This charge sounds like a real stretch to find something to pin on her. Based on the article detailing how a driver behind her saw other cars in front of her drive around the guy, it sounds to me like she was driving within a pack of vehicles. This tells me they were all going at about the same rate of speed, which I'm guessing was not all that fast since none of the others were driving too fast for conditions.

If she was driving to fast for conditions, then the other drivers must have been also as it seems they were following each other. no charges for them. Glad the officer is doing well.

The too fast for conditions is a catch-all when they have to charge you with something, but no other specific law was broken. In this case, the condition was the presence of a bicycle on the roadway. Unless he swerved out in front of her, which I highly doubt, she should also be charged with following too closely since this bicycle was legally in the roadway. Would the circumstances be any different if it had been a piece if highway dept machinery going slow?

Maybe...keep your vehicle under control at all time. ( or something like that)

How do we know the bike didn't swerve into the truck as the rider was struggling to keep his balance or something? We've all ridden bikes and understand the precarious balancing aspect.

Looks like Deputy Mark Benson is in good hands . Get well soon !

and continue, and continue, and continue...
cars and physics and bikes and law just don't mix
and narcissists don't mix with anything...

but you're just spitting in the wind. I would love--LOVE!--to ride my own very expensive, custom-made English racer (a Mercian) everywhere I go.

I'm not, however, an idiot or a fool. Being right wouldn't impress a car, or help a driver who doesn't see me or can't avoid me, for whatever reason. It certainly would not protect me or provide for my family if I got killed exercising my right--MY rights, by golly!--to ride my 14 lb bike in motorized vehicle traffic.

I've got responsibilities to and for other people, which means I must use good judgment in exercising my rights. It is a hallmark of maturity.

By that logic, Fiat, you probably shouldn't even leave your house then, since many of the things you do put you in more danger than cycling does. You're far more likely to die while driving your car, in fact. That being said, in 30+ years of cycling all over the world, Augusta is the first place I've ever felt like people were actually targeting me. It's a cultural thing; stiffer penalties for hitting a cyclist (in some places it's akin to hitting a pedestrian in a crosswalk) would make people take it less lightly. As of now, there's an attitude in Augusta that cyclists deserve to be hit - I've never seen that anywhere else after incidents like this. Accidents happen, of course - they happen in all aspects of life. It's just that in other aspects there isn't this vitriolic "he deserved it" nonsense that Augustans have towards cyclists. The answer is not to tell cyclists not to ride on the roads; it's to modernize the culture to be considerate of, rather than feel inconvenienced by, other people.

Ha! No, wanting to exercise does not make one a narcissist.
But you can be a narcissist and want to exercise.
Sane, rational, and humble people also don’t have any problems with someone wanting to exercise.
Know what sane people do have a problem with?
Being three feet from a tractor trailer going 65 mph.
Know what rational people do have a problem with?
Thinking the laws of physics will be altered because they have a RIGHT to be in the road three feet from a tractor trailer going 65 mph.
Know what humble people do have a problem with?
Thinking the laws of physics will be altered because, doggone it, you have the RIGHT to be in the road three feet from a tractor trailer going 65 mph and the mean old cars and tractor trailers won’t harm you and if they do harm you they are going to be in trouble cause you are king of the civilized society and if they say you’re not king and they make you think before you ride and evaluate the safety of the area you ride then it isn’t a civilized society! Reality conforms and bends to your will !
So, guy from a civilized society, you might be a narcissist, if…

Nobody is saying (or likely thinking) that this deputy deserved to get hit. What an absurd thing to put out there. IMO, you must have a very biased and skewed view of people around here to even think something like that.

Also, it appears that this collision between the deputy and the truck was AN ACCIDENT, and nothing even remotely resembling a targeting of the cyclist. Your anger and hostility over this event seems to indicate you believe otherwise and that drivers are guilty until proven otherwise.

You aren't helping the cause for cyclists' interests here, including mine.

Sure, I get what you mean about the increased speed of a rider helping him keep his balance, but it sort of makes my point if he has slowed down for any reason, he may have a problem with balance that makes him swerve. We simply have no way of knowing when a motor vehicle is passing a bike and they collide which vehicle moved into the other.

You think the woman may have been on a cell phone or something, but there are a myriad of reasons a bike rider can become unattentive as he works hard pedaling...if we are going to use conjecture.

No matter how liberals wish it were so, the laws of physics can not be bent. The legislators who wrote the current bicycle laws most obviously hate bikes. If bicycle riders were allowed to ride facing traffic, like all other pedestrian traffic, most would still be alive and uninjured. Argue with that! What you can not see will kill you!