I give up EUC riding..

[Xima Lhotz]

6 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

I imagine a native French person is someone who was born in France. 

 

6 hours ago, flass said:

I imagine that would be totally impossible to judge just by looking at someone (or being beaten up by someone). I imagine what the person who asked has on mind is the ethnical appearance (which is very different from being native-born).

Ding, ding, ding! Exactly.

The only reason to ask the question is to figure out if it fits (or not) the @LanghamP stereotype (ethnic appearance) of a "French" person.

For everyone else this was irrelevant, no-one asked this question, because its totally irrelevant! Looks, religion, heritage as absolutely nothing to do with how a person behaves.

We all know, there is only one reason to do that, to categorise people in groups due to physical appearance / heritage / religion and that is.... Yes, racism. 

[Xima Lhotz]

10 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

I imagine a native French person is someone who was born in France. 

Ok, as someone smart @flass posted before me, how can you tell? 

Unless you categorise people in groups regarding race, religion etc that coherent with what a french person is to that person?

Quote

There are many news stories in the United States about Muslin dominant sections of some French cities which have rampant crime and are even dangerous for the police to enter. These are news stories not opinion. I suspect that is what @LanghamP was referring to.

Ok, so i know that you are a respected member of this community but you took this to level 2.

Muslims? How did religious beliefs enter this thread? You brought that up, how come? With some logical thinking Islam as a religion has nothing to do with this.

 

Quote

@Pingouin's ongoing bad experiences seems so out-of-the-ordinary that it seems natural to ask if it's related to the Muslim people who are causing problems elsewhere in France.

This is just so categorising, stereotypical and wrong my jaw just dropped and my heart is pounding, "seems natural"? i can't believe this sentence.

Muslim people?! Its a religion not a person! Unless, you know, you have a stereotypical image of what a person who has that belief system looks like and then you are racially profiling...

What you are saying is that being Muslim makes you more prone to crime?! Do you even understand how many people you offended with that comment?

There are more than 1.6 billion people that are muslim and you just took it upon yourself to include everyone that have the same religion.

I am Swedish (born in Sweden to christianity but i only got baptised for the presents, so an atheist) (not that this matters in any way if i was born here or my religion) I'm personnaly offended (and many, many, many more with me) with your comment...

 

With the same thinking you have (although this only applies to islam and muslims in you case, why?), all Christian, white, rich and privileged people are dangerous to democracy but we all know thats not the case, same thing with all other people in the world regardless of race, religion and belieif:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/opinion/trump-democracy-institutions-destroyed.html

Biggest racist massacre by a single gunman in the world was committed by a white Christian man:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utøya

Don't get me started talking how not every white christian was included as a possible murderer (and a racist) after that (it wasn't even talked about), but when a muslim happens to be involved in some desperate act, every muslim in the world is included, and the news (and people) can't stop taking about Islam and muslims. Its so incredibly wrong!

 

@Pingouin

Im really sorry this happened to you, it must have been terrible. 

I really hope you get back on the wheel soon, and that this incident doesn't take away all the joy of riding a EUC. 

I'm sorry that i hijacked this thread (somewhat), but people need to be aware of what they are saying and how it affects others.

[WARPed1701D]

11 hours ago, steve454 said:

Many times I have wanted to yell at people riding bicycles in the street, when there is no bike lane, they are in the slow lane.  But so far I haven't, I just change lanes to the left and pass carefully, hoping they don't fall in front of me.  And there is a perfectly good sidewalk for them to ride on, but no, they want to ride in the street.  It's worse when it is a two lane street, then I have to go into the oncoming lane a little to give them room.  And I have had people walking in the street forcing me to go around them.  Streets are for cars and trucks.  Get out the way,dobie!  I don't want to be responsible for hitting someone with my car!  But I guess I am lazy and don't want to keep my attention level that high.  But I must, even though streets and roads are designed for motor vehicles, you never know what is going to be in them.  @MaxLinux I have seen some of your videos, and I know you are a considerate and safe rider.

