eadsg

From Manhattan KS

Bicyclist hurt in accident on Anderson
Kevin Elliott kelliott@themercury.com
A 30-year-old veterinary resident was struck by a car and seriously injured while riding his bicycle in the 6400 block of Anderson Avenue this morning.

Brian Caserto, a first-year resident of Kansas State University's veterinarian medical program, was about four-feet into the traffic lane when he was struck from behind by a 1993 Ford Escort at about 6:40 a.m. Caserto was wearing a helmet when he was "launched" about 90-feet from the point of impact, said Lt. Kurt Moldrup of the Riley County Police Department.

Moldrup said the car, driven by Thad Jordan, 38, of Clay Center, was heading east on Anderson behind a sport utility vehicle. He said the SUV had slowed down and swerved into the opposite lane to avoid hitting Caserto. Jordan also slowed down, but was unable to steer clear of the bicycle, Moldrup said. Police said the road has only a narrow gravel shoulder and speed limits between 45-55 mph. No citations were issued.

https://www.themercury.com/News/artic...fc92a56601067e

The PD Patrol Captian is a member of our cycling group. Will discuss this with him on friday morning and get his slant on why no citation was issued.

Blue Order

Hmmmm. According to some here, this accident is impossible....

Blue Order

And of course, my thoughts go out to the injured cyclist.

ChipSeal

Perhaps Thad was following too close for conditions?

I doubt that a citation would've been issued if if Thad had struck a car from behind, don't you?

Do we say it is impossible? No. But taking a lane reduces many risks. Inattentive driving is not a risk that is reduced by taking a lane. (Nor does cowering in the gravel along the roadway seem to reduce the risk of inattentive driving either.)

mazpr

All this accidents freak me out.

Just today cycling a Red Ford Mustang here in Petaluma invaded my five feet wide bike lane and hit the horn real loud barely passing me within inches.

He passed so quick I could not read his plates and had to keep my focus as I lost control of the bike when the driver which seemed like a young male did his circus act.

I was about to stop incoming traffic and demand follow the guy in the Mustang, but changed my mind and just decided to go home.

I still dont get it as it happened on Stony Point at the last leg before reaching Dennys in Petaluma and all that section is wide open road. I guess it made him real happy and really achieved a good laugh.

Its just crazy...

CB HI

So you have a hard time understanding the difference between "impossible" and "rare/infrequent"!

CsHoSi

Just awful. Hope the cyclist recovers fast and heals well. This hits close to home.

I want to know how you can rear-end somebody and not get a citation? I thought that was a given in an automobile accident.

Please let us know what your friend says.

gcl8a

Now that's just silly. Many (almost all?) collisions where the car driver is at fault are a result of 'inattentive driving': rear-enders as posted here, rear-enders from drift into the bike lane, right hooks, left hooks, etc., etc.

The whole argument about lane positioning is about the trade-offs among the various risks, most notably, rear-enders vs. right hooks. Every time someone posts an article about a car-bike collision, everyone jumps in with their theories about how this or that could have been done differently. Blue Order is (correctly) pointing out that, in this particular example, this accident would not have occured had the cyclist been in a bike lane.

It's all about trade-offs people.

Cyclaholic

Just one of the many benefits of fully segregated cycling infrastructure is that it makes this sort of incident impossible. If you think it's rare/infrequent just bear in mind that this is the most frequent type of car-car collision. As the number of transportation & utility cyclists increase there is no reason to beleive that the incidence of this type of car-bicycle collision won't also increace.

For all the benefits transport & utility cycling brings to the individual and the community we DESERVE our own segregated infrastructure, 100% safe from irresponsible people oblivious and totally indifferent to the consequences of their actions, of which there are many behind the wheel. Not just bike lanes but bike lanes with physical barriers between them and motorised traffic.

CB HI

So How are we going to fit the 100% seperate roads and 100% seperate bike paths and 100% seperate pedestrian paths and 100% seperate rail tracks into our cities at a reasonable cost. Four sets of fully grade seperated facilities really gets expensive.

