CB HI

Go sit in a testing center sometime. The testers are always amazed when I am able to get 100% on the test. Teenagers often complain about how hard the test is and that they had to take it a second time. Feel free to fund a million dollar study to prove me right or wrong.

I-Like-To-Bike

Got it; you made up a factoid to match your impression/anecdote. No problem, happens all the time on BF.

Dunbar

The witness account (which I quoted in my post) is very clear that the bike was travelling to the right of the truck when the accident occured. Right hooks can happen whether you are passing or being passed so I'm not sure why that matters from an "advocacy & safety" standpoint. Just don't put yourself in that position if it can be avoided. Right hooks are one of the easier situations to avoid if you ride defensively.

Commodus

There are lots of facts; cold, hard and otherwise. Some of them are even relevant.

Commodus

Maybe you have some special technique you'd like to share, but when I'm riding along I get passed by cars all the time. If one of them gets the sudden urge to turn right my survival depends mostly on when and where said driver gets said urge.

Dunbar

If you're in the right-most traffic lane (if more than one lane exists) then you need to take the lane when going through intersections. And since it's not really safe to go in/out of traffic you better stay there (to say nothing of staying ouf out of the door zone.)

Here the Google street view of the street the bike and truck were traveling on. The intersection ahead is where the collision occured.

kalliergo 

Yep. Easy and cheap. Not a total solution, but a lot more of the newbies hitting the roads would at least have been exposed to the concept of road-sharing.

And my experience with sharrows and Share the Road signs is that they actually help quite a bit.

kalliergo 

Dunbar is correct, of course. Note that we don't know how many of the parking spaces that are empty in the Google street view were occupied at the time of the crash.

This is a straightforward place to ride, but curb-hugging is especially dangerous when these streets get busy. And Recology trucks ripping around corners (oh, yes, they do) are guaranteed to crush at least a few humans now and then.

kalliergo 

Yup. It probably matters where you go to observe, of course, but I noticed quite a bit of obvious struggling and several people who were being re-tested, last time I was in DMV, 2-3 years ago.

Commodus

I don't understand how anything you've said here is relevant. Even if you take the lane cars will obviously still be passing you.

kalliergo 

No. They won't, for the most part, except where it's safe to do so. Certainly very few will (perhaps partially) leave the lane to pass you on the left, approaching an intersection, and then turn right in front of you. Only a madman would deliberately do that in a garbage truck at the intersection in question.

If you hug the curb or the parked cars, most right-turners will probably cut you off. It's just a question of how close and how fast. Take the lane approaching intersections.

If you make right turns without merging right, in your garbage truck, at 16th & S. Van Ness. . . sooner or later you'll probably crunch somebody.

Paint sharrows there and put up a couple of Share signs with appropriate graphics. Send cops out, on bikes and motorcycles, for a few rush-hour cycles. They can politely remind folks how to share and issue warnings or citations to jerks.

Call the local TV stations. Get the real professional drivers to join the campaign.

Aren't there any Mission bikers here?

CB HI

Got it, you live in a very dark, closed in room.

kalliergo 

Well, it's pretty widely known. The last California DMV survey I remember (and could find) should give you a sense of the big picture, even though it's more than a decade out of date:

Dunbar

In addition to what kalliergo said, I don't care if they pass me. If you're going to take the lane you need to be comfortable with the notion of cars changing their position to pass you. If they want to cross a double yellow to pass on my left that's fine. If they want to use empty parking spaces to pass on my right that's also fine (although both are probably illegal.) On the pictured street if I saw a motorist using their right turn signal in my mirror I'd probably move left to let them pass on the right and get into position to make their turn. But I'm not putting myself in a position to be right hooked (or doored.)

frantik

i don't know if it's been mentioned but the article in the OP no longer seems to mention the helmet status

it's the 3rd sentence in this report though https://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sec...rticle-9113406

frantik

apparently...

dynodonn 

"Almost two months ago, a Recology truck struck a grandmother and her 7-year-old granddaughter in the crosswalk of Broadway and Embarcadero, crushing the girl's foot. She is now recovering, but that accident is still under investigation."


WOW! No apparent mentioning of whether the 7 yo girl was wearing steel toed boots or not.

Tony N.

Just curious. In this picture, which way was the truck and cyclist traveling? 2 lane or single lane? If cyclist was outside of door zone in single lane, truck could still squeeze by cyclist and not cross couble yellow. IMO it is impotant to most cyclist to know if cyclist had on a helmet. Most other non cyclist don't care to know. As a cyclist, I want to know if a helmet prevents head injuries in any accident.

howsteepisit

Since not all accidents are reported in the news, the presence of a helmet in a single accident where the rider was crushed by a truck in not evidence of the efficacy of a helmut in preventing injury nor death.

As a cyclist I don't need nor want to know if the rider in a fatal accident was wearing a helmet as part a a standard news report package,

dynodonn 

Generally, that's not the case, it's basically used as a means to point the blame at a cyclist for being the main cause of their demise, and diverting attention from other contributing factors.

Dunbar

In the single lane, heading east which is the direction they were heading according to the article. As far as squeezing past the cyclist without crossing the double yellow, that's debatable and I doubt a truck would do that near an intersection where they intended to turn right. Proper lane position forces vehicles to acknowledge your existance and go around you. Riding in the gutter means they may not see you and will behave as if you don't exist. I really doubt this truck driver intentionally hit the cyclist and it's very possible he/she never saw him.

frantik

also no mention if the cyclist was wearing steel toed boots. or shin guards. or gloves, or mtb body armor. seems like they're leaving out some info!

kenji666

The article also doesn't mention if the truck had wheels like this:

dynodonn 

.....and what irritates me even more is the mentioning that the cyclist was traveling "at a high rate of speed", compared to what?

CB HI

Compared to the truck that passed the cyclist.



Oh wait, the truck was traveling faster.