[SDCBC] Fwd: ghost bike

[gcarman at san.rr.com]

What I find terribly annoying is maintaining all those "best practices" and finding that I am still confronted by motorists, and I still have to dodge motorists that want to "teach me a lesson," or chose to harass cyclists for no apparent reason.  

I feel that gives me a right to harp about the poor motorists that I see, whether I am on bike or in my car.  


---- Serge Issakov <serge at issakov.org> wrote: 
> Thanks for looking into this for us, Kathy.  Not surprising, frankly.
> 
> It seems to me that whenever there is a bike-car crash, especially a
> fatality, there is a cynical inclination within the cycling community
> to blame the motorist unless and until evidence to the contrary is
> found.  I think this inclination contributes to obscuring how much
> influence we cyclists have over our own safety in traffic.  Much of
> that kind of cynicism is expressed even on lists like this one.  If
> the motorists waiting for the red left arrow to turn green before they
> proceeded were not there to witness the cyclist running it in front of
> oncoming traffic, many cyclists would probably be inclined to assume
> the cyclist did nothing wrong, legally turned left, and something like
> the motorist was inattentive and ran a red light.
> 
> I'm not saying that bike-car crashes in which the cyclist was in
> compliance with the rules of the road never happen, it's just that
> they seem to account for a very, very small percentage of all of the
> crashes that I ever hear or read about, especially when you include
> following traffic cycling best practices as part of following the
> rules of the road.
> 
> By following traffic cycling best practices I mean consistently
> staying out of door zones by riding five feet away from parked cars,
> moving away from the curb at intersection/junction approaches,
> habitually controlling lanes when they are too narrow to be safely
> shared, etc.  These are in addition to the basics like riding on the
> right side of the road, using lights at night, obeying traffic
> controls, yielding to overtaking traffic before moving laterally,
> paying attention, etc.
> 
> Judging by how they behave in traffic (and what they say on internet
> forums), most cyclists don't seem to understand and fully appreciate
> how much knowing and following the rules of the road protects them.
> This lack of knowledge and appreciation seems to me to be the mother
> of all these awful tragedies.
> 
> On a more positive note, perhaps employers like Trader Joe's can be
> approached to pay for and offer traffic cycling courses to their
> employees who already commute by bike, or are interested in doing so.
> 
> Serge
> 
> -- 
> NOTE: Any opinions expressed above are mine and not necessarily shared
> by any organization in which I am involved.
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 10:17 PM, Kathy Keehan <execdir at sdcbc.org> wrote:
> > I talked with the police today. There were witnesses who saw the bicyclist
> > ride up on the right side of the motorists waiting in the left turn pocket,
> > then cut across the front of them and went into the intersection against the
> > red arrow. I didn't find out from the police if the bicyclist had lights,
> > but I don't think it would have mattered - his bike light would have been
> > lost in the headlights of the traffic stopped in the left turn pocket.
> > So sad, and so senseless.
> > Kathy
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