Not to derail the thread...but you really think a cyclist who can easily do over 12mph should be on the sidewalk? Do you realize how dangerous that is for the cyclist and the pedestrians?

As long as the cyclist(s) maintain single file when a vehicle is overtaking and keep as far right as is sensible (usually 3 feet from the side in FL) then I see no problem with this. I am indeed one of those cyclists and I'll be in the road even if there is a shared use bike/pedestrian sidewalk. It is just too dangerous at my cruising speed of 15 mph to share a non-separated sidewalk with people/kids/dogs who change direction with no notice while gassing on the phone.

The roads in the US are plenty big enough for all who use them sensibly and respectfully. Please reconsider your attitude towards respectful cyclists.

[LanghamP]

5 hours ago, Xima Lhotz said:

 

Ding, ding, ding! Exactly.

The only reason to ask the question is to figure out if it fits (or not) the @LanghamP stereotype (ethnic appearance) of a "French" person.

For everyone else this was irrelevant, no-one asked this question, because its totally irrelevant! Looks, religion, heritage as absolutely nothing to do with how a person behaves.

We all know, there is only one reason to do that, to categorise people in groups due to physical appearance / heritage / religion and that is.... Yes, racism. 

I was merely wondering how the original poster choose what neighborhood to live in. On the face of it, choosing a place to live in simple; find the cheapest place nearest your place of work.

Suppose you have a family; by what conditions do you choose what area to live in? I mean, what do you define a good neighborhood versus a bad neighborhood?

[GoinPostal]

23 hours ago, Pingouin said:

Hi guys,

Some of you may remember my topic "agression on an EUC", well this time it happened again, but it went too far.

I was going to meet with a friend, it was about 8:30PM, on my gotway MCM2s, while I was on the bike lane, a black volkswagen car with tinted windows came out of her lane and tried to push me off the road, a guy screamed some racist comments from the window. My mistake (or was it ? you tell me) was to catch them at the red light and I asked them why they've done what they've done. They came out at 6 from the car, and started to fight me, I could have tried to flee but my EUC was on the ground because it fell when the guys on the back seat opened the door.

I do know how to defend myself, I even had a defense tool on me, but I judged the situation too critical to take it out, instead I tried to grab my EUC but I couldn't and I had to adop a defensive posture. One of the guys took my EUC and threw it violently towards the ground, it is now broken (structure, bearing, axle...). Fortunately I only got a few contusion on my two legs and left arm, the police are now investigating, I did have time to see their plate number.

However, in my neighborhood their aren't many EUC riders, I am very recognizable, and these guys obviously are from the area. For my own safety, I decided to stop EUC riding until I move in a new appartment in a new neighborhood.

EUC riding is not fun anymore for me...

Here is a pic of the broken EUC :

Dude.. where in the hell do you live? ?

You need to move to where people have some manners!

[Marty Backe]

7 hours ago, Xima Lhotz said:

Ok, as someone smart @flass posted before me, how can you tell? 

You can't tell. Again, I was providing a very direct answer to your question. A native born French person is someone who was born in France. How you find out if they were born in France is a different question.

Unless you categorise people in groups regarding race, religion etc that coherent with what a french person is to that person?

Ok, so i know that you are a respected member of this community but you took this to level 2.

Muslims? How did religious beliefs enter this thread? You brought that up, how come? With some logical thinking Islam as a religion has nothing to do with this.

This is exactly what I said, which I stand by. Please don't put words in my mouth or imply anything else that wasn't said. Since you basically called me a racist I must state for the record that I'm not a racist. You appear to be writing my life story based on a simple statement of fact that I wrote, which btw, was written to clarify a question you were asking of another user. Don't bother continuing your diatribe because I won't respond any more.

"There are many news stories in the United States about Muslin dominant sections of some French cities which have rampant crime and are even dangerous for the police to enter. These are news stories not opinion. I suspect that is what @LanghamP was referring to."

