Advocacy & Safety - Local cyclist killed...outrage...but it got me thinking

On Wed March 22 Dr. Bohdan Kulakowski was struck from behind while on his way home and was later pronounced dead at our local hospital. This was a terrible accident and my thoughts and prayers go out to the Kulakowski family. The accident has brought out much anger from the local bicycle community, mainly directed at the fact that the driver hasn't been charged as well as the limited bike paths in the area. Also noted was the accident was on a road marked as PA Bicycle Route G.

The accident happened on a dead straight, flat, zero obstruction section of road in the evening but with still plenty of natural light. Other than some distraction (phone, spilled drink...something that generally shouldn't happen) there is no real excuse to have not seen the cyclist...which is part of the outrage.

This all got me thinking...I am not trying to make light or diminish the tragedy that is the loss of life...but just 20 min later there was an accident on the other side of town, a car was struck by a pickup truck. The driver of the car was killed and the passenger of the car and the driver of the pickup were transported to the hospital in serious condition. Just yesterday another accident happened on another local road killing both the driver and the passenger of that vehicle. So in less than a week there were 2 people seriously injured and 3 killed in vehicle accidents NOT involving bicycles. Statistics given at the local CRBC meeting said that last year another cyclist was killed and one seriously injured requiring hospitalization. Then it hit me...in a year or more we have had 2 cyclists killed in accidents with other vehicles and one seriously injured...in less than a week 2 people were seriously injured and 3 killed in vehicle accidents where no bicycle was involved. Obviously if you are riding and get hit by a car, truck or whatever you are going to loose the battle...if you are really lucky you have to buy a new bike...just lucky and you are hurt...not lucky and you could die...but just about every day people are getting killed in vehicle accidents. In our area anyway it seems to me that biking may in fact be MORE safe than driving.

We (well some of us) want to be treated like any other vehicle on the road, yet when there is an accident everyone jumps on the driver of the auto as being out to get the cyclist...could it have simply been an accident?

Something to think about.

On Wed March 22 Dr. Bohdan Kulakowski was struck from behind while on his way home and was later pronounced dead at our local hospital. This was a terrible accident and my thoughts and prayers go out to the Kulakowski family. The accident has brought out much anger from the local bicycle community, mainly directed at the fact that the driver hasn't been charged as well as the limited bike paths in the area. Also noted was the accident was on a road marked as PA Bicycle Route G.

The accident happened on a dead straight, flat, zero obstruction section of road in the evening but with still plenty of natural light. Other than some distraction (phone, spilled drink...something that generally shouldn't happen) there is no real excuse to have not seen the cyclist...which is part of the outrage.

This all got me thinking...I am not trying to make light or diminish the tragedy that is the loss of life...but just 20 min later there was an accident on the other side of town, a car was struck by a pickup truck. The driver of the car was killed and the passenger of the car and the driver of the pickup were transported to the hospital in serious condition. Just yesterday another accident happened on another local road killing both the driver and the passenger of that vehicle. So in less than a week there were 2 people seriously injured and 3 killed in vehicle accidents NOT involving bicycles. Statistics given at the local CRBC meeting said that last year another cyclist was killed and one seriously injured requiring hospitalization. Then it hit me...in a year or more we have had 2 cyclists killed in accidents with other vehicles and one seriously injured...in less than a week 2 people were seriously injured and 3 killed in vehicle accidents where no bicycle was involved. Obviously if you are riding and get hit by a car, truck or whatever you are going to loose the battle...if you are really lucky you have to buy a new bike...just lucky and you are hurt...not lucky and you could die...but just about every day people are getting killed in vehicle accidents. In our area anyway it seems to me that biking may in fact be MORE safe than driving.

We (well some of us) want to be treated like any other vehicle on the road, yet when there is an accident everyone jumps on the driver of the auto as being out to get the cyclist...could it have simply been an accident?

Something to think about.

There are no such things as 'accidents.' Human error is always involved. The motorist, in the incident you illustrate above, is clearly at fault as he struck the cyclist from behind. How could that simply be an accident? Certainly, it was not on purpose, but poor judgement, inattentive or reckless driving or inexperience may have been mitigating factors in the occurence. It was not an accident, however.

There are no such things as 'accidents.' Human error is always involved. The motorist, in the incident you illustrate above, is clearly at fault as he struck the cyclist from behind. How could that simply be an accident? Certainly, it was not on purpose, but poor judgement, inattentive or reckless driving or inexperience may have been mitigating factors in the occurence. It was not an accident, however.
I guess I didn't communicate my thoughts very well. IMO this "accident" should have been avoided...I am not saying the driver here was not at fault...I still think he was and SHOULD be charged with at a min not being in control of his vehicle and or reckless driving.

That aside, I was trying to make the point that cycling on the road is not as safe as we may want it to be and it has NOTHING to do with the fact that motorists are out to get us. IMO it is more about motorists in general not being aware as they should be and not knowing the limits of their vehicles or how they may handle in an emergency situation.

It was mearly this "accident" and the others not involving bicycles in my area this week that got me thinging. I still don't think I am getting my thoughts out there well enough.:(

Iit has NOTHING to do with the fact that motorists are out to get us. (
You are right, it absolutely has nothing to do with motorists wanting to get (kill) cylists.

Only the extremely rare psychopath wants to actually harm cyclists and these phycopaths are a threat to all people whether on bike or not. These are such a rare occurance and are beyond control, so worrying about them is pointless.