CB HI

Yeah, we all know cyclist never get hit from behind in bike lanes!

I have had more close calls with being hit from behind when in a bike lane, than I have when taking the lane. So the better trade off for me, is to take the lane.

Cyclaholic

Rail tracks are already 100% separate, so are ped paths and roads (with some rare exceptions). Many of our arterials and freeways here in Sydney have segragated cycleways, some secondary roads also. We even have a number of segragated busways which works really well.

If we can afford it here in Australia, with the population equivalent to New York city but roughly the same land mass as the USA, then surely you can afford it also. Heck, we even have far more comprehensive public health and welfare systems we fund compared to the USA, you guys should be rolling in money by comparison..... if only it wasn't being p!ssed up the wall in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, half a dozen or so carrier groups, and those 700-odd military bases around the globe.

CB HI

Cool, I did not realize Australia had no pedestrian deaths. Please send pics of your sidewalks that never cross roads.


I guess you wished we had not stopped the Japenese some years ago as well.

gcl8a

...which I noted in the part you didn't quote...

So, yes, the trade-offs should have read:

rear-enders such as the one in the OP + right-hooks from people who still think they can go around you + getting squeezed over by some idiot who thinks he can pass you before he hits that semi head on + left hooks + all the other possible scenarios VERSUS rear-enders from drifters + right hooks + left hooks + getting doored + getting squeezed by the jerk passing the stopped cars on the right + drive-way pull-outs + every other possible scenario...

Is that better?

urodacus

now, when they finally install bike-only roads, will they also ensure a 10mph speed limit? of course they will:
"those crazy lycra fools nearly killed my little Johnnie this morning. They should slow down or drive a car."

bikes are vehicles too. they should be given space on roads, just like other vehicles. it was just a lot easier when ALL vehicles only managed about 30mph tops.

don't force segregation on us, we already have the rights, giving them up won't help the situation at all.

urodacus

Ohmigod, do i detect a note of sarcasm from AN AMERICAN? i never woulda thunk it.

perhaps we can supply you with another statistic. 2002 shooting deaths in america: 169,000.

love that right to bear arms crap you have there. I really, really need to own an M60.

JeffB502

The only way I can see this type of accident occurring is if the car driver was following the SUV too closely, and the SUV driver probably failed to use his/her turn signal to indicate the pass. At the minimum the driver of the car should have been cited for following too closely. If there had been a large boulder in the road, or a stalled car with a family inside, he would have hit those too. I wonder if he would have been cited if he had hit a stalled car and injured the occupants of the car.

I deal with this type of situation occasionally on my commute, and whenever I'm being passed I keep a close eye on my rear view mirror to try to make sure the 2nd vehicle and any additional vehicles are either moving to pass or slowing down. I haven't had a situation where the 2nd and additional vehicles didn't see me, so I don't really know if there'd be time for me to bail on the side of the road, but I like to hope I'd be able to veer right in time.

JeffB502

169,000 shooting deaths sounds like a really high number urodacus...that sounds closer to the number that die from using prescription drugs (that were prescribed to them) in an average year in America.

CB HI

Off topic are we? Did you have to go to one of those absurd gun control websites to get that #?


In the U.S. for 2001, there were 29,573 deaths from firearms, distributed as follows by mode of death: Suicide 16,869; Homicide 11,348; Accident 802; Legal Intervention 323; Undetermined 231.(CDC, 2004)

I guess you folks do not have suicides or homicides?

Cyclaholic

I think you misunderstood me, my apologies for not being clearer. I was only making an observation regarding how cashed up you could otherwise be today (not 60 years ago) and how you may otherwise be able to afford the relatively modest cost of segragated cycling infrastructure. I couldn't care less how you actually spend it, that's between you and your government, nothing to do with me. Just compare the cost per mile of segragated cycling infrastructure compared to that of motorised transport, it's cheap by comparison.