This is just so categorising, stereotypical and wrong my jaw just dropped and my heart is pounding, "seems natural"? i can't believe this sentence.

Muslim people?! Its a religion not a person! Unless, you know, you have a stereotypical image of what a person who has that belief system looks like and then you are racially profiling...

What you are saying is that being Muslim makes you more prone to crime?! Do you even understand how many people you offended with that comment?

There are more than 1.6 billion people that are muslim and you just took it upon yourself to include everyone that have the same religion.

I am Swedish (born in Sweden to christianity but i only got baptised for the presents, so an atheist) (not that this matters in any way if i was born here or my religion) I'm personnaly offended (and many, many, many more with me) with your comment...

 

With the same thinking you have (although this only applies to islam and muslims in you case, why?), all Christian, white, rich and privileged people are dangerous to democracy but we all know thats not the case, same thing with all other people in the world regardless of race, religion and belieif:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/opinion/trump-democracy-institutions-destroyed.html

Biggest racist massacre by a single gunman in the world was committed by a white Christian man:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utøya

Don't get me started talking how not every white christian was included as a possible murderer (and a racist) after that (it wasn't even talked about), but when a muslim happens to be involved in some desperate act, every muslim in the world is included, and the news (and people) can't stop taking about Islam and muslims. Its so incredibly wrong!

 

@Pingouin

Im really sorry this happened to you, it must have been terrible. 

I really hope you get back on the wheel soon, and that this incident doesn't take away all the joy of riding a EUC. 

I'm sorry that i hijacked this thread (somewhat), but people need to be aware of what they are saying and how it affects others.

 

[Paddylaz]

On 02/08/2017 at 9:38 AM, Xima Lhotz said:

Muslim people?! Its a religion not a person! 

Incorrect. 

Muslims are a people. Islam is the ideology. They are a people in the same way that Jews are a people. Both cultures heavily promote marriage only within the religion, which over centuries does indeed lead to the formation of a 'people.' My mother is Iraqi,  and a muslim, as is half my entire extended family. That doesn't mean she's religious. But she does identify as a muslim. Alternatively - Mark Zuckerberg is a jew, but he's an atheist.

And yes, there are very real problem areas that are muslim-dominated and potentially dangerous to non-muslims/outsiders to the community, especially unaccompanied non-muslim women. Such as Sevran in Paris, and Molenbeek in Belgium. The French government themselves classify them as 'sensitive urban zones.' And these are indeed areas that are culturally segregated off from everywhere else.

There was nothing racist about what he was saying, so I'm not sure why you felt the need for your emotional post.

Ps. 70% of France's prison population is Muslim (despite being only 10% of the population. Think about those numbers for a while.

[Chriull]

 

10 minutes ago, Paddylaz said:

Ps. 70% of France's prison population is Muslim (despite being only 10% of the population.

That's the bad thing of statistics - one can correlate quite everything without showing the real reasons. (if one cares to take "real" numbers at all...)

One could find other randomly choosen attributes which could have an influence, if one likes to.

What if poverty and uneducation is the main reason to be part of the prisons population, and just in our times many poor and uneducated people in france happen to be muslims?

I don't have any numbers for this - but what if 80% of the poor in france are muslim and only 70% of the prison population?!

10 minutes ago, Paddylaz said:

Think about those numbers for a while.

So after thinking about these numbers for a while my conclusion would be that this is something between meaningless and bullshit. Most likely just cheap populist bs.

At least as long as there is no profound studies that beeing muslim is the only correlating attribut and there are no other, better "clarificatory" reasons for this relationship.

If these numbers show anything at all, this would be a bad government/society.

PS.: Btw - after googling this line it could be quite possible that this is just some "fake news"... ;(

[LanghamP]

46 minutes ago, Chriull said:

What if poverty and uneducation is the main reason to be part of the prisons population, and just in our times many poor and uneducated people in france happen to be muslims?

France doesn't collect race nor religion data in either their crime or their birth records.