There are certainly however a very few motorists who try to harrass or intimidate cyclists thru yelling, honking, close passing or even throwing objects but none of them want to seriously harm another human. Sometimes these harrassments results in a worse result than the harrasser intended or considered (thown object gets in spokes & cyclist crashes or close pass was too close and mirror bumped cyclist)

Al

Welcome to the wonderful world of statistics. Others here are more conversant with the actual numbers than I, and I will leave them to reply. But the phenomenon you are noting relates to the facts that (a) bicycle deaths are more newsworthy than car deaths, in spite of, or maybe because, there are fewer of them in terms of raw numbers, yet (b) bicycling is perceived as less safe anyway. The reasons for the latter are many, including the fact that they are more newsworthy and thus more people know about them. (A "Quote of the Day (http://www.quotationspage.com/qotd.html)" I saw this morning makes just this point: "Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised." - Marilyn Manson.) And of course it's obvious that a cyclist has far less protection during an accident than a car driver or passenger with seat belts and air bags.

However, you mustn't jump to conclusions. For one thing, realize that many more people drive and ride in cars than ride on bikes, and there are more of them on the road. So you at least want to account for number of "accidents" (and I agree with EnigManiac's semantic point) relative to something like the number of people engaged in the activity or the number of hours spent. There's also the fact that a greater percentage of drivers have taken training on how to drive (although sometimes it doesn't seem that way!) than cyclists have on how to ride (in traffic). There are many studies which attempt to take all of these factors into account, with varying conclusions.

The bottom line question, whether cycling is safer or less safe than driving, depends on a lot of these types of factors and how you present the numbers. Interpretations from statistics are notoriously subjective. Many will tell you it is safer overall, especially with cyclist education and proper behaviour, and I tend to believe them, although I cannot cite the numbers from memory. One UK study often cited here purports that cycling over a long term is more likely to add years to your life through increased general health than it is to kill you from an "accident". The good news from all this is that being properly educated about dealing with traffic greatly decreases your risk of an "accident", or the consequences should you be the victim of one. Increasing your vigilance to proactively watch for situations developing even where the motorist is at fault is a large part of that too.

The bad news is that there will always be a few drunk or otherwise distracted drivers, and the fact that even experienced traffic cyclists such as Ken Kifer (http://www.kenkifer.com/) are sometimes killed by them is a sad but evidently unavoidable risk of cycling. (As well as driving, it should be noted.) :(

I very much agree that deliberate attacks, and even reckless negligence, are quite rare. Furthermore, they probably can't be predicted or prevented when they actually do happen. Therefore, it doesn't make much sense to worry about "vehicular murder" or even "vehicular manslaughter" as you ride your bike or post on this forum.

I also agree with the point in the OP that cycling may be safer than motoring. The statistics, while confusing and imperfect, do not support the conclusion that traffic cycling is more dangerous than driving in traffic or walking. I believe that about 40,000 are killed in motor vehicles compared to 800 on bicycles, in an average year in the US.

Ironically, cycling advocacy is partially responsible for the faulty impression that traffic cycling is a risky endeavour. For example, reading this forum gives us the skewed perception that cycling is much more dangerous than it really is. Of course the reason is that virtually every bicycle fatality in the country is reported on this forum. Auto, motorcycle and pedestrian fatalities, although much more common, are almost never mentioned here. So, in a sense, I think that our ceaseless devotion to cycling safety creates the false impression that cycling is dangerous, and this runs counter to cycling advocacy.

On Wed March 22 Dr. Bohdan Kulakowski -Also noted was the accident was on a road marked as PA Bicycle Route G.


Grasschopper, being familier with PA, what area / road was
this poor gentleman on when this tragedy occured ?
A google search turns up this name as one time director of the PA
Transportation Institute.....(?)

This is terrible and one of the reasons I moved out of PA.
As I have mentioned here many times to the point of borish
redundancy the 'New' PA traffic, the post development 'couldnt
drive rural roads on a bet' became literally intolerable to me.

If you look at this map http://maps.google.com/?ll=40.789624,-77.798932&spn=0.007392,0.014462 the "accident" happened near the interchange for the 322 "Mt Nittany Expressway" with the road labeld on it called Warner Blvd (not the correct name of the road). The exact location would be between the ramps shown below the expressway and the bridge for the expressway on the opposite side of the road from the ramps.

I have a post in the road cycling forum here http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=183239 where I have put a few more details intermixed in the thread as I got them.

I made that thread before I had the thoughts expressed in this thread. FWIW I too will be leaving PA...here is to hoping Charlotte NC and the surrounding area is a better cycling environment...but to be honest this area of PA hasn't been terrible in my expierence.

I looked at the map. It looks like a "ripe" area for an accident, with motorists looking around at merging traffic, and a high speed highway type interchange. I'll probably get a lot of flack for asking this on this Board, but here goes. Is there a bike lane?

I looked at the map. It looks like a "ripe" area for an accident, with motorists looking around at merging traffic, and a high speed highway type interchange. I'll probably get a lot of flack for asking this on this Board, but here goes. Is there a bike lane?
Well I would have to disagree about this area being ripe for an accident but only because I know the exchange. All traffic coming off the expressway has a stop sign so there is no yielding and high speed merging. There is PLENTY of visibility and fairly limited traffic flow...definitely NOT a high traffic area. Also the "accident" happened on the opposite side of the street from the ramps...there is nothing but open field after the shoulder.

There is no bike lane per say but if you look at the really crappy photo (camera phone) I have attached you can see there is a HUGE shoulder, as wide or wider than the travel lane. This photo was taken form where the paramedics worked on Bohdan back to my car which is at the point the police started circling items as evidence...50 yards form me to my car. The issue with this very wide shoulder is that it is so pot holled that you would really suffer to ride it on a road bike...mountain bike would be fine. I have said previously (I think I did anyway) that I ride this road when I commute by bike and it is part of several of my regular road loops...I never ride on this shoulder due to it's condition.