danger

[tenzil]

Less than a week ago, James Price, age 46, parent of an 11-year-old, was bicycling when a man driving a white car over 60mph and texting, hit him and ran, on Penn Avenue in Point Breeze. Price was killed

Comments

[cyberdryad]

Considering that drivers as a whole are unlikely to read your plea and even more unlikely to come across this revelation on their own, it would probably be safer to just keep cyclists off the road. I know that isn't a popular opinion, and that it isn't fair, but it seems like the only realistic solution to cyclist danger.

[tenzil]

I really disagree with this, as I'm sure you knew I would. I just spent a week in Delaware, where the bike infrastructure is fantastic and very safe. This is a matter of getting drivers to obey laws.

Bonus: a third driver hit a cyclist just this morning, and hit-and-ran: http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2012/08/01/bicyclist-hit-by-truck-in-swissvale/

[dirque]

Dumb truck if it fled down regent square as there's a camera set up on the corner of hutchingson and braddock for license plate scraping and the police are dying to justify the expense.

Some roads are terrible to bike on, as for Penn in the Bike Pittsburgh map for bikers, they speciically tell you to avoid Penn. West of Fifth I'd go down East Liberty Blvd and east I think they suggest mcPherson. or thomas Blvd.

While i agree cars should be more aware, maybe bikers should do their homework too.

[tenzil]

Cyclists should do their homework and go on roads they feel best serve their purposes (I do avoid Penn, for instance, and generally only ride on the sidewalk if I must use it). The penalty for failing to do one's homework should not be death.

[sysd]

So keeping every bicyclist off the road is realistic, while putting in traffic calming measures is not? Expecting minimum basic driving competency is not? If the driver had hit a pedestrian crossing the road, is the solution to keep all pedestrians from crossing the road?

No matter how egregious a non-driver's actions may be on a roadway, the appropriate penalty is not vehicular homicide. When a driver rear-ends another driver, it doesn't matter what the driver in front was doing, the driver in the rear gets charged with following too closely. Because if they had kept enough distance and attention to their environment, they would not have hit the driver in front. The same goes for bicyclists. It is the responsibility of drivers not to murder people with their cars.

[cyberdryad]

I am totally for traffic calming measures, whatever they may be. It would be great if we could expect minimum basic driving competency, but I've met a lot of people who are probably not capable of that. Considering that the consequence for incompetent driving of cars can be the death or permanent injury of the bicyclist, wisdom dictates that any bicyclist with a self-preservation instinct should stay off the road.

Then again, I just took my life in my own hands driving an unfamiliar car during rush hour on the unfamiliar streets of Dallas, and if I had died then it would really be my own fault for being out there with those maniacs. *shudder* It was terrifying out there! I'm a pretty comfortable driver, usually, when I'm home in Ohio or Michigan but people here in Texas are crazy!

[cyberdryad]

I didn't at all mean to imply that death should be considered to be a "penalty" for non-drivers on a roadway, but just that it should not be a surprise if it happens. Riding a bike on a roadway with cars requires much more trust in the competency and care of random people whom I don't know. You couldn't pay me enough to ride a bike on a road with cars. Kudos to those of you who are willing to take the risk to reduce emissions and improve your health, but not me, thanks. Terrifying.