Cyclist Hit and killed in San Diego...
 

Anybody else read this?



http://bikinginla.wordpress.com/2012...le-last-night/

To many cyclist are being hit whats up with drivers these days!
Condolences to the family

This accident is hard to understand!

If the motorcyclist was on Tecolote he was headed Westbound across Morena. When Tecolote crosses Morena it becomes Seaworld Dr. Morena northbound has two lanes that turn left onto Seaworld Dr. The northbound bicycle lane on Morena ends about 75 yards before Tecolote and becomes a right turn lane onto Tecolote and a straight ahead lane for Morena.

There are only three ways the motorcyclist could have turned left onto Morena (SB on Morena) and hit the bicyclist head on.

1) The bicyclist was NB on Morena in the straight ahead lane and the motorcyclist cut the corner so sharply he ended up in the rightmost of three northbound lanes on Morena.
2) The bicyclist was turning left off Morena onto Seaworld and was in the left turn lane and the motorcyclist turned into that lane
3) The bicyclist was northbound in the southbound lane of Morena and the motorcyclist turned wide and drifted into the bicycle lane.

I ride thru the intersection at least once a week and it scares me 'cause it is confusing.

There is no indication NB that the bicycle lane is going to end and suddenly cars swerve to the right to make the right turn on Tecolote. There are no signs indicating the two center lanes NB are left turn lanes and cars swerve every which way to get onto Seaworld Dr.

When heading WB on Tecolote in the left turn lane - there is no easy way to determine where the single SB lane on Morena begins - Morena SB looks like it is two lanes and is almost wide enough for two lanes but it is not stripped for two lanes. Cars making the left onto SB Morena (as was the motorcyclist) frequently have conflicts with cars coming off EB Seaworld who think they have two lanes to turn into but just a few feet south of the intersection SB Morean narrows down to one lane.

What I don't understand is why San Diego street / signal / sign people don't put in better road markings, signs, and dividers.

This accident was a result of San Diego citys inaction

I have been riding thru the area at least weekly for several years. There are several homeless camps or gathering spots within 200 yards of the intersection. I frequently see disheveled folks on old beater bikes carrying or towing what looks like all their worldly belongs. I have had many close calls - almost hitting them while riding, as they ride the wrong way in the bike lanes, dart out of alleys, make U-turns in front of me in the bike lane, push their bikes across all lanes of traffic with no regard for signals, and in general ride in a unpredictable manner.

I have had to come to a full stop several times while riding to keep from colliding with bikes doing very unexpected things.

I'm not blaming the bicyclist in this case - I am just describing my extensive experience riding thru the accident intersection.

I have ridden that area also, and San Diego is not a very bike friendly city, in terms of infrastructure. There are some real hazardous conditions in that area. It is hard to tell from the descriptions if the cyclist was riding with, or against, traffic. Was it dark, and was the bike lit?

I feel for the guy and his family, but the linked-to article takes the tone that "The cops and press always assume it is the cyclists fault, when we know it is always the evil drivers fault". When all the grieving about another bike down is over, we need to look objectively at how things like this can be prevented in the future.

Actually it appears that Sea World Dr turns into Tecolote at the bridge over I5, not Morena.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=googl...gl=us&t=m&z=16

So the report does makes sense. Motorcycle was coming from the direction of the freeway, turns left onto Morena and hits the cyclist a block north (actually northwest, but I consider Morena/W Morena a N/S street).

"So the report does makes sense. Motorcycle was coming from the direction of the freeway, turns left onto Morena and hits the cyclist a block north (actually northwest, but I consider Morena/W Morena a N/S street)."

If what you say is true then either the motorcyclist or the bicyclist was running thru a RED light.

One witness says "I saw this accident happen. The motorcyclist made a left turn onto Morena from Tecolote Road. He took off from the light at a very high speed, cut across a lane without signaling and collided head on with the bicyclist."

If the witness is correct - it is conceivable the bicyclist was standing in the only SB Morena straight ahead lane for the light to turn green for him. The left turning NB motorcyclist got confused (due to lack of signage/divider/road markings?) and turned into the SB inside lane on Tecolote.

That intersection is 120 wide when crossing Tecolote SB. EB Tecolote turning N (left) onto Morena is a two lane left but is very poorly marked. The driver in the inside left turn lane sees no signage of divider telling him where the NB inside lane is on Morena. It would be very easy to mistakenly turn into the SB lane.

