Driver admits killing Marine cyclist

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/traffic/5032871/detail.html

wrote:

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/traffic/5032871/detail.html

Maybe a couple hundred of us did a ride-of-silence for Patrick Klokow
(the victim) a couple of Sundays ago. Local media covered that ride,
too, fortunately.

My local group -- San Diego County Bicycling Coalition -- is working
with the city to make that particular stretch of road more
bike-friendly. 'Tis a nasty stretch.

Never saw the pic's before, though. Awful.

wrote:
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/traffic/5032871/detail.html

THAT SHOULD TEACH HIM TO STAY IN THE ****EN BIKE LANE. HEHE

Neil Brooks wrote:
Maybe a couple hundred of us did a ride-of-silence for Patrick Klokow
(the victim) a couple of Sundays ago. Local media covered that ride,
too, fortunately.

My local group -- San Diego County Bicycling Coalition -- is working
with the city to make that particular stretch of road more
bike-friendly. 'Tis a nasty stretch.


You mean you all are working to remove potential hit & run drivers?

Oh, I bet you mean you are working to get those pesky bicyclists out of
the road and onto bike lanes.

Wayne

Wayne Pein wrote:

Neil Brooks wrote:
Maybe a couple hundred of us did a ride-of-silence for Patrick Klokow
(the victim) a couple of Sundays ago. Local media covered that ride,
too, fortunately.

My local group -- San Diego County Bicycling Coalition -- is working
with the city to make that particular stretch of road more
bike-friendly. 'Tis a nasty stretch.


You mean you all are working to remove potential hit & run drivers?

Oh, I bet you mean you are working to get those pesky bicyclists out of
the road and onto bike lanes.

Wayne

Not quite as simple as either of those ideas, of course.

Recent e-mail from the group's Executive Director:
-------------------------------------------------------------

As some of you know, I had a meeting today with Councilmember Madaffer
regarding solutions to the problem on Kearny Villa Road. Many people
from the City were in attendance, along with some representatives from
Caltrans.

Overall, the meeting went very well. Councilmember Madaffer expressed
his strong support for making changes that would increase safety on KV
Road, as well as supporting a public education campaign. I think we
have his support to make real change out there. :-)

I brought with me a sample public education campaign that I think
would be a good starting point for a campaign in San Diego. Mr.
Madaffer (and the others in the room) expressed his support for a
public education campaign. I think we will be able to make this move
forward.

Mr. Madaffer and everyone else in the room also support modifying the
KV Road/163 interchange to remove the free right turn movements -
installing a traffic light, and making all the traffic going on to the
163 go up to the light and make a 90 degree turn. Everyone seems to be
on board to make these changes, it is just a matter of getting over
the bureaucratic hurdles and finding some funding. Everyone expressed
that this issue is a priority and should move forward as quickly as
possible. Unfortunately, as quickly as possible will likely be at
least two years.

In the meantime, the City engineers suggested some striping and
signage changes in the area that they feel would help safety. One is
to put bike lane signage up through the interchange and south -
currently the stretch of road between 52 and 163 does not have bike
lane signs or markings. The one place I think we will have some
disagreement with the City is a proposal they put forward to
temporarily change how bicyclists move through the KV Road/163
interchange. Currently cyclists ride straight south, negotiating their
way through the Harris Plant Road offramp, the Harris Plant road
onramp, and the southbound 163 onramp. Their proposal would be to
encourage southbound cyclists to exit on Harris Plant Road and
re-enter KV Road on the other side. This puts cyclists to the right of
all the traffic on KV Road and Harris Plant Road, elminating two
potential collision points - the Harris Plant offramp and onramp. The
bad news is that it puts bicyclists to the right of all the traffic
going onto the SB 163. The proposal is to find some way of creating a
designated location for bicyclists to cross the SB 163 onramp, either
with crosswalk markings, signage, or flashing beacons. My initial
response to this suggestion was that I don't believe it will help the
safety situation, and might make it worse by trapping bicyclists to
the right of the freeway-bound traffic. I actually think keeping the
interchange the way it is right now, until the real solutions can be
implemented, is a better solution. But I believe the City is feeling
an immense amount of pressure to do SOMETHING out there in the short
term, which is why they are even proposing this as an action. This
action woule be temporary, until the real solution can be implemented.
Everyone in the room agrees that the real solution to the problem is
to eliminate the free rights, and everyone is on board to make those
changes.

The City is interested in hearing the Coalition's response to the
proposed changes, and we should talk about them at our board meeting
on Wednesday. Feel free to send to me and the list any comments you
might have.

Again, we've made significant progress already on Kearny Villa Road.
All the powers-that-be agree that the road must be modified and
committed to doing that as quickly as possible. And they all agree
that a public education campaign about safe driving/sharing the road
is a good idea that should be pursued.

Wayne Pein wrote:

Oh, I bet you mean you are working to get those pesky bicyclists out of
the road and onto bike lanes.

