CrankyOne

Fixed it for ya :-)

rydabent

What is doubly maddening about incidents like this is it is called an accident. It was no damned accident that out on an open road a person is killed.

Mvcrash

I'm sure it was an accident On purposes are called Murder. A few years back NJ changed the NJTR-1 from "NJTR-1 Accident Report" to "NJTR-1 Collision Report" due to the fact that we have very liberal jurors who noticed the report said "accident" but the manner of death indicated homicide.

kickstart

Did you look at the location in the links provided? I'm pro infrastructure, but how can one seriously suggest that it can possibly be everywhere.

kickstart

White line fever?
In conditions where there is little or nothing to challenge or engage a driver, they can zone out or get lost in other thoughts and not see/comprehend something right in front of them. Not an excuse, but it does happen.

genec

It can't. No one I know of has ever seriously suggested infrastructure can be everywhere. To suggest such is a blatent false hood.

However, if a road is there, one might ask why a bit more pavement couldn't be added for a shoulder... or why the speed limit on such a road (narrow two lane blacktop) is 60MPH.

But the fact is, cycling infrastructure can't be everywhere, and never will be... And it is even less likely to occur between rural towns. And it certainly doesn't belong on 25MPH residential streets.

Of course one might also ask... why is it that drivers somehow insist on hitting things that are right in front of them. Rule number one for any road user...

LGHT

Wow a sad thing to read. I agree it may have been an "accident", but if she was cleaning her firearm at home and it went off by "accident" and the bullet struck and killed a neighbor in their yard I'm sure charges would have been filled regardless of age. How could they not find negligence in an 82 year old killing a person while driving? If she was 42 and drunk wouldn't it be negligence?

People need to realize a vehicle is just as much a weapon as a firearm if used incorrectly and in my opinion anyone over 80 probably isn't fit to drive a vehicle on a highway.

kickstart

There are roads like that in Texas, Utah, and other place with 70 mph speed limits, they are essentially freeways for areas with very low population density and long distances between towns. Its easy for urbanities to forget there's hundreds of thousands of miles of rural roads like that.
Crankyones post seems to imply that the incident wouldn't have happened if there was segregated infrastructure which suggests it could be everywhere.

CrankyOne

No, can't have segregated infrastructure everywhere nor is it needed everywhere. However, ...

Had there been a segregated path here then this guy would not have been killed. Had there been advisory lanes he likely would not have been killed. Had there been a shoulder he likely would not have been killed.

There are either fully segregated paths or advisory lanes connecting nearly every town, village, city, and settlement throughout The Netherlands. It is possible. The Netherlands is a bit more dense but this location is not in the middle of nowhere. It's less than 5 miles from Palmyra, 4 from Douglas, and 14 from Lincoln.

On the side... My guess is that these towns like similar small towns throughout the U.S. are loosing population to larger cities. If they had amenities that were attractive to younger folk might they be able to reverse their decline? If people could safely ride their bike to Lincoln might some choose to live in these communities rather than in Lincoln? Might people who live in Lincoln, Omaha, and other nearby cities choose to go for leisure rides through these communities and stop in them for meals or snacks? Minnesota has dozens of communities who have benefited greatly from bicycle tourism brought on by safe and comfortable infrastructure just like The Netherlands.

It's easy to say that we can't do something. But what if we can?

Rollfast

DUDEZ...

I looked at pictures of that area and it's ground zero for country music videos...

Call an accident an accident once in a great while. That lady is scarred for what is left of her life.

I've been trying to figure out how to say this for two days now and all I can come up with is why was he on this sort of road with such a bike?

It's not cool at all that he's dead. Some of the local comments were awfully close to the reality of it probably. One person wondered how he had escaped accidents before as he'd been in other near misses.

Are the rash of accidents connected? No, seriously doubt that anything but good weather and lack of some caution caused these accidents. Posting the prosecutors phone number was only a sign of anger and a bit irrational. Are we supposed to convince then that they are not doing their job right?