BUT…

the other witness says "Witnessed this accident happen. The story is all wrong. Bicyclist was headed southeast across Morena in the right hand only turn lane–crossing the street–when the motorcyclist, heading north, was speeding after making the left hand turn from Tecolote onto Morena”

So – that means someone was in the intersection at the wrong time. There is a crosswalk and pedestrian signal for both crosswalks that cross Morena. What is confusing about the 2nd witness is that the “right turn lane only” lane SB on Morena is adjacent to the SB curb and the only way for the motorcyclist to get there is to make a turn of more than 90 degrees and head N on the far wrong side of the road. There is also a “right turn only” lane EB on Tecolote which then goes SB on Morena. If the poor bicyclist was in that lane then the LEFT turning motorcycle would have been going WB on Tecolote – not EB as Markg describes.

The two witness statements seem to contradict each other or the bicyclist was crossing Morena in the northern cross walk headed east from the SB “right turn only” lane on Morena – in which case someone either ran a red light or crossed against a Don’t Walk sign.

It is easy to sympathize with the authorities investigating the accident when the two witness statements contradict each other or confirm that someone ran a red light.

I have had five similar experiences where I was hit, while riding my bicycle, by auto/truck drivers (four from behind and one from head on) and in every case I was either in a bike lane or a clearly marked traffic lane. In every case the driver admitted to hitting me because "they didn't notice me" - in only one case did the police or courts punish the driver. And – in three cases I had independent witnesses who confirmed that I had the right of way and was in the bike lane – the police declined to do anything in all three of those situations.

I believe the solution to this contradiction is that you're assuming that the accident occurred at the intersection. It did not. It occurred some distance further north. Motorcyclist made a left turn from eastbound Tecolote to northbound Morena, accelerated to 80 mph, and suddenly saw a bicyclist, who had turned from eastbound Knoxville to southbound Morena and was trying to cross Morena illegally, and who had already made it almost to the sidewalk (hence "being in the right turn only lane").

There's a photo in the 10 news article showing the bicycle and the motorcycle, and, judging by the background, it was taken about 70-80 feet south of the intersection between Morena and Knoxville. There is a large trailer park on the east side of Morena Blvd, with a side entrance from Morena, it is possible that the victim lived there.

According to the U-T, the cyclist was drunk and riding on the wrong side of the road.

Link to story, por favor?
All I was able to find was this unfortunate story about a couple picking a fight with some stupid critical massers. :(

I hesitated to mention this. The article, in spite of it's "we good-they bad" tone, did have a valid point about the commercial press being less than reliable on matters like this. I was involved in drunk biking accident in 1981, when I rear ended a parked car and woke up in a hospital. I no longer drive, or ride, drunk.

UT is behind a paywall now. Here is another report
http://www.10news.com/news/31255088/detail.html

The picture definitely looks like it is right in front of the driveway entrance to the trailer park that is on the SE corner of Morena and Knoxville.

Reading the comments on that story reminds me of why I stopped watching that local TV "news" crap.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/...st-dies-crash/

Prior article: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/...na-blvd-crash/

This is why eyewitness accounts are very unreliable. Most likely none of them were watching both the bicyclinst and the motorcyclist prior to the accident and thus can say what happened. They all saw the accident and are piecing the "how it happened" based on their perticular perspectives of what they were watching prior to the accident. You can have 30 people see the same thing and you will get 30 different versions of the event.

What reason do they give for believing the rider was drunk? I remember the police originally blamed the dead cyclist for going the wrong way on the Clairemont-805 bridge killing, when actually he was riding absolutely legally in a vehicular fashion.

Seriously, I drive for a living here in San Diego, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the motorcyclists I encounter each day who don't ride them like complete jerks. Yes, I know it's legal to split lanes, but not at 60 mph when traffic is going 10, or passing on the shoulder to filter up to the front of a red light lineup (that's reserved for us crazy cyclists :) , or weaving through 70 mph merging traffic at 100 mph. And I rode a motorcycle for 10 years and never crashed it (got one speeding ticket for 11 mph over the limit, that's it), so I know it's possible to not be a jerk.

Jeesh, why it's illegal for a motorcycle to ride (safely, not at 85, jerks!) on an empty freeway shoulder when lane-splitting is legal confounds me.

The shoulder is considered to be the Emergency lane and it is reserved for CHP and tow trucks with CHP permission. Lane splitting is legal because CA doesn't have a law that specifies how many vehicles can occupy a lane simultaneously.