General Cycling Discussion - Lest we forget

http://bikexprt.com/massfacil/cambridge/doorzone/laird1.htm

Bike lanes are not designed with the same safety as car lanes. To treat a bike lane as you would a car lane is a miscalculation.

Thank you.

Interesting and well thought out.

This article brings home an important fact, and that is that not everybody out there knows how to ride a bike correctly i.e. safely. It seems that a little common sense could have saved her life....

It can happen to anyone.

Tyler Hamilton's season is over because the same thing happened to him on Sunday while practicing for the Grand Prix Eddie Merckx. Fortunately he only suffered a broken collarbone and severely lacerated face.

Cheers...Gary

Originally posted by poululla
This article brings home an important fact, and that is that not everybody out there knows how to ride a bike correctly i.e. safely. It seems that a little common sense could have saved her life....

Yup, common sense as in - look before you open up your car door!! Sorry, but I don't buy the argument that this fatality was somehow the fault of the city or the biker. Here's one quote from the article:

"Ms. Laird could have understood that the relative risk of riding in the "door zone" from "dooring" collisions and other crashes is many times higher than the risk of being struck by overtaking vehicles. She might then have ridden at the very left edge of the marked bike lane, or outside the lane."

Yes, this quote is among others, and is taken out of context. However, if Ms. Laird would have been riding @ the very left edge of the marked bike lane, moving autos would have been the issue.

Yup, the bike lane configuration sux - but the fault is that of the SUV driver who didn't look before opening up his/her door. That's the obvious bottom line for this guy. :mad:

I hope that you'll don't mind if I keep my beatup old bike and carcass is the dead-center of the big road and just fight it out with the Oldsmobiles and Freightliners. It looks a he!! of a lot safer than what happened to that woman.

Terry

May her passing serve to remind others of the potential dangers and perhaps save other lives.