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Learning from a fatal accident
A few weeks ago, there was a fatal accident -- two women and a large
truck. One had injuries (I think not serious), the other was killed. I believe that both were members of a competitive club (and thus, had plenty of road experience), and the woman who died left a husband and 4 children. This one hits really close to home for me, as the location is only a couple of miles from my house, and an intersection that I pass through frequently, both as a cyclist and a motorist. There's a memorial shrine that has popped up there, and I see it every time I go through. I don't know a lot about the details of the incident, but I'm hoping that I can see a copy of the police report, when it's completed. The one thing I know is the sick feeling I got, seeing a photo of the scene, with the victim's bike crushed under the rear wheels of the truck. What I *think* may have happened was that the truck was stopped at a red light, and then the cyclists moving up on truck's right side. From there, I'm guessing that the truck began a right turn (probably a green light, but right on red isn't impossible), and because the cyclists were in the truck's blind spot (and on the right side), the truck driver never saw them. I don't know which side of the intersection this happened in, but for at least one of the corners, the bike lane is narrower than many, at least by comparison to other intersections in the area. Since this happened, I'm finding that I'm paying a lot more attention to similar situations when I ride. A number of years ago, I had a run-in with a motor home that turned right in front of me, while I was overtaking on the right. In that particular case, the altercation was limited to me (scared) yelling at the driver, and getting a middle finger salute in return. Although I'm paying particular attention to trucks and other high-profile vehicles, I'm realizing that when I'm overtaking a line of vehicles stopped at an intersection, it's important to be paying attention to all of them. Some may be signaling a turn, many don't, and some may be cheating into the bike lane, especially if there's a dedicated right turn lane, where the line of traffic is backed up well before the right turn lane starts. One thing that I'm finding is that in certain circumstances, if there's a big backup of traffic (especially before the turn lane), it may actually be preferable (and safer) to move out of the bike lane into the next lane, where I'm situated to the left of the stopped cars (and going faster), rather than getting myself pinned against the curb or shoulder by nearly-stopped traffic. After I've passed the stopped traffic, I'll move back over to the bike lane as soon as possible, usually after passing through the intersection. Because there's several different variants of the interaction of right turn lane and bicycle lane, there's no universal formula for how to handle this -- each one must be evaluated individually. In any case, the emphasis is to assume that most motorists don't pay a lot of attention to traffic on their right, especially if they're preparing to make a right turn (even if there's a bike lane to the right of the turn lane). Smith |
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