I also submitted a comment. I like how theyre not approving any of them. Censorship at its finest.

If they want complaints about motorists, I'm sure that we can provide them. The Apex police department's non-emergency number is 362-8661.

I'm sorry for continuing this but I have to post this. If this needs to be a new thread then whoever is in charge of that feel free to move it.

I think the article that was posted on the Apex Herald is much worse than one might initially think.

This article is really bad because this is going to start making people think that they have some right to slow down to a crawl in their vehicles, and yell obscenities out the window tell us we have to ride single file, or worse. It is effectively drumming up the anger of the uneducated masses. The fact that we have a police captain quoted in this article speaking against cyclists only makes it worse.

I was on a ride today and that very thing happened. This guy pulls up along side of us with have of his mini-van in the other lane with traffic coming in both directions and proceeds to tell us we are breaking the law. On top of that, he stops right in front of us so he can make a right hand turn into his neighborhood.

Now I can't say for certain that this guy read the article and that is what spurred him on. For all I know, maybe he got some bad news that is going to die in 3 months. The point being, that this does not help. I'm afraid that with this type of "garbage" in our local media it's only going to get worse out on the roads.

I'm a firm believer that if you want to get something done you have to follow the money. I'm half joking when I make make comments about "driving truck loads of money up to local officials houses" but in reality, if one of us was very wealthy we could make a lot of waves on this.

The Apex Herald is a business and they have to earn a buck. That's where the advertisers come in. If you really want to see things happen then you lean on the advertisers that are decorating their site. You let them know that if they choose to do business with a news outlet that chooses to write this nonsense that you will choose to take your business elsewhere. And to make a bigger splash, tell them that you'll take your business to their competitors and reference them by name.

I'm throwing out the soapbox now. I promise.

Did you get the plate number and call it in? They asked us to report motorist incidents against cyclists.

I wonder if the Apex Herald is owned by the same people that own the not so News and Observer. That paper is a joke. It's opinionated reporting at it's best.

Tom G---how many of you were riding? where in Apex?

I was going to ride with the CSH ride this morning but after I read this post I said it's not worth the aggravation. Sad but true. The bike shops are going to suffer.

Note that the Apex Herald is (was?) a very small (one-person?) operation, and that
no comments have been approved for any of the articles that are listed on
the paper's News page.

Sounds like they need to get rid of the comment system then or hire someone to administrate their websites.

So they post a slanted article and you cant even reply to give a differing opinion.

Fail

it was called in.

i was one of the ones being 'spoken' to, and while the driver was angry / ignorant / dangerous, i would not describe it as blatantly malicious. he pointed out that he was turning into his residence and invited us back to speak with him...

i have done the durham critical mass ride a few times and they often hand out plastic business cards pre-printed with a bulleted list of 'rules of the road' straight out of the NC motor vehicle code...one side for cyclists and the other for motorists.

incidents like the above have me thinking about carrying a few of these cards with me on every ride. i was close enough that i certainly could have flipped one in this driver's window.

that said, i'll shrug off a little verbal abuse any day. a couple years ago a friend of mine was *shot* by an oncoming car (albeit with a pellet gun) between chapel hill and hillsborough. an immediate cell phone call to the orange county sheriff (with location and vehicle/occupant description) was met, essentially, with 'no plate? no help.'

be careful out there...

It's interesting to me that other nearby communities are interested in being 'bicycle friendly'. I'm guessing we won't see any of those signs in Apex anytime soon.



Encouragement: Cary successfully completed its first bicycle education video in 2005. The video highlights all of the Town’s bicycle facilities and ways to safely navigate them. It was produced in English and Spanish and includes rules of the road, route information and safety tips. The Cary Cycling Celebration is an annual event featuring beginner and advanced bike rides, a bicycle rodeo, bicycle education and registration booths, dislays and maintenance workshops.

Engineering: Cary requires bicycle facilities in the form of striped bike lanes or 14’ wide outside lanes, on all new or improved collector roads and thoroughfares. Cary adopted an updated bicycle parking ordinance in 2006 requiring all new development to install bicycle parking facilites based on a ratio of automobile parking. Cary implemented 100 new bicycle parking spaces in 2006 to retrofit existing locations with bike racks.

While I have been lucky to only have had a handful of encounters on the roads over the past 5-6 years, I know my time is coming. Especially now that there is a target on my back, thanks to this ridiculous article by the Apex Herald.

The next town council meeting is 7/21, 7pm. Can we get the word out that this might be a good time for our collective voices to be heard?