
Shocked by online comments, reporter writes profile of hit-and-run victim - gruseom
http://www.tampabay.com/news/obituaries/hit-and-run-victim-was-quiet-and-dependable-co-workers-say/1124721
======
jrockway
_Police said that Mr. Smith was following bicycle safety recommendations such
as wearing light-colored clothing, using reflectors and riding in the bicycle
lane._

This is a common misconception. Reflectors are worthless. Riding in the bike
lane exposes you to great danger -- car doors flying open to the right,
aggressive motorists passing too closely on the left. If you take the lane,
you're out of the "door zone", and motorists have no choice but to slow down
and pass you like they would pass any other vehicle on the road. You may feel
like you are being an annoyance, but annoying people is what makes them pay
attention and not kill you.

As for reflectors; they only work when there is a clear path from an
illumination source to the reflector and back to your eye. Sometimes that
happens, but more often than not, it doesn't. You don't need a $300 super-
bright rechargeable light system -- get a $5 blinky and throw an extra AA
battery in your seat bag. It may save your life.

Also, read Effective Cycling: [http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Cycling-6th-
John-Forester/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Cycling-6th-John-
Forester/dp/0262560704)

Please don't get yourself killed because you don't want to inconvenience a
motorist or buy an LED light. Oh, and get a helmet; the $30 ones are just as
safe as the $200, if not as comfortable.

I hate to be preachy, but it makes me sad when people die because they are
using a safe and efficient form of transportation. (And believe me, I am not
blaming the cyclist for his own death here -- the motorist who murdered him is
to blame, with a close second to poor city planning and the total lack of
bicycle education in the US.)

~~~
Confusion

      As for reflectors; they only work when there is a clear
      path from an illumination source to the reflector and back
      to your eye. Sometimes that happens, but more often than
      not, it doesn't. 
    

Firstly, reflectors are designed to deflect light into as many directions as
possible. A small beam in becomes a wide beam out. And they succeed
marvelously at that. Secondly, any reflector worn by any cyclist or pedestrian
will reflect ample amounts of light from the enormous amount of light car
lights send out. Thirdly, experience with plenty of reflector wearing cyclists
and runners tells me that you see the reflectors bright and clear, long before
you see the actual person. Especially cyclists without lights, of which there
are many here, are saved by the reflectors in their pedals. I've yet to
encounter the reflector wearing cyclist or runner that I didn't see until I
passed him. People I overlook always scare the living shit out of me and it is
quite comforting to experimentally verify that that only happens because these
people don't take any precautions to protect themselves.

It sounds like you are repeating something you heard sometime just because it
fits your argument, instead of actually having knowledge of the subject. Your
assertions are completely untrue and on a bit of reflection (pun intended),
you would see that, which means we are dealing with a lack of reflection on
your part concerning this tidbit of 'knowledge'.

~~~
jrockway
I don't drive.

As a pedestrian, I've almost been hit by cyclists running red lights with
reflectors. Since my eyes don't emit beams of light, I had no chance to see
them until that last second. I assume any cars going through the intersection
would have had the same problem, since the obstacle was to the side rather
than directly in front of them.

Reflectors do help make the cyclist more visible to overtaking traffic, but
they don't help with anything that does not emit light. The cyclist won't be
able to see hazards in the road ahead or other cyclists with reflectors.

I do agree that reflectors are better than nothing in the limited case of
overtaking or oncoming cars, but they're not as good as lights. And
considering how cheap LEDs and AA batteries are compared with the cost of a
bicycle, why are we even arguing about this?

~~~
jessriedel
All true, but the fact of the matter is that most visibility-related deaths
involving bikes are from cars that bikes, _not_ bikes hitting or being hit by
pedestrians or anything else without headlights. There are a few cases where
pedestrians are killed by bicyclists, e,g. NYC messenger bikes, but this is
small.

------
sliverstorm
The comment on the article reveals completely the lack of intelligence and
elitism of the commenter.

It may be wonderful to think that the people who man lower-end jobs are
somehow less deserving than you, and somehow should be executed. But without
those people filling those low-end jobs, our world would fall apart. No matter
what you think of them, you need them, whether you realize it or not.

And on the other hand, if the commenter was thinking "he will most certainly
be happier dead than working at that job", that illustrates that he has never
been in a position lower on the economic scale. While low-quality jobs are no
walk in the park, it is possible to enjoy one's self and take pleasure in life
without being at the top of the totem pole.

Either way, it is obvious the commenter is a fool.

