Advocacy & Safety - anyone know is lady hit on sandhill road in woodside ca was killed or not

SO SCARY

we came along accident moments after it happened today 2/16/08 on sandhill road in woodside California. Rider was face down not moving and there was a lot of blood. I bike that stretch a couple times a month and between this and last May death in same area I think I am done biking there.. I called woodside fire and they said she was transported to stanford.

On the other side of the coin while driving home on same stretch of road a group of no less than 15 riders veered into traffic while passing 2 recreational bicyclist almost causing our car and another to run into cars coming the other way and the car going the other way to crowd a group of bicyclist on the other side for fear of a major wreck.

I know there are bad car drivers and bad bike riders but today was JUST too much

...On the other side of the coin while driving home on same stretch of road a group of no less than 15 riders veered into traffic while passing 2 recreational bicyclist almost causing our car and another to run into cars coming the other way and the car going the other way to crowd a group of bicyclist on the other side for fear of a major wreck...

Why did you not choose to simply slow down until traffic cleared, rather than pass in unsafe conditions?

I fail to see where she stated she did not slow down or attempt to pass in a safe manner. There are times that bicyclists are at fault also. Lets not shoot the messenger here until we find out all the facts.

Oh man, recreational bicyclists on the road?? What is the world coming to!!:mad::mad:,,,,BD

Why did you not choose to simply slow down until traffic cleared, rather than pass in unsafe conditions?

I'm figuring thats why they didn't have to veer into traffic, and that any closer and they may have not had the braking distance required.

Amazingly, physics applies to cars too.

Where did this happen on Sandhill? The only two lane section is from I-280 to just past where Portola Valley cuts off.

Why did you not choose to simply slow down until traffic cleared, rather than pass in unsafe conditions?

When something such as a car, a bike or a pedestrian suddenly swerves into your line of travel, your options are fairly limited. It isn't simply a matter of slowing down.

Or to flip your question, why didn't the ass-hat cyclists simply wait until it was safe to pass?

Or to flip your question, why didn't the ass-hat cyclists simply wait until it was safe to pass?

They probably could/should have. Depends on the distance and speed of traffic approaching from the rear. Actually, this is also a pretty good example of how thinking of a pace line as a single vehicle is garbage.

There might have been enough room for the first riders in a pace line to establish a new road position in front of a vehicle approaching from the rear, but such a scenario might put the riders in the rear in jeopardy due to a lack of space or the speed of the approaching vehicle being higher than the lead rider anticipated. Or the lead rider just didn't look.

At any rate, the situation as described would call for extra caution on the part of all road users involved. Not just the cyclists and not just the motorists.

Personally, on a commute I would take the safest road position I deemed possible in a situation like this. Which would put the pace line well out into the lane to pass on my left...or they could slow until the unsafe passing conditions improved.

For the record I am a "RECREATIONAL BIKE RIDER" my point was a sponsored group of bike riders veered without looking into a line of cars almost causing a major accident, it had nothing to do with cars going to fast or not breaking but gut instincts from drivers who had 15 bodies cast into their lane, in turn veering into another lane of cars putting bike riders on the other side of the rode in danger! I am rather frustrated with some of the posts as I had heard good things about this board but I am seeing it is much like everywhere else with those high and mighty making judgmental statements with little or no real value add.

My reason for asking the first question was I was so worried the woman might have been killed and was asking if anyone knew. I am also sticking to riding in Santa Cruz and have given up my loop on the Sandhill ride as with all the accidents and some very scary groups of what appear to be sponsored riders who have little regard for "recreational" riders I am going to stick to my car in Portola Valley ;-(

By the way these same groups blow through light and stops signs and have been known to harass drivers who are going the speed limit through woodside which is 25 MPH as well as slapping a few cars as they went by. I love bike riding but there are as many bad bike riders and car drivers!

Horse & Bike there are thousands of members on this list. Not all share the views of some of the posters here. While your well intentioned inquiry was met with less than what you expected please don't look at everyone here as having the same attitude. There are factions that tend to think they are better so let them think it. It really doesn't mean much as you see they are a relative small percentage. Fact remains you are a bike rider, period. Sometimes the testosterone gets out of control here.

By the way these same groups blow through light and stops signs and have been known to harass drivers who are going the speed limit through woodside which is 25 MPH as well as slapping a few cars as they went by. I love bike riding but there are as many bad bike riders and car drivers!


I lived in Redwood City and Menlo Park for a LONG time before moving to the East Coast (CT) and learned pretty early on to avoid riding anywhere near Woodside on the weekends. The place is beautiful and would be wonderful if it was bikes only, but it's not. It's tiny two lane main roads with LOTS of traffic and then you add in 47 thousand cyclists on the weekends. Every person with a bike who lives within 30 miles of Woodside goes there to ride on Saturdays and Sundays. A large number of the cyclists ride in groups side by side and in packs, rather than in lines. They don't follow traffic rules and a lot of them are very unpredictable. A number of the accidents that occur are exactly because of the unpredictability. On weekdays, Woodside is great to ride, on weekends, it's a circus.

I hope the lady who was hit will be ok. Good luck to her.
FF

It was an honest question, it deserved an honest answer. A simple, "The pace line changed their road position suddenly, without signaling and seemingly without checking for faster moving traffic approaching from the rear.", would have been sufficient. Instead the OP, and a number of others, jumped right on the defensive. Which tells me that the course of action of simply slowing down for a moment was never considered.

An honest question. The very same one that I asked a driver I was riding with one time last year when she buzzed a cyclist who was on the road shoulder, rather than wait for the one oncoming truck to pass, in order to partially change lanes and pass the cyclist safely. She got all defensive and huffy too, but later that afternoon she admitted she was wrong. The idea of slowing in a situation like that never crossed her mind when presented with the situation.

To me, it doesn't matter why a person rides, as long as they do.

Hope the rider involved in the crash is alright. Try keeping an eye on the local news. The media feeds off stuff like this, since it's so rare, but imaginatively gorey.

One of my pet peeves with group rides is that the guys at the front often think like they do when riding solo, rather than like they're driving a really long vehicle with a really long trailer.

In this case it sounds like a typical thing, where the front guys waited to move left to pass the slower cyclists until about the point where they would have moved left had they been riding solo. That doesn't work with a large group. You need to look back to make sure it's clear and merge left early enough to allow the entire group to safely establish right of way further left well before you reach the slower cyclists.

I can't find anything on her condition, but it says a woman lost control of her bike on the downhill heading east toward I-280, and suffered facial injuries. It also mentions a lot of blood. She was with other riders.
That downhill is usually good for around 30 mph. I hope she is okay.

" Dchiefransom

I can't find anything on her condition, but it says a woman lost control of her bike on the downhill heading east toward I-280, and suffered facial injuries. It also mentions a lot of blood. She was with other riders.
That downhill is usually good for around 30 mph. I hope she is okay"

WHEW I hope that was her. Of course we all made the assumption (those in my car) that she had been hit by the car that was pulled over.

Now I will say I have fallen and read giving myself some road rash but the amount of blood is what had us all so worried, It was the size of a trash can lid and I was so afraid she might have dies. I pray she is ok!