However, the USA does keep such data and makes them publicly available. My favorite liberal rag published a story a decade ago that shows what happens when you "spread the wealth", that is, by moving poor people into well-off neighborhoods. To the surprise of no one poor people bring crime wherever they go.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/american-murder-mystery/306872/

By the way, this article just looks at poor black people but poor white people in West Virginia also show high crime rates (and exceptionally high suicide rates).

I actually like the idea of eliminating ghettoes by placing poor people in better neighborhoods. I mean, it is a giant pumping action of taking water from a lower level to a higher level, and therefore does require some energy. I like the idea of social liberals having some skin in the game; if they're going to clamor for equality and fraternity then they need to be next door to poor people instead of secluding themselves into these all-white and all-Asian neighborhoods (which I live in, by the way).

And, yes, @Marty Backe was born racist until it was appropriately beaten out by public schools. Skin shade (and smell) recognition skills in babies are probably ways of recognizing kin, and babies that couldn't do that didn't live long.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1477937

 

[sanman]

Here's a recent article about a crime wave targeting scooter & moped riders:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40731485

I'd also seen another attack reported in the news recently:

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2017/04/25/teen-on-unicycle-victim-of-vicious-attack-thanks-neighbors-for-help/

So it seems like it can happen anywhere. I wonder if EUC riders look like particularly tempting targets for attack?

[Paddylaz]

3 hours ago, Chriull said:

 

That's the bad thing of statistics - one can correlate quite everything without showing the real reasons. (if one cares to take "real" numbers at all...)

One could find other randomly choosen attributes which could have an influence, if one likes to.

What if poverty and uneducation is the main reason to be part of the prisons population, and just in our times many poor and uneducated people in france happen to be muslims?

I don't have any numbers for this - but what if 80% of the poor in france are muslim and only 70% of the prison population?!

So after thinking about these numbers for a while my conclusion would be that this is something between meaningless and bullshit. Most likely just cheap populist bs.

At least as long as there is no profound studies that beeing muslim is the only correlating attribut and there are no other, better "clarificatory" reasons for this relationship.

If these numbers show anything at all, this would be a bad government/society.

PS.: Btw - after googling this line it could be quite possible that this is just some "fake news"... ;(

You seem to have spectacularly missed the point. The REASON why there are a large number of muslims commiting crime in Paris is irrelevant for the purposes of a prospective euc rider doing a risk assessment. Perhaps it IS due to poverty - or education. Or both. Actually it probably is.

The point is that it still makes an area that is completely dominated by such people more dangerous than one that isnt. Which is the entire point of this line of conversation.

Noone has made the suggestion as far as I can see that there is a theological explanation to this. Has someone? 

[WARPed1701D]

48 minutes ago, sanman said:

Here's a recent article about a crime wave targeting scooter & moped riders:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40731485

I'd also seen another attack reported in the news recently:

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2017/04/25/teen-on-unicycle-victim-of-vicious-attack-thanks-neighbors-for-help/

So it seems like it can happen anywhere. I wonder if EUC riders look like particularly tempting targets for attack?

I don't think the unicycle triggered the attack. It was just coincidental that he was riding one. This is another, albeit unlikely, reason for ATGATT. You take less of a beating with body armor.

The moped attacks in London are terrible and I hope the perps don't cotton on to a fast EUCs as being an even more agile way of performing these crimes. That would not do the EUC image any good. Of course most mopeds used in these attacks are themselves stolen for this specific use. The chance of one of these little bastards nicking an EUC and sticking with the learning process long enough to be proficient to use it as a attack/get away vehicle is low.

[Stan Onymous]

Sounds to me like a Scooter publicist stuck a couple of articles in the paper to sell more product or safety gear. Scooters will always be targets, because they are so interesting and stand out. Ask any big tall guy if he ever gets singled out in a bar to fight.

