base2 

More practically is proper infrastructure eliminating the option for drivers to do the wrong thing.

This is closely tied to the rise of urbanism in the last few years. Cash strapped young people have realized that cars are expensive, and make life miserable for everyone, including those inside the car, too. Young people simply want the freedom to choose something else besides an automobile.

Even if everyone had automobiles powered by auto-drive AI to ferry people in blissful, efficient, utopian peace, the city would still be clogged & mobility restricted. The solution is no cars at all, & in the meantime prioritizing other modes equally such that the decision to drive or even own an automobile at all becomes an unnecessary luxury.

I fundamentally disagree with ILTB regarding the eventuality of AI powered driving. My new employeer is a Tier 1 supplier to car manufacturers in that arena. But what we do likely agree on is the necessity of such an invention is wholly unwarranted. With proper infrastructure support and urban planning policy random pedestrian/cyclist murder could be eliminated. AI driving be damned.

cellery

It's hard to have an original thought on this when the onion nailed it way back when.
'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

Bald Paul

I'm not going to comment on the tin foil hat stuff. But really, reasonable suspicion? Let's see, a driver hits and kills a cyclist on a straight, open road. My suspicion is (1) speeding, (2) impaired [alcohol or drugs], (3) distracted, or (4) a homicidal maniac. Possibly a combination of any of the above. If they are found to be "just a bad driver", then they shouldn't have a license anyway.