Sometime on Monday, July 7th or Tuesday (you know, the 8th) a very determined and irate dude went out in the wee hours of the morning and spray painted the bike lane  and sharrow between NW 16th – NW 20th and NW Quimby. What he wrote across the bike lane in  both a creamy pink and cheery orange spray paint was a very lewd: “FUCK YOU AND YOUR EPILEPTIC LIGHTS.”

I didn’t do it.

But what did happen is people that were commuting took photos of it and tweeted to Jonathan Maus who subsequently wrote about it on his very popular Portland area bike news and online resource site: BikePortland. You can read the original article here. And as with any internet or news article, there came the comments. . . and the commentators. I generally stay away from such things, but I was called out in the article specifically for my article that I wrote back in January 2013 called “All Lit Up” regarding this very subject.

I originally began writing an article regarding dispelling disability myths, but in the course of my writing, I began to bird walk into bike light data and safety. I have separated the two articles for relevance. You can view the other one here. 

Let’s talk about bike riding, driving and seizures. Specifically dispelling some misinformation regarding ideals that people seem to have regarding seizure disorders. While I was reading the comments on the BikePortland article, there is as much contention regarding blinking bike lights as there is helmets and wearing headphones.

Unfortunately bike lights border into an ADA issue whereas the other two do not. There was a comment on the BP article where a person asked several questions. One of them was: What it actually takes to get a driver’s attention? 

Let’s look at that, shall we?

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