~~~
viraptor
Or the commenter was simply a troll. You get them on almost every news site
now. Commenting on every article with something that will most likely cause
others to argue / start a flamewar. I'm not sure if that needed a response at
all. People not used to internet commenters sometimes give in too easily and
start feeding the trolls... it only wastes your time and gives someone more
chance to have "fun".

~~~
jacquesm
Trolls and griefers are a real problem, there is not so much that you could
construct that can not be destroyed by a small number of motivated people,
online as well as in real life.

Creation takes time, energy, intellect and inspiration, destruction can be
done instantly, requires much less energy, zero intellect and pigheadedness
will do just fine.

~~~
Herring
Trolls used to be normal people too .. <http://i.imgur.com/wOY9d.png>

I'm a recovering troll myself, so I understand the motivation. Most of them
are really just looking for recognition.

~~~
astrofinch
I troll on Youtube, generally because I'm curious how people will react.

I see trolling as being akin to taking absurd actions in an RPG just to see
what the game designers prepared for you.

------
brudgers
The article illustrates how local editorial control and not-for-profit
ownership can allow a newspaper to act as the conscience of a community.

Tampabay.com is the online portal for the The St. Petersburg Times. The Times
is one of the few remaining independent newspapers left in the US, It is owned
by the Poynter Institute. <http://www.poynter.org/>

~~~
SkyMarshal
Also, hat tip to PolitiFact (<http://politifact.com/>), run by SPT, and one of
the best political fact checking sites on the net.

------
TGJ
How aggravating. "I'll go through 10 people before I find another like him"
yet he will continue to pay the man 7.25 an hour. Everything you want out of
an employee and nothing else and you can't pay the guy better than dirt cheap
minimum wage and somehow lament at his death.

~~~
volski
Yea I'm sure the manager who probably makes 10 an hour can just start giving
people raises at will. How aggravating indeed.

~~~
jbm
Out of curiosity, do you feel that 10 years of loyal service should not be
rewarded with any kind of raise at all?

Even if he wasn't earning much more than 8 or 9 dollars an hour even then, but
it probably would mean quite a bit for someone in that situation.

With inflation, he was actually being paid less 10 years later.

~~~
sliverstorm
Odds are if the manager really liked him, the manager would have liked to give
him a raise.

However, sometimes available finances simply do not warrant a raise. Sometimes
higher management who does not know an employee says "why should we pay him
more, we can just find another Joe to do the same job", without knowing the
measure of the man.

~~~
electromagnetic
A lack of raises in minimum-wage work is the norm. I know people who've worked
in franchises for years who've barely been given raises (which are normally
cancelled out by a minimum-wage increase a few months later anyway).

Why don't these companies give raises? The same reason Wal-Mart fights
viciously to stop unionization; because higher-pay means higher-prices which
for bottom-of-the-barrel pricing means less sales. I can buy a burger at
McDonalds for a dollar; I have to shop like a pro to find the deals to get
burger buns and burgers, cheese slices, pickles, ketchup/relish/etc at a
comparable price to make an identical burger. Likely I'll end up spending at
least $2 to make my own burger.

McDonalds is making profit off of a food item that costs less than $1. Looking
at the economics of it, it's ridiculous. How many burgers in my lifetime would
I have to make to equalize the cost of using electricity/gas to heat my stove
top to fry a burger, and buying the frying pan in the first place, and the
bun, burger, cheese, condiments.