I know you are anguished, but step back a minute and regroup. You have a story from a newspaper and I don't have a clue if it was at a hill or some other poor visibility are, maybe the sun was over the horizon, not much except that she hit him. It's really hard to present a case with so little to go on.

dynodonn 

Upon further reviewing, the 60 mph two lane road turns into a undivided pot holed road of 35 mph in a matter of feet after entering the small community just South of where the cyclist was hit, and I suspect that this two lane 60 mph road initially was similar to the one that goes through the small community, with motorists only being able to travel a much lower speeds.

snow_echo_NY

f**k

my thoughts go out to Mr. Zech's family and friends. unbelievably horrid.

genec

A lot of roads like that at least have a shoulder, here is a typical Texas road that does have a shoulder...



And then there are other roads like this...


A while back here in San Diego county... there was a public meeting to ask for funding to add shoulders to those latter types of roads... to make it easier to pass slower vehicles, to add a place where a vehicle could pull off the road and to make it easier for emergency services to access certain areas... and yes, to allow for cyclists to be able to ride without being in the traveled way. The citizens didn't think any of those reasons was good enough to cough up the funding required. So cyclists still have narrow two lane black top roads to ride... and motorists still have to keep a strong watch to avoid hitting things directly in front of their vehicles.

That means motorists have to exercise caution...
when cresting hills,
rounding curves and the like...
and driving under the posted speed limit.

^^^^^^
you just know they are going to do all that... right?

kickstart

You do understand that it would take unimaginable resources and many generations to accomplish what you're suggesting even if it was our #1 priority. Focusing on isolated incidents as a reason for sweeping changes rather than focusing on changes that can be realistically accomplished isn't doing anybody any good.
Reading the posts of some VC and infrastructure proponents gives the impression nothing will ever be good enough so why even bother.

genec

You do understand that at one time about 110 years ago, there were very few paved roads in America, certainly no interstate freeways, and certainly no 60 or 70 MPH speed limits... all that has come about in the last 110 years or so... if we want or expect any changes that promote cycling, there is no time like the present to begin.

kickstart

Begin?
Its already in progress.

no motor?

Does the light work as well as you hoped?

CrankyOne

If traffic is low enough, which it often is on these roads, then advisory lanes can work OK.

ItsJustMe

I believe so. It's very solid. I have to be careful to remember to turn it down at night, it's way too bright on high when it's dark out.

ItsJustMe

I have to laugh at the suggestion that we would get the money to put bike lanes on every mile of country road.

Heck, the roads I ride on are between bedroom communities in SE Michigan, they're not even the desolate roads of the west, and I'm absolutely THRILLED that they're actually repaving some of the roads here that are so horrible that there's actually not even a single path through the lane that doesn't hit a hole or a patch. The thought of a shoulder too is like an unreachable dream.

dynodonn 

Remember, as the road conditions improve for a cyclist, they usually improve for motorists as well, as a cyclist's travel speed ability goes up, so does the motorist's, and generally the speed increases are not linear, since motorists only have to push the accelerator pedal just slightly more.

dynodonn 

It seems that the road that the cyclist in question was riding on, was only an 8 mile stretch of paved road that connects two small communities. As I suspected, on either end of this paved stretch of road, it reverts to a gravel roadway that makes 60 or more mph travel much more difficult. Basically, the state DOT just paved the gravel roadway to the width of two standard traffic lanes, posted a 60 mph speed limit, and not much else.

Dave Cutter

I think people who are unfamiliar with such deaths don't realize how these traumatic events... affect the elderly. There are exceptions of course... but in most cases the woman won't live long enough to have ever made it to court anyway. It is just sad... all the way around. Some things in life are like that.

ItsJustMe

Not so much on these roads. People drive 60 on the 50 limit road regardless of conditions. I'm just happy that I'm probably going to get a few fewer pinch flats every year. The first month that I rode my new road bike on the roads I'd been on for years, I got probably 6 flats in that month. I eventually learned to ride wherever in the lane I had to in order to avoid potholes and gulches in the pavement. Even so I still get a pinch flat once every 6 to 8 weeks. I almost never get a puncture, all my flats are due to bad roads.

They're not bad enough to bother cars though. You can watch the cars hit the torn up bits at 60 MPH and every time one does, another bit of gravel or asphalt gets bashed out of the pavement, making it a little worse.

ItsJustMe

60 MPH on gravel is pretty much standard here. If I drop speed when I get to gravel when driving, I have people all up in my business trying to pass. I prefer to go about 40 on gravel in a car, much faster than that and a little unexpected washboard means you're basically a puck on an air hockey table, just along for the ride, but people won't slow.