Wayne


speak for yourself. i like when roads have bike lanes. when i ride on a
busy narrow road without them or any shoulder and with a constant stream
of steady traffic passing within inches of me at 40mph, all i can think
about for the entire ride is painful death or dismemberment. doesn't
really motivate me to get out and ride, being in that state of mind- i
had a friend who used to call surviving rides like that "cheating mr.
death".

h

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 22:02:56 GMT, Neil Brooks
wrote:

Again, we've made significant progress already on Kearny Villa Road.
All the powers-that-be agree that the road must be modified and
committed to doing that as quickly as possible. And they all agree
that a public education campaign about safe driving/sharing the road
is a good idea that should be pursued.

People that know more about the subject than I and really wanted to
believe in it pretty much have found that 'public education campaigns'
don't seem to work. True traffic education is one thing, since there
are examples that have worked in other countries, but campaigns,
especially the media spots, appear to be a waste of money - unless you
have a budget to keep it going a loooong time and present it
consistently. Media spots on the PBS types are evidently the biggest
waste - but they are more often used as they are more available.

Sat through a couple of good presentations at a GEAR in Wellesley and
in Tennessee about the deficiencies of public education campaigns,
targets and media issues et al, but don't have any of the handouts
anymore.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

Curtis L. Russell wrote:

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 22:02:56 GMT, Neil Brooks
wrote:

Again, we've made significant progress already on Kearny Villa Road.
All the powers-that-be agree that the road must be modified and
committed to doing that as quickly as possible. And they all agree
that a public education campaign about safe driving/sharing the road
is a good idea that should be pursued.

People that know more about the subject than I and really wanted to
believe in it pretty much have found that 'public education campaigns'
don't seem to work. True traffic education is one thing, since there
are examples that have worked in other countries, but campaigns,
especially the media spots, appear to be a waste of money - unless you
have a budget to keep it going a loooong time and present it
consistently. Media spots on the PBS types are evidently the biggest
waste - but they are more often used as they are more available.

Sat through a couple of good presentations at a GEAR in Wellesley and
in Tennessee about the deficiencies of public education campaigns,
targets and media issues et al, but don't have any of the handouts
anymore.

I don't disagree, generally, about the lack of efficacy of most PR
campaigns. It's a pretty frustrating situation, to be sure.

My anecdotal experience says the cell-phone using drivers are the
worst. With the recent reports confirming that it's as dangerous as
driving while intoxicated -- with or without a hands-free -- I'm
dismayed that there isn't a strong movement to ban their use while
driving. At least in SoCal, that'd make cycling a bit safer.

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 15:19:19 -0700, h squared
wrote:

Wayne Pein wrote:

Oh, I bet you mean you are working to get those pesky bicyclists out of
the road and onto bike lanes.

Wayne


speak for yourself. i like when roads have bike lanes. when i ride on a
busy narrow road without them or any shoulder and with a constant stream
of steady traffic passing within inches of me at 40mph, all i can think
about for the entire ride is painful death or dismemberment. doesn't
really motivate me to get out and ride, being in that state of mind- i
had a friend who used to call surviving rides like that "cheating mr.
death".

h

This is the next thing to the helmet wars, but if they are that close,
how does a stripe make them move further away? If there is room for a
lane, then it tends not to be an issue - and a lane stripe cuts both
ways. In DC all I see is it extends the stupidity of the sidewalk
riders into the street. It is less than amusing to see the twits try
to ride both ways on a bike lane clearly marked with a directional
arrow on a one-way street (say, like Q in front of our building, or R
the street up). They see it as one more excuse not to ride a whole
block up and ride with traffic.

And on narrow streets there is a phenomena that can be observed (every
work day in my case) that cars will drive often drive much closer with
a line, using more of 'their' space, than when they have to set the
appropriate cushion. Perhaps the average driver actually has more
common sense than the average traffic engineer trying to meet too many
objectives.

OTOH, the average rider in DC ranks among the worst of any I've seen
anywhere. The wonder is that more aren't killed, maybe on a weekly
basis. I walk instead, occasionally with a shillelagh. There is one
Japanese kid that rides the wrong way down 15th Street oblivious to
pedestrians that will exit with no front spokes one of these days.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

h squared wrote:
Wayne Pein wrote:

Oh, I bet you mean you are working to get those pesky bicyclists out
of the road and onto bike lanes.

Wayne


speak for yourself. i like when roads have bike lanes. when i ride on a
busy narrow road without them or any shoulder and with a constant stream
of steady traffic passing within inches of me at 40mph, all i can think
about for the entire ride is painful death or dismemberment. doesn't
really motivate me to get out and ride, being in that state of mind- i
had a friend who used to call surviving rides like that "cheating mr.
death".

h


When I ride on a busy narrow road I use the whole lane, making it my
bike lane.

Wayne