Nexx11

https://www.katu.com/news/local/131075133.html


Hopefully they heal up soon....as usual, the comment section is full of DBs.

Cyclaholic

I read the comments and find myself looking forward to the impacts of peak oil, if only for just a moment or two.

unterhausen

I don't think the people that make those comments are allowed out of their cells long enough to drive anywhere.

Digital_Cowboy

Sadly, I think that most of the haters who post would b!tch and moan about grandma driving too down the in her Buick. I gotta say that I loved this line from one of the commenters:

<Quote>
I wish they had the same respect for motorists that they expect to have from others.
</Quote>

You know, I didn't think that many motorists had much respect for anyone outside of their car.

I also "loved" the comments about how yet again we "big, mean, terrible" cyclists "force" those poor, misunderstood motorists to pass us in an "unsafe" manner. Or how we "belong" on the shoulder.

rydabent

"Hit while riding on the shoulder". Just why the hell wasnt the driver ticketed immediately**********

genec

Good question, especially since the shoulder along 101 for just about the entire length of Oregon is about 8 feet wide, and marked as a bike lane. Of course one exception IS Gold Beach, a tiny burg where parking is permitted along 101 and there is no designated bike lane. The bike lane sort of disappears right in the heart of town. So the cyclists may have been riding the shoulder in town or just outside of town and through town were riding along the side of the road. Just north there is a bridge that crosses the Rogue River where there is also no bike lane... South of town, the wide marked shoulder continues. Well north of town where this was supposed to have happened, the shoulder is wide and well marked as a bike lane. Of course this is all arm chair speculation from observations I made a few years ago while in that part of Oregon.

Dan The Man

I don't get it. I thought Highway 101 (the Pacific Coast Bicycle Trail) was the most popular cycling touring destination in North America, and possibly the world. The comments on the article make it sound like cycling on 101 is a crazy and suicidal activity.

10 Wheels

Says it all.

"This summer I cycled highway 20 from Idaho to Newport. I can tell you from experience, that even out east of Bend where the road is dead flat and you can see for miles, a large percentage of drivers are complete jerks. The three of us were the only group of cyclists in the 130 mile stretch from Burns to Bend, yet most drivers gave us no room and blew by us like we were inconveniencing them. Respect goes both ways and I think drivers show very little respect for cyclists... Careful ones or not."

Chris516

While I refuse to ride on the shoulder or in a bike lane for this very reason, I was thinking the same thing about the driver.

Why does law enforcement acknowledge the infraction, but refuse to do anything about it.

Chris516

One of them even went so far as to say bikes shouldn't be on the highway. What about a road with the name 'highway' in it. In the NoVA side of the DC-Metro region, there is Lee Highway. Which is a major arterial road used by rush hour traffic, but it is still safe enough for bikes.

Doohickie

Same reaction here. What a bunch of Morans.

B. Carfree

Gene, you're just wrong here. Unless some of U.S. 101 south of Reedsport was re-signed in the last year, none of the portion of this highway outside of any city limits is marked as a bike lane from Reedsport to the CA border. (I ride this stretch a couple of times a year normally, but haven't been there this year.) It is marked as a bike route, but that is a different animal. Here's the key difference: O.R.S. 811.065. If U.S. 101 had a bike lane, then a motorist could legally pass by simply missing a cyclist. Since there is no designated bike lane, the motorist must give the cyclist room to fall in his direction when passing and striking the cyclist is an automatic violation. (It's a whopping $390 or so fine.) Also, very little of the southern half of U.S. 101 in OR has anything like an 8 foot shoulder, particularly in Coos and Curry Counties. In fact, just south of Gold Beach there is a bit of a climb where there are two south-bound lanes and nearly no shoulder at all. The responding officer should have written up the driver for both 811.065 as well as failure to maintain his lane. I also feel that criminal charges should follow, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

I notice the motorist is from Coos Bay. Coos Bay is the Alabama of OR. It's the kind of highly inbred place where physicians shoot people they know on their front lawns, high school girls get ***** under the bleachers at football games and boys who get sodomized find their attackers are acquitted of sexual assault because the judge believes they didn't derive any sexual gratification from the assault. As far as I can tell, the civilized people in Coos Bay are outnumbered by quite a substantial margin.

Paul Barnard

Your narrow minded, uninformed post smacks of the idiocy I saw in the comments to the article. If I had to guess, I'd guess you have never been to AL, let alone spent time in enough places in AL to condemn the entire state.

genec

Since you are actually in OR and I only visit every couple of years, I have to concede to your local knowledge. The next time I am up that way however I will check again.