If they said "Rash of Vauxhal Vandalism" the informed Public might take notes and get some new tips.? . As a news story it is about an interesting subject, it involves danger, remains unsolved as to motives, and makes the viewer think they need to be concerned, or wait for the News to explain it later. It never gets explained. Thats the hook we use to keep eyes on the screens, or papers. If you got informed in one hour long broadcast, why would you tune in for the next hour's show? The Provacative stories like this usually give the viewer, reader the sense that the world is Mad, somehow lost and needs further investigation to make sense of it all. 

So there really are no more extrapolations than the common sense to watch out and be alert when you ride a scooter or park it somewhere. That applies to all of us doesnt it, no matter where or how we ride...

[sanman]

Well, I know that some people use hard-knuckled tactical gloves when skateboarding and dirt-biking to help them handle falls - maybe they'll look intimidating to an attacker as well:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=tactical+gloves+hard+knuckle&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Atactical+gloves+hard+knuckle

Or else contact a manufacturer, and get them to make a Brass-knuckles version as well 

Oh, wait...

 

Haha, if you're not safe riding like that, then you'd better pack a gun 

[Chriull]

5 hours ago, Paddylaz said:

You seem to have spectacularly missed the point.

no, absolutely not. I just gave my answer to your question in your ps.

so it was somewhat offtopic to this thread.

[Pagsy]

5 hours ago, Paddylaz said:

You seem to have spectacularly missed the point. The REASON why there are a large number of muslims commiting crime in Paris is irrelevant for the purposes of a prospective euc rider doing a risk assessment. Perhaps it IS due to poverty - or education. Or both. Actually it probably is.

The point is that it still makes an area that is completely dominated by such people more dangerous than one that isnt. Which is the entire point of this line of conversation.

Noone has made the suggestion as far as I can see that there is a theological explanation to this. Has someone? 

there is NOT  a large number of muslims commiting crime in Paris ... pleeeaaase ! simply NOT true statement

[LanghamP]

1 hour ago, Pagsy said:

there is NOT  a large number of muslims commiting crime in Paris ... pleeeaaase ! simply NOT true statement

Well, there was this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2015_Paris_attacks

Though that's not what impressed me the most. This interview did; the wisdom of a child dwarfs his father. Yeah, sure Dad...

 

[OneWheel]

Pingouin99% of the comments from people I meet are positive. Except for ONE biker he call me an asshole over and over gain as he circle around to talk to his bike buddy. I just ignore these type of people, just communicating with them is a brain dead situation I think that guy was on red *BULL* steroids with hormone Issues .

I attach a light chain lock on my wheel to prove that it is my wheel incase someone tries to walk away with the wheel. Wear extreme gloves to look tough.

Have great next ride...life is short

 

.

[flass]

10 hours ago, OneWheel said:

I attach a light chain lock on my wheel to prove that it is my wheel incase someone tries to walk away with the wheel. Wear extreme gloves to look tough..

I believe these measures are wise. I have a cable lock with a loud siren alarm built-in, and it is app controlled through bluetooth. which means that if someone would take my wheel and walk away with it a too far distance so that the bluetooth connection is broken, the siren will ring. Or I can just activate it in the phone immediately. But foremost I think it's a protection just by sitting there and hopefully keeps people staying off from wanting to steal.

[Pagsy]

16 hours ago, LanghamP said:

Well, there was this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2015_Paris_attacks

Though that's not what impressed me the most. This interview did; the wisdom of a child dwarfs his father. Yeah, sure Dad...

 

Oh please !

I can take any youtube video from CNN or FOX and say that a large number of American actually are racist or kill the unarmed black people or even don't accept islam.....

but I'm smart enough to understand there are bad & good people everywhere.

[Sven]

 

[CaptainKBLS]

4 hours ago, Sven said:

 

 

What does that mean legalize?  It's not legal in NYC?  I hope it's a pro EUC debate.

[Pagsy]

it is technically not allowed in NYC as far as I know.

[CaptainKBLS]

I guess that's the easy answer to everything in life.  Ban everything, sit and watch that screen.

[Stan Onymous]

The EUCs are legal to ride on the streets arent they?