....I'll get you some photos of those grade separated sidewalks if you really are interested (yes, we do have them). As for no pedestrian deaths in Australia, I'm not sure where you got that from but I do know that I never made any such claim, not even remotely close.

CB HI

Your post imply none of your pedestrian facilities cross the roads (100% seperate). That must mean cars can never hit pedestrians in Australia.

Are you now telling us that many of your sidewalks do cross roads at grade and that pedestrians do get hit at those crossings?

Cyclaholic

I really hope you're just being facetious. Arterial roads have either pedestrian-specific lights to cotrol crossings, what's becoming more common with new infrastructure projects are pedestrian overpasses which make them completely grade separate.
I never said that or anything like it, it's your assumption/deduction/assertion/whatever and unfortunately its incorrect.

Ofcourse they do. What I was saying was that sidewalks are segragated infrastructure i.e. they are physically separate to the road surface. I never said the intersections were all 100% segragated (although many are) but I think you knew that and are just being facetious or argumentative, perhaps in an effort to derail the original discussion.

Back to segragated cycling infrastructure versus sharing the road with motorised traffic. My original assertion was that we transport & utility cyclists deserve the level of safety that only segregated cycleways can provide and I stand by that. You objected on grounds of cost to which I say that per mile it's cheap in comparison to just about all other types of transport infrastructure.

My current commute is 30 miles each way, about 25 of which is on a network of interconnected segragated cycling infrastructure which starts about 500 yards from my home and ends at a railway station. Just picture a commute without cars or trucks, without noxious exhaust fumes, where the only mechanical noise is your drivetrain and passing bikes - unless you're riding along with a fellow commuter having a chat about whatever just keeping each other company or a bit of a race. The people you intarct with are the familiar faces of your fellow cycle commuters. No chance whatsoever of being run down (accidentally or deliberately), cut off, hooked, garbage thrown at you, verbally or physically abused, run off the road, etc. You flat and almost instantly there's offers of assistance from familiar looking 'strangers'. You feel safe, every ride is a joy, like a social weekend ride, an exercise in mental relaxation.

That's what I get to do through the heart of this city every day on segragated cycling infrastructure and it's truly paradise; it's something achievable and worth advocating for. VC is such a compromise by comparison (Why do you want to advocate for scraps of road space thrown down to you by motorists when you can advocate for the right to sit at the head of your own table?). That's what IMO we should be advocating for, especially in light of the OP of this thread.

why2not

I really don't understand how the driver was not ticketed. If it had been a slow moving car in front of the SUV he'd struck, he'd have been ticketed. Why are bikes not treated the same under the law?

joejack951

Aside from work, where else can you get by using this segregated path system? Anywhere you need to go? You mention that you still have 5 miles left to ride to work after using the path. Why are you taking that risk? Why not wait until they build the path all the way to work?

Cyclaholic

Basically everywhere. To all shopping, sporting, and entertainment ammenities that we (my family and I) frequent. It takes me to the houses of almost all the people I visit often - friend's & family. The network is designed in parallel with the road system in that there are completely grade separate 'trunk' route cycleways with on/off ramps and overpasses that parallel highways/freeways, they have secondary cycleways radiating out creating loops connecting local pockets of neighborhoods with local social & sporting ammenities, local shopping precincts, and local enployment/industrial areas. They in turn have local MUPs radiating out into neighborhoods and local parks.

My wife doesn't know the first thing about cycling in heavy traffic (except quiet local neighborhood streets), she never has because she has never needed to, yet she regularly tows the kids in the trailer to various shopping areas and to local parks, to my parent's place, the swimming center, daycare, etc. all on the bike path network.

I used to ride the last 5 miles into the central business district but it's absolute torture compared to the previous 25 miles so I just take the train for those last 5 miles. It only costs me a couple of dollars a day, and its about 20 minutes faster than riding that last stretch. It wasn't unusual to have 2 or 3 agressive encounters a week (mostly deliberate road rage acts by motorists) when I used to ride it.