Ray R

QUOTE=Paul Barnard;13326067]Your narrow minded, uninformed post smacks of the idiocy I saw in the comments to the article. If I had to guess, I'd guess you have never been to AL, let alone spent time in enough places in AL to condemn the entire state.[/QUOTE]

In defense of B. Carfree, my wife and I have toured down the Oregon Coast twice, once on a tour from White Rock, British Columbia to San Francisco and a second time from Portland to San Luis Obispo. In Washington State the drivers reminded me of Italians. They moved completely over the centerline to pass us on two lane roads, or waited until they had safe places to pass. In Northern Oregon they treated us with similar courtesy and regard for our safety. It wasn't until we were crossing the bridge into Coos Bay/North Bend that we were surprised by the sudden change in driving attitudes. Riding over the bridge we were tailgated, honked at, yelled at, and passed too closely, all by drivers of large pick'em up trucks driven by Cletus in plaid flannel shirts. Once in town we were regarded with suspicion and muted hostility by the locals. Cletus yelled "Git outta town, treehuggers!" at us as we pedaled by on our fully loaded touring rigs. Apparently we were convenient scapegoats for the demise of the local timber industry, when the blame lay squarely on forest mismanagement. Once all the old growth trees had been clearcut, the party was over. The only option left was to go on unemployment and drink all day. We were escorted out of town by pickup after pickup, each of which buzzed us closely. Once out of town we rode over the hills of the Seven Sisters and discovered that the forest extended only a few yards on each side of Hwy 101. Beyond that it was a sterile moonscape of stumps and discarded timber. By the time we reached Port Orford and had lunch at Crazy Norwegian's everyone was friendly again until we reached California.

HoustonB

I toured south on the coast to the San Francisco Bay area just three months ago and concur with B.Carfree -- in some places the shoulder is adequate for two-abreast and still have some safety margin between the riders and the passing vehicles.

When I rode over the exact same spot where the two women were run over, it was also shortly after lunch, we had a strong tail wind getting us into the big ring and crusing at 20'ish mph. The road (at that place) is dead straight and flat as a pancake.

There are far too many places where the shoulder disappears completely - in a lot of cases it disappears for just a few feet, but this still necessitates a gradual (read, early) merge into fast traffic as soon as the rider becomes aware of the end of the shoulder.

There are many places where the shoulder stops at the approach to a hill and the road widens from a single south bound lane to a pair (for the ascent), in some cases a sub-two-foot shoulder starts again a little later, sometimes not. Simply extending the expansion from a single lane to a pair by as little as twenty feet, would have allowed a continous shoulder for cyclists.

In ODOT's favour, there is plenty of evidence of road widening in places, with the addition of a good shoulder on the south bound side of the highway. The north bound riders are true hardcore.

The most dangerous places -- tight, right turn, blind corner, switchbacks, on steep ascents -- have absolutely no shoulder. These were places where I felt it prudent to stop just prior to the corner, catch my breath, wait for a lull in traffic and then nip around the corner sharply.

The addition of logging trucks (that rarely slow down) and massive camper-van's (RV's) made some spots terrifying (and I choose that word carefully).

I also agree about Coosbay. If there was a bus to get through Coosbay I would use it.

I spoke with other south-bound cyclists and many agreed that the coast tour is over-rated and something a novice should stay well away from.

Four or five hundred feet of additional shoulder, distributed across maybe 15 short spots, would make a huge difference. Also Saturday and Sunday are not good days (during good weather) to be on Highway 1 in California - the closer to San Fancisco you get, the worse the drivers get.

genec

I only did parts of it... and was sag wagoned by my wife on other parts... so I am probably remembering the best of it and forgetting the worst. On long trips like this the wife and I have a system... I get up early and head out and then she follows a few hours later and we meet somewhere on the road. I get in some miles early in the morning when the roads tend to be quiet, and she gets to sleep in. Takes a bit of planning on our part, but it satisfies all parties.

I've done CA from SF down to San Diego... (without the sag wagon) and the shoulder really gets narrow on 1 in many many places... so much so that Oregon 101 seemed like a luxury.

HoustonB

It is also possible that (these days) drivers are getting worse because of job related demands and economic stress - trying to get loads delivered as soon as possible, worrying about the price of fuel and keeping their jobs, and so on.

The irony of peak-oil is that roads could get more dangerous before the "recreational" drivers are priced off the road and those that remain may have an even greater sense of entitlement -- alas, we live in interesting times.

HoustonB

This account is a must-read for all of us -- Mary Matzek was in an RV and one of the first on the scene. The photos and narrative are very sobering! In one photo you can see how far the car driver went before coming to a halt (shocking, if he was braking hard). A photo of the front of his car would have been informative.

The last update at BikePortland.Org lists one cyclist as stable and the other still in Intensive Care.

Still no update on any charges against the driver.
I hope they both make a speedy and full recovery.

wsbob

Bikeportland.org has two stories about this collision:

Also, a couple of people driving in their motor home just a couple cars behind the person that ran into the women on bikes, took photographs of the scene and posted them on their blog, where they also wrote about the collision:
It was people driving and riding in motor vehicles that stopped and helped these gals after they were hit by the car while riding to the right of the fog line on the fairly wide shoulder of the road. 911 was called, vital signs were checked, the women were given what first aid was available before emergency vehicles arrived.

The police have said an investigation into the collision is in progress. It's apparently not yet been released. A determination through investigation, of the reason for the driver of the vehicle running into the women, if a reason or reasons are yet known, has not yet been presented.