Not giving a raise helps keep these people in a job, it's sad that it has to
be this way (for more reasons than one), but thats what this world is.
Although to look in the back of most McDonalds if you found one competent
worker like Mr. Smith you could fire half of your day-staff. I've seen 3 good
workers turn out orders faster than when every station is full and there's 20
workers in a store, because when there's a lot of them they're inevitably
students and the managers are like 19 and endlessly chatter.

~~~
sokoloff
McDs doesn't have to make a profit on that $1 burger. They'll make plenty of
profit on the $1.50 soda or $2 fries that they sell alongside it.

------
mixmax
Not trying to be snarky, but why is this upvoted?

It's an article about an unfortunate guy that got killed on his bike and died.
How is this interesting? What am I missing? Since the article has 100+ points
there's obviously something I've sompletely missed. What is it?

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
You clearly missed the point of the article which was specifically to respond
to the insensitive anonymous online commenters who had dismissed the man as a
worthless nobody. The reporter dug into his life to give us a rounded picture
of who he was and why every life, no matter how modest, has meaning and value.

~~~
Sandman
I don't believe mixmax missed the point at all. I believe that he/she is
genuinely interested in what exactly 'gratifies one's intellectual curiosity'
in this article, to quote the guidelines. I'm sorry if I come of as rude here,
I am appalled by the insensitivity of those anonymous comments just like the
rest of you, but, like mixmax, I too don't quite get what is it in this
article that 'hackers would find interesting'. There must be something,
otherwise it wouldn't receive over 100 votes.

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
"Hackers" are not a monolithic group that share exactly the same interests.
Some people (hackers or not) might have intellectual curiosity about the lives
of ordinary people, about how a media organization responded (or, in other
stories, failed to respond) to nasty online comments, or about how a simple
news item (man on bike killed in hit and run) can be given layers of meaning.
Personally I found a great deal of stimulation for my intellect (much more so
than reading yet another item about antenna issues on the iPhone), but I don't
mean to suggest that everyone would see it the same way.

~~~
mixmax
Sandman is correct in his asessment - I completely understand the point and
context of the article as explained in these comments. I simply didn't
understand why it seemed to be interesting enough to gather 100+ votes. You
can call the original question an attempt to gratify my intellectual curiosity
as to why this story is so interesting.

Your comment sheds some light on it, personally I still don't see the value of
the article but I do see the sentiment for upvoting it. I merely thought there
was some finer point I didn't get and wanted to understand it.

~~~
gruseom
I posted it as "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon": a journalist
finds a decent way to push back against online abusiveness. The story isn't
really about one guy, it's about human relations and the value of human life.
In other words the real story is all meta, but the reporter had the sense do
it unobtrusively and keep the focus on Neil.

There's a secondary way in which this is an interesting phenomenon, too: the
story is being picked up by other media outlets because it resonates with many
people. I caught part of an interview with the reporter on CBC radio last
night. While they did talk explicitly about the meta aspect (what prompted you
to write it, what were you trying to achieve, how do you think the internet is
affecting people), they also had the sense to devote most of the piece to Neil
Smith. What the reporter figured out is that by focusing on the details of
this individual, he could make a general point more powerfully than by stating
it in general. That excites my curiosity.

Edit: There are two common responses to nasty online comments: argue with them
or ignore them. Most people figure out after a while that arguing just feeds
the trolls, so ignoring is better. But this guy came up with an innovative way
to respond: he elevated the thing that they belittled; he picked it up and
polished it off and showed that it was beautiful. He found a way to give
beauty for ashes. That's just not very common.

------
danielnicollet
Neil Alan Smith and all the other dependable and beneficial members of society
who try do good without making waves or deriving fame, power, or wealth from
it owe a great deal to that rare kind of journalism! I hope that my own
contributions in life can be seen as such positive as Niel's were. It's not
that simple to do good and be appreciated in life even for seemingly very
minute jobs like that of a dishwasher. Reminds me of the ferryman in Herman
Hesse's Siddhartha. Wise, humble, happy.

------
100k
As a cyclist I am familiar with the unbelievable outpouring of bile in
newspaper commets whenever a cyclist is killed.

Thank you to the St. Petersburg Times for publishing this article.

------
points
Um Why is this hacker news?

~~~
Sandman
I agree with you. I guess you're being downvoted because, according to the
guidelines, a proper thing to do when you feel that an article isn't HN
material is flagging it, not commenting that it shouldn't be on HN.

~~~
points
I was wondering if I'd missed something in the article, but I guess not.

