A lot of cycling activists seem to think that “accident” implies no-fault, inaction, and helplessness, and that forcing journalists to reword their articles will somehow make things better. That’s a flawed approach.

Journalists aren’t in the business of assigning blame in their coverage. Unless one a court or an official investigator has made a ruling, doing so would open them up to libel lawsuits. Advocating for more vivid wording is pointless. That’s not how journalism works, nor is it how linguistics works.

Commercial aviation is now the safest form of transportation by far, having made tremendous improvements over the years thanks to implementing recommendations from accident investigations like the one I cited. The same can be done for cycling. Believing that language change is a prerequisite to improvements in safety is a harmful mindset. It would be better to redirect that energy where it belongs: getting the lawmakers and infrastructure planners to take action to reduce the accident rate.

In aviation, any unintended collision is considered an accident, even if one of the pilots crashed the plane suicidally.

If there is no bike parking, then just take the bike into the shop with you. If it’s a small shop where you can keep your eye on it, leave it near the entrance. If it’s a large shop, roll it around with you — it’s not much different from a wheelchair. If the management complains, tell them they’re being illogical and take your business elsewhere.

It’s generally accepted practice that you can bring your bike into any bike shop. There is therefore no need to lock up your bike to a rack. In fact, people who have the fanciest bikes probably don’t even own a bike lock.

You’d have to be willfully ignorant to not recognize the incredible population growth in Surrey and Langley. Smart development would have transit in place before the homes get built, so that the growth can be directed with transit in mind, rather than car-centric suburban sprawl, which is impossible to undo once it’s built.

Really, what needs to change is the anemic funding and governance model that has everyone squabbling for funding and priority. In Hong Kong, for example, the MTR Corporation gets into the real estate business, so that it captures the increase in land value in the places where it builds the rail network.

The people who make a Linux distribution for Apple Silicon Macs are proposing this convention for disk partitions so that multiple operating systems can coexist and be recognized by the OS chooser at boot.

If all you need is to adjust your derailleur, you can do it in a few ways without owning a stand:

• Look for a public bike repair station near you, where you can prop up your frame.
• Flip your bike upside-down. (Do it on grass or lay down some padding if you’re worried about scratching your bike.)
• For your rear derailleur, shift to the second-smallest cog, squat behind your bike, close one eye, and sight it. You should be able to see whether the top of the chain, the cog, the derailleur, and the bottom of the chain are visually aligned. Tweak the barrel adjuster until it looks aligned and take it for a test ride.

But yeah, having a repair stand is useful. If you’re looking for something super compact, there’s the Altangle Hangar Connect, which turns any fencepost into a bike stand (but it’s not cheap). The Topeak Transformer RX floor pump can kind of function as a stand in limited circumstances.