Northern California - Cyclist accident makes waves on the Web

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upshot/cyclist-accident-makes-waves-181534779.html

The incident is making waves on the blog-o-sphere as readers weigh in on the cyclist's story. The post, which has since been removed from the forum, read in part, "The light turned yellow as I was approaching the intersection, but I was already way too committed to stop. The light turned red as I was cruising through the middle of the intersection and then, almost instantly, the southern crosswalk on Market and Castro filled up with people coming from both directions, … so, in a nutshell, blammo."

The San Francisco Bay Guardian reports that Bucchere was a member of the mobile app strava.com, which tracks cyclist data and clocked the biker riding 35 miles per hour at the time of the incident.


Something doesn't add up there - if he's going 35mph, there's no way the light turned red in the time it took him to get to the middle of the intersection.

More than likely, the light turned yellow when he was half or quarter block before entering the intersection. 35 mph heading toward that intersection is lunacy.
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

Was he going 35mph at the moment he hit the pedestrian, or was that his maximum speed before he entered the intersection? Has anyone actually seen the data or 35mph must a rumor?

However fast he was going, he hit and killed a pedestrian
who was, by all accounts crossing with the light in a crosswalk.

Exactly how much more discussion do you need ?


so, in a nutshell, blammo.

is not a legal defense, to my knowledge. Anyone care to
correct me on this ?

:bang: Ah for **** sake, what a dip****.

Something doesn't add up there - if he's going 35mph, there's no way the light turned red in the time it took him to get to the middle of the intersection.
He says the light changed to yellow as he was approaching the intersection; not right when he entered it. So it's certainly possible that it changed to red while he was still somewhere in the intersection. California law prohibits vehicles and bicycles from entering the intersection on a red light, so if his account is accurate then he's not guilty of running the light.

But there should be a delay between when the light goes red and before the crosswalk traffic gets a WALK signal and that delay should be sufficient for the cyclist to clear the intersection if he was really going 35 mph (or even close to that speed). So I see a few possibilities: 1) the cyclist, contrary to his statement, actually did enter the intersection after the light turned red and is guilty of running the light, 2) the traffic signal delay is set too short and gave a WALK signal too quickly for traffic to clear the intersection, and 3) the pedestrians waiting at the crosswalk started across before getting the WALK signal, possibly after seeing that no motor vehicles were coming and not noticing the cyclist.

Note that under CVC Section 21456, pedestrians who get a WALK signal are still required to yield the right of way to vehicles that had already entered the intersection before the light turned red for them.

It's a very long intersection.

He could very well have entered on a yellow, turned red halfway across, and still had a long way to go before the crosswalk where the pedestrian light signaled them to walk.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5198/6908710988_9976d8511f_b_d.jpg

A local posting in A&S timed the lights and claims 4sec from yellow to red, then another 4sec for the pedestrian "walk" sign.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/809579-San-Francisco-cyclist-kills-pedestrian-takes-to-bike-blog-to-discuss?p=14068718&viewfull=1#post14068718

There's no excuse for hitting and ultimately killing a pedestrian that makes any sense.

I wonder if he tried to slow down before entering the intersection and realise he wont stop and decided to accelerated through instead. Regardless, the posted speed limit is 25 mph, he will be having a lot going against him if he was doing anything above that. On top of that, I find myself needing more distant to stop from 25 mph on a bike than it is in a car. Here is where one can say that speed does indeed kill. It will be interesting to see how much of that data can be used in this case.

35 is a pretty good clip, I'm sure it carried him pretty close to the outside curb. Not much time for a ped to realize that the light had changed but the intersection wasn't clear.

On top of that, I find myself needing more distant to stop from 25 mph on a bike than it is in a car.

You are quite correct in this assertion.

There is a long discussion on braking in Bicycling Science (http://www.icelord.net/bike/BicyclingScience.pdf)

There will probably be people who read this who
will not believe it, so I take the opportunity to
painfully type out the appropriate paragraph.


