m amazed he didn’t hit the fucking eagle.
150 shots to hit and cut the 4 inch (10 cm) of rope (I guess about 1/4 inch (6 mm) at least not more than 1/2 inch (1 cm) thick) between the eagle and the branch located 70 feet (20 m) above ground, so realistically 100 feet (30 m) distance with a rifle that is not his, i.e. without knowing the aiming point.
He didn’t hit the rope but the branch. If he was shooting for the rope he really would’ve shot the eagle.
Last Thursday, Jason Galvin used a .22-caliber rifle with a scope to fire 150 shots at the distant rope that was tangled around the eagle’s leg.
Yeah watch the video. It has a picture of the branch he shot down.
Ah ok. Interestingly, he shot the left part of the branch quite close to the eagle.
