howsteepisit

Yea, I think its in our interest to show the "ignorant masses" we're responsible, courteous, safety conscious. What's wrong with that?

I am not interested in your judgement of what is appropriate cycling apparel, not what you think I must do to impress those I care not to impress.

CB HI

BS. There is fault here. We just do not know if it is entirely the truck drivers or if it is shared by the cyclist and government.

The video showed a bike lane that likely did not end before the intersection, possible government portion fault. The truck appears to have a convex mirror, good, but why did the truck driver not look and see the cyclist to his right prior to making a right turn on red, truck drivers portion fault. Did the truck driver even have a turn signal on to warn the cyclist of his turn, truck drivers portion fault. Did the cyclist try to run the red light at speed from the bike lane, cyclist portion fault. The government did not ban right turns on red with an intersection bike lane, government portion fault.

CB HI

Most of my cycling is for transportation and utility. See how biased you are in your view of cyclist, you exclude so many cyclist.

SwampDude

I genuinely respect your opinion of my opinions.

About all we can agree on at this point is the value of recycling; thats not a bad place to start.

howsteepisit

Good enough for me, I was pointing out my disagreement, and the point of a forum is to discuss and agree/disagree.

Cheers

CB HI

Some here have been trained in and performed such investigations. So maybe you should not make such broad assumptions. And accident is a greatly misused word for such collisions.

SwampDude

I take it you feel excluded because I refer to cycling as a sport. My comments weren't intended to exclude anyone, but I do tend to think of cycling in terms of my involvement (fitness and recreation). So, you have pointed out a narrowness in my perspective. I get it.

kalliergo 

Just to be clear, there's no bike lane on 16th approaching S. Van Ness. Here's the street view the cyclist and truck driver would have had as they approached the intersection:

https://goo.gl/maps/WCbaf

It's not really a technically difficult place to ride, but it's a busy and stressful place, much of the time, and it's a near-perfect corner for a right hook if the parties are improperly positioned in the lane.

kalliergo 

I'm pretty sure that, when it comes to cycling crash analysis, we have more experience and expertise floating around here than the CSI producers. Everyone who can feel some of that experience in one or more joints, raise your hand. . .

CB HI

I am not disputing that google maps does not show a bike lane, but at 37 seconds into the video as part of the article, a bike lane is shown that appears to be freshly painted after the google photos. I have no way of knowing if that bike lane is on 16th or South Van Ness Avenue. Maybe the video shot in on 17th.

Maybe you can do a local check and update us.

bikecrate

However, I think there is a pretty big bias out there. Last year when I was hit by a car one of the first things the deputy asked “was I wearing a helmet?” I was and showed him my helmet with a nice crack in it. I'm just wondering if I wasn't wearing a helmet if the accident report might have turned out less favorable and my dealing with the insurance company more difficult. I personally don’t care if riders wear one or not, but you may find yourself judged differently without one.

MMACH 5

Very true. I was actually agreeing with your comment that I bolded. I think squirtdad did make a good point for it being a standard part of police reports and thus news stories.
And back to your comment on cyclists' concern for safety being prejudged, based on helmet use, I'm, again, agreeing with it. And, the police who write the report and the reporters writing the news stories feel that same prejudice and that is probably reflected in how they convey the incident.

kalliergo 

Yeah. I'll check, if some other BF local doesn't get there first.

But I'm pretty sure there's no BL there. I might not have noticed painting, but I would have heard about the people screaming over losing parking.

Anyway, as I said, this isn't a difficult place, technically, for cycling. In this case, it just looks (now) as if we had one cyclist and one driver in the wrong positions at an intersection.

kalliergo 

Leaving aside, for a moment, the discussion about the LE/journalistic obsession with reporting helmet-wearing behavior, I'd like to score a point or two for my favorite A&S campaign:

It's really cheap to take action that would prevent many of these right hook tragedies. Paint sharrows in the proper positions. Place Share the Road signs with appropriate graphics. Add a page or two to the Driver's Handbook (official California DMV publication) explaining proper behavior.

For a high-value bonus, we could also get our local "bike advocates" to tell cyclists to get out of the gutter and maybe get the cops to cite a few drivers for turning right without first merging right.

Almost no infrastructure required and what is required is quite affordable.

Edit: Of course, more drivers will be slowed for a few more seconds. A Good Thing.

howsteepisit

What would be the traffic on a forum if current events were not discussed? Millions of blank pages

howsteepisit

Kalliergo - What makes you think that drivers would pay attention to a page or 2 on the DMV handbook on car/bicycle safety? They sure seem to ignore everything about stop signs, speed limits, right of way, signaling and many other topics.

Not that I think it is not in every way a good idea, just my disgust with the near total lack of enforcement of traffic laws.

ItsJustMe

FWIW the response I got from the reporter basically said that they were just spouting what was on the police report. I suspect that it's standard practice for the police to note whether a cyclist was using safety equipment and what kind.

kalliergo 

It takes time for the effect of changes in the driver's manual to make it into public consciousness -- years -- but it gets there eventually.

Appropriate signage and road markings such as sharrows have a much more immediate effect. In this case, for instance, if the cyclist had been occupying the lane position indicated by competently-placed sharrows, it would have been quite unlikely for the right hook to have taken place.

longbeachgary

Which is prefferable to most of the drivel that people post.

howsteepisit

I suppose thats a personal choice. I read forums so I can know what other people think.

spare_wheel

qed

Keith99

Let's just stop and think for a second. Reporter has almost zero facts. Driver likely say he never saw the cyclist.

Other than cyclist dead there is pretty much just one other cold hard fact.

Helmet or no helmet!

And people get upset because they include the one real fact they have.

CB HI

Seriously guy, if you think it is drivel you could just click ignore for those you think ingage in drivel or you could just skip threads you think of as drivel; rather than inserting your drivel into the forums.

CB HI

So many of drivers today just barely pass the written test. Insert a couple of cycling related questions into the drivers test, and they either learn the cycling stuff or they likely fail the test.

I-Like-To-Bike

Is that right? I hadn't noticed this factoid ever posted anywhere.