Another conclusion from this calculation is that a deceleration
of 0.5 g is almost the maximum that can be risked by a
crouched rider on level ground before he risks going over the
handlebars. We can calculate the maximum possible deceleration
as a proportion of g........as 5.45 m/s squared.

.......drivers of cars do not have this limitation on deceleration.
If their brakes are adequate, they can theoretically brake to the
limit of tire-to-road adhesion...............They are normally capable
of a deceleration of 0.8 g, which is over 40% greater than
that of a seated bicyclist with the best possible brakes.

Usually, people who do not understand this end up following
cars too closely, and then kill themselves. Unfortunately, this
guy managed to kill someone else.:(

I wonder if he tried to slow down before entering the intersection and realise he wont stop and decided to accelerated through instead. Regardless, the posted speed limit is 25 mph, he will be having a lot going against him if he was doing anything above that. On top of that, I find myself needing more distant to stop from 25 mph on a bike than it is in a car. Here is where one can say that speed does indeed kill. It will be interesting to see how much of that data can be used in this case.

The speed limit is not actually posted, but rather falls under the Prima Facie speed limit. See section 2: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc22352.htm

Someone from San Francisco posted that the speed limit is 25 mph. The guy goes on the internet and posts he was doing 35? If the intersection is set up for 25 mph traffic, he should have a hard time of it.

Someone from San Francisco posted that the speed limit is 25 mph. The guy goes on the internet and posts he was doing 35? If the intersection is set up for 25 mph traffic, he should have a hard time of it.

The guy did not post it. He uploaded his ride to Strava and someone found it there. (Don't bother looking, the ride is gone, and forums that initially uncovered the story have been sanitized as well.)

Usually, people who do not understand this end up following
cars too closely, and then kill themselves.

That's why I only draft trucks and buses.

Oh oh, video.


Video surveillance footage taken when a bicyclist ran into a 71-year-old pedestrian crossing San Francisco's Castro Street, killing the man, is raising questions about the biker's account of the crash.

The video shows Sutchi Hui of San Bruno and his wife stepping into the intersection at Castro and Market streets just as Chris Bucchere rides in from the north side, said a law enforcement source who has viewed the footage.

"The biker is going fast and looks like he is hunched down. He hits the victim dead-on. There is never a moment where he looks like he is trying to slow down," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because police are still investigating the March 29 crash.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/10/BA8B1O1H44.DTL#ixzz1rrIbYbvg

He deserves all the bad things the law can throw at him.

I began to rethink this yesterday when I came close to hitting a pedestrian in a crosswalk during my commute to work.
I have a video camera on the bike, so you can see it here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P74g7YVWJCs

I am riding W on West Hedding, approaching the intersection with N San Pedro - the road is flat, it is early morning with light traffic, and I am travelling at about 15 mph. When I am about 10 yards from the intersection the light changes from green to yellow, and I slow, but continue through the intersection, when I am 3/4 through the intersection, the light turns to red, and a group of pedestrians immediately step into the crosswalk in front of me. Had I been travelling faster, the outcome could easily have been the same as with Bucchere.

Rethink it again, because that pedestrian has the right of way........

Sauerwald:

Someone has to say it, so I guess I will - You were in the wrong in that footage. If you were going about 15mph as you say, you should have been able to stop before entering the intersection. It sure looks that way just looking at the footage, and the math seems to bear that out. By my measurement, you had about about 2.75 seconds between the time the light went yellow and the time you crossed the limit/sidewalk line on the near side of the intersection. If my math is correct, that translates to 60 feet, give or take (and that looks about right from the footage). According to bike braking calculator I was able to find on-line (here http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/brakes2.html), you should be able to stop in less than 10 feet going 15mph on dry concrete. That sounds kind of low to me, so double it to 20 feet to be conservative. Even factoring in extra reaction time between when the light changed and you can hit the brakes, it sure looks to me as though you had more than enough room to stop when the light turned yellow. As I understand the law, since you could have stopped, you had the legal obligation to.

Yeah, it would have been a PITA to lose that speed. And yes, the pedestrian should have looked before stepping out into the street (not because he did not have the right of way, but because he was the one who would have gotten hurt). So unless there is something I am missing here, you are the one in the wrong here. Your mistake does not even begin to reach Buccherean levels, but it was your mistake nonetheless.

I suspect about 98% of us have made pretty much this same mistake, me included. So the larger point isn't really that Sauerwald erred, but that we all need to remember that the rules of the road apply to all of us, and for a very good reason. Without the predictability that traffic laws provide, it becomes the law of the jungle out there. In that case, we all have targets on our backs, regardless of mode of transportation.

Don't people look before crossing the street?

did the OP who posted the video of his/her "almost accident" edit the post? if not, there is NOTHING in the post that implies anything as regards responsibility for the near accident...

Don't people look before crossing the street?

most don't and that's a problem.

Sauerwald:

As I understand the law, since you could have stopped, you had the legal obligation to.



What? Those are the instructions in the handbook, and they make sense from a safety perspective, but I don't think that's the legal obligation. If you enter the intersection before the red light then you haven't violated the red light rule. Sauerwald should've stopped, and since he (she?) didn't, he should've been extra vigilant for safety reasons, but if he was over the line when the light changed to red then he didn't infract.

I went and reviewed the DMV site today as well, looking for legal confirmation of the urban legend that goes something like "you need to make it half way through under yellow" which doesn't seem to exist at CA DMV. The only thing I could find was if you enter the intersection when the light is yellow is to proceed with caution. Pedestrians are supposed to look both ways before stepping off the sidewalk at a crosswalk (which is _any_ pedestrian legal intersection, marked or not in CA). This gets murkier at traffic signals since many now have audible signals for folks with vision impairment so when "proceeding with caution" one must assume a blind person might step off the curb in your path.

As far as the braking distance calculator, I think there is a slight difference in braking distance between a flyweight roadie hill climber on a 14 pound road bike and, say, me at 200 pounds on a 30+ pound commute bike. Unless there is a weight factor, I cry BS on said calculator. That said, Sauerwald _probably_ could have made a safe and complete stop before the intersection. But, entering the intersection while the light was still yellow is legal. I have done the same thing, and likely worse (I am guessing we all have).

All that said, 35mph in/on any vehicle through a major downtown inner city intersection is certainly not "proceeding with caution" as you are required to do after entering the intersection on a yellow light.

Since I bicycle commute in Santa Cruz, don't get me started about skateboarders and longboard carrying surfers....

This is a tragic, but clearly avoidable, accident. If it were a cyclist killed by a car under the same circumstances most folks in the cycling community would want the driver crucified. We all must try to be careful and keep our wits about us.

I like the camera on the bike idea a lot and have been thinking about doing so myself just in case I become victim of the upsurge in hit-and-run car-bike collisions we are having in our area.

I went and reviewed the DMV site today as well, looking for legal confirmation of the urban legend that goes something like "you need to make it half way through under yellow" which doesn't seem to exist at CA DMV. The only thing I could find was if you enter the intersection when the light is yellow is to proceed with caution. Pedestrians are supposed to look both ways before stepping off the sidewalk at a crosswalk (which is _any_ pedestrian legal intersection, marked or not in CA). This gets murkier at traffic signals since many now have audible signals for folks with vision impairment so when "proceeding with caution" one must assume a blind person might step off the curb in your path.
Last time I checked, I only found a law that said a yellow light means "prepare for red." There are intersections on my commute with a five-second yellow and zero all-red time that take more than five seconds to cross, especially in a headwind, so I could find myself in a similar situation even if I had zero chance to stop for the yellow.

edit: paced them out on my way home. 150 feet to cross in 5 seconds.


As far as the braking distance calculator, I think there is a slight difference in braking distance between a flyweight roadie hill climber on a 14 pound road bike and, say, me at 200 pounds on a 30+ pound commute bike. Unless there is a weight factor, I cry BS on said calculator.
If you run the equations, mass cancels out. Maximum deceleration on a bike is limited by where your center of mass is located relative to the front wheel. That said, still allow a generous fudge factor -- even if your hand was on the brake lever, reaction time is half a second, and maximum braking is not really practical.

Under the Motor Vehicle Code, a driver can legally enter an intersection if the vehicle's front tires touch the limit line or pedestrian crosswalk line while a signal is still yellow, according to Sgt. Bill Languemi, a code instructor at the California Highway Patrol.
"It is cheating, but it is within the law," he said.
In many cases, these limit lines and pedestrian crosswalk lines are positioned well back from the actual intersection, which is typically defined as the imaginary box formed by the curb lines of the road. I measured the intersection in front of my office, which is across from Los Angeles City Hall, and found the limit lines were 18 feet behind the actual intersection.
Thus, a car can seem to fly through an intersection on a red light and still be legal, so long as the tires hit the limit line on yellow. What's more, the vehicle code gives that car legal possession of the intersection, and cars with the lateral green light must wait for the intersection to clear before entering.
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/12/autos/hy-wheels12


V C Section 21950 Right of Way at Crosswalks

Right-of-Way at Crosswalks

21950. (a) The driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, except as otherwise provided in this chapter.

(b) This section does not relieve a pedestrian from the duty of using due care for his or her safety. No pedestrian may suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle that is so close as to constitute an immediate hazard. No pedestrian may unnecessarily stop or delay traffic while in a marked or unmarked crosswalk.

(c) The driver of a vehicle approaching a pedestrian within any marked or unmarked crosswalk shall exercise all due care and shall reduce the speed of the vehicle or take any other action relating to the operation of the vehicle as necessary to safeguard the safety of the pedestrian.

(d) Subdivision (b) does not relieve a driver of a vehicle from the duty of exercising due care for the safety of any pedestrian within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection.


V C Section 21954 Pedestrians Outside Crosswalks

Pedestrians Outside Crosswalks

21954. (a) Every pedestrian upon a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles upon the roadway so near as to constitute an immediate hazard.

(b) The provisions of this section shall not relieve the driver of a vehicle from the duty to exercise due care for the safety of any pedestrian upon a roadway.

Again, it seems obvious to me that as cyclists we have
duty to exercise due care for the safety of any pedestrian upon a roadway
wherever we encounter them, and I believe we are legally accountable under the code if we do not.

If there is any confusion, let me state clearly that your video does not demonstrate
to me the exercise of due care for the safety of this pedestrian. Sorry, but that's
how it looks from where I sit. As to the guy who killed someone, I think he's lucky
the crowd did not tear him limb from limb.

If you run the equations, mass cancels out. Maximum deceleration on a bike is limited by where your center of mass is located relative to the front wheel. That said, still allow a generous fudge factor -- even if your hand was on the brake lever, reaction time is half a second, and maximum braking is not really practical.

I'd be curious to see how mass cancels out. If F=ma where F is the force to apply an acceleration of a to a mass of m it is clear that as m increases so does F. Unless a heavier rider has upgraded their brakes to take into account they are heavier the braking force available is based on the same brake block/braking surface combo regardless of the weight of the rider.

If the maximum safe braking force is capped by the desire to not go over the handlebars it may be that mass doesn't affect the calculation; if it's capped by how much deceleration the braking system can provide then it's harder to see how mass can do anything other than vary it.

I'd be curious to see how mass cancels out. If F=ma where F is the force to apply an acceleration of a to a mass of m it is clear that as m increases so does F.

This is why trains can stop in the same distance as cars.

Don't people look before crossing the street?

One thing going on is that cars make a lot more noise and have a larger visual profile than a bicycle. So based on probably thousands of crossings of the street, a given pedestrian will know, based on sound and peripheral vision, that the cars are stopped and the way is clear. If they haven't had an encounter with a cyclist entering the intersection as the light turns, they simply aren't trained to look for him. I don't mean this as an excuse, merely an explanation.

I probably could have stopped had I applied the brakes as soon as the light turned yellow, however, as I was approaching the intersection, I saw a green light, I was then scanning the cross street, and the near-side crosswalk - not staring at the light as I approached the intersection. As I was about to enter the intersection I looked back up at the light, and it was yellow, at this point it was too late to stop. I do not disown all responsibility for this, however, I believe that for traffic, the law is that when the light turns green, you must wait for traffic in the intersection to clear before proceeding. I am not sure if there is a similar requirement for pedestrians, but common sense would suggest that it is not a good idea to step in front of a moving vehicle regardless of the color of the light. The fact that I was on a bicycle, which is slower and more maneuverable than a car probably kept the pedestrian from having a much worse experience - regardless of who might have been at fault.

I probably could have stopped had I applied the brakes as soon as the light turned yellow, however, as I was approaching the intersection, I saw a green light, I was then scanning the cross street, and the near-side crosswalk - not staring at the light as I approached the intersection. As I was about to enter the intersection I looked back up at the light, and it was yellow, at this point it was too late to stop. I do not disown all responsibility for this, however, I believe that for traffic, the law is that when the light turns green, you must wait for traffic in the intersection to clear before proceeding. I am not sure if there is a similar requirement for pedestrians, .

There is. Read my posting of the VC


(b) This section does not relieve a pedestrian from the duty of using due care for his or her safety. No pedestrian may suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle that is so close as to constitute an immediate hazard. No pedestrian may unnecessarily stop or delay traffic while in a marked or unmarked crosswalk.

Nonetheless, read subsection d again........


(d) Subdivision (b) does not relieve a driver of a vehicle from the duty of exercising due care for the safety of any pedestrian within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection.

the bottom line here is that if you hit a pedestrian in a crosswalk,
while operating a car or a bicycle, your subsequent life will be made
pretty unpleasant. A lot of guys might look at that fact, and possibly
modify their riding style. Some won't....it's a personal choice.

I cannot make you smarter, safer, or a better cyclist. But you have the
California VC sections that apply, FWIW.:thumb:

I'd be curious to see how mass cancels out. If F=ma where F is the force to apply an acceleration of a to a mass of m it is clear that as m increases so does F. Unless a heavier rider has upgraded their brakes to take into account they are heavier the braking force available is based on the same brake block/braking surface combo regardless of the weight of the rider.

When it comes to braking, mass does indeed "cancel out" form the pure classic mechanic point of view. It is true that larger mass means larger inertia. But larger mass at the same time means larger friction (by the same factor). These two effect cancel themselves out precisely, which is why the classic mechanical formula for friction-limited stopping distance does not depend on mass at all

d = v^2 / 2gf

where 'v' is the initial speed, 'g' is acceleration due to gravity and 'f' is the friction coefficient. This formula means that under friction braking from the same initial speed, all bodies have exactly the same stopping distance, regardless of their mass.

However, in real life the considerations of mass redistribution under deceleration, shape of contact path and limitations of specific braking systems have significant effect on the braking distance. This is the reason why heavier cars cannot compete with smaller cars in therms of braking distance (albeit the gap is getting smaller and smaller as the braking technology improves).

In case of a bicycle this formula does not immediately work either, since bicycle braking is not friction-limited, but rather balance-limited: on a dry pavement a bicycle will flip over its front wheel well before it reaches its friction limit. Increasing the mass of the rider (a mass located relatively high, BTW) will shift the balance towards the flip even further.

In case of a bicycle this formula does not immediately work either, since bicycle braking is not friction-limited, but rather balance-limited: on a dry pavement a bicycle will flip over its front wheel well before it reaches its friction limit. Increasing the mass of the rider (a mass located relatively high, BTW) will shift the balance towards the flip even further.
You're right. I knew mass canceled in the friction-limited case, and thought that would also apply to the balance-limited case.

You're right. I knew mass canceled in the friction-limited case, and thought that would also apply to the balance-limited case.

This is the formula for "minimum stopping distance". "Friction-limited case" means that you're able to brake/decelerate at a rate that's just short of the tires starting to skid - like you might see on an emergency car maneuver with ABS, perfect tires and perfect pavement.

The statement that started this discussion was that a heavy rider would have a greater ACTUAL braking distance than a featherweight rider. That'd be an interesting experiment - putting up skilled riders of different masses and equivalent equipment. But every one of them would be longer than the distance given by that calculator.

SAN FRANCISCO—City prosecutors said they would file felony vehicular-manslaughter charges against a bicyclist who allegedly hit and killed a pedestrian, in a case that has become a flash point for debate over bicyclists' rights in the city.The manslaughter charges—unusually stiff for a bicycle accident—stem from a March 29 incident, when 36-year-old bicyclist Chris Bucchere allegedly ran a red traffic light and plowed into 71-year-old Sutchi Hui in a crosswalk. Mr. Hui died April 2 of injuries related to the collision.An arrest warrant was issued on Wednesday for Mr. Bucchere, who will be arraigned early next week, said San ...http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404577466990820318610.html

From Bob Mionske's column, in the comments:


Indeed, the district attorney, was recently quoted by Streets Blog (http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/06/21/da-gascon-erroneously-blames-the-victim-in-most-pedestrian-fatalities/) : “the reason so few drivers are charged in pedestrian injuries and fatalities is that “in the majority of those cases, unfortunately, the pedestrian has been the one deemed to be at fault.” He was speaking about car drivers, not pedestrians. When it’s a cyclist, apparently, even when the pedestrian is proven at fault, as he is in this case, the cyclist gets criminal charges. If it had been a car entering the intersection at 30+ mph, and pedestrians jumped the light by over two seconds, the comment sections of the paper would be full of “crazy pedestrians!” comments, not lynch mobs against the driver.

on a dry pavement a bicycle will flip over its front wheel well before it reaches its friction limit. Increasing the mass of the rider (a mass located relatively high, BTW) will shift the balance towards the flip even further.

I don't think that's true. The bicycle will not flip over the front wheel, unless the rider is going downhill or has his weight shifted far forward, over the handlebars. Assuming flat road and typical posture, in the friction limited case, we have two sources of torque: friction between the front wheel and the pavement, with torque m*r*f, where m is mass of the bicycle and the rider, r is the radius of the wheel, and f is friction; and gravity, with torque m*d, where d is horizontal distance between the front axle and the center of gravity of the bicycle and the rider. Under normal conditions, f<1 and d>r, which means that friction is insufficient to overcome gravity and to flip over the bicycle.

No offense intended, but your assumptions and your equations
do not reflect the realities....as any of the more adventurous
speedster bikers here can testify.

Check out the chapter in Bicycling Science on braking, for a better
modeling of what's actually going on when you brake.. .. there's a weight
shift to the front that happens automatically in braking a standard
configuration, upright, double diamond framed bicycle.

This is why the majority of your braking power is effectively applied
to the front, and why it's not that hard to endo........

You guys need to either experience this yourself or think about it some more. The "intergreen" period is only a few seconds (that is the time between when one direction has green and when the other section has green - both ways have a red light). The slower you are going on you bike, the worse this problem is. You can be riding along at say 5 mph and you go through a green light (yes green). But, before you get even half-way across that intersection the light goes orange then red. AND, if there are pedestrians on the crosswalk it becomes hazardous. Neither the pedestrians nor the rider are at fault because both of them entered the intersection with a green light.

So how do I know this? Because it happens to me every day on my commute. It's not a problem anymore because I know that at this particular intersection, I need to stop even though the light is green. The fault lies with the timing of the lights and one day I will write to the city admin and suggest they increase the intergreen time.

Having a bell on your bike is also helpful in cases like this.

There is a long discussion on braking in Bicycling Science (http://www.icelord.net/bike/BicyclingScience.pdf)


(

Link (*.pdf) appears to be removed. Were you able to make a copy to your hard drive? if so would you be kind enough to share?

Link (*.pdf) appears to be removed. Were you able to make a copy to your hard drive? if so would you be kind enough to share?

There are numerous links to the work on the interwebz.

Here's one http://www.2shared.com/document/BtZF8F8-/Bicycling_Science_PDF.html

but you really only need to look at the specific chapter on braking,
chapter 7, in particular the discussion on longitudinal stability while
braking. This starts on p243 in my edition of the book.

The rest of the chapter is very interesting, but less applicable.

I began to rethink this yesterday when I came close to hitting a pedestrian in a crosswalk during my commute to work.
I have a video camera on the bike, so you can see it here:


I am riding W on West Hedding, approaching the intersection with N San Pedro - the road is flat, it is early morning with light traffic, and I am travelling at about 15 mph. When I am about 10 yards from the intersection the light changes from green to yellow, and I slow, but continue through the intersection, when I am 3/4 through the intersection, the light turns to red, and a group of pedestrians immediately step into the crosswalk in front of me. Had I been travelling faster, the outcome could easily have been the same as with Bucchere.

No offense, and a lot of discussion of the vehicle code and physics formulae, but you should have stopped. Clearly. There's no way in heck I would have gone through that big an intersection with the light changing that far from going into the actual intersection. The ped did NOTHING wrong IMO, though they probably should have looked. It's a smart thing to have the camera even if you aren't using it to "be a hero" as the ads proclaim, but in this case, it showed that you were wrong. Just my opinion.

I was in SF Thursday and Friday. I rode all around that intersection. It looks like there is a block-long descent on Castro leading to Market Street, which means Bucchere must have been sprinting towards the intersection in order to reach 35 mph. That is nuts! In SF, even when I am descending a street where I don't have stop signs or traffic lights to watch out for, I always approach intersections with caution. It is just too congested and busy to take chances. That Market and Castro intersection is very busy, and I can't imagine entering it at any kind of speed, let alone 35 mph! :eek:

IMO the pedestrians in sauerwalds video were at fault. No laws were broken, and he did display caution (slowing, and then swerving to not hit them). The peds were fools for stepping into a street without looking. Sauerwalds did everything right. He's just not able to anticipate the inattentiveness of others.

I have found out the hard way that some people believe pedestrians can do no wrong. I posted a video once of a jaywalking pedestrian who walked out in front of me without looking, causing me to swerve to avoid him. He apologized for that, which is why I posted the video in the first place. I thought it was very nice of him to do so.

The video got an immediate thumbs-down, most likely from one of my subscribers. I deleted it. I had the same problem when I posted a video of a dangerous section of the American River Parkway bike trail. Three teenagers were walking side-by-side, taking up the whole trail. I rang my bell as they approached and they moved. One of them made a hissing sound as I passed. That video got a lovely comment and a thumbs-down from some clueless moron saying "you sound like an ass hole". I deleted that video too.

Another time I posted a video of a bridge where cyclists are required to ride on the sidewalk. I was approaching a runner. Traffic noise was so loud that he couldn't hear my bell, so I did a couple quick toots on my AirZound horn, which he did hear. I thanked him and passed. I put a caption on that video explaining why I had to use the horn.

Same thing. Got two thumbs-ups, but one thumbs-down from a pedestrian worshipper. I deleted that video too. Now I will not post any video that has anything to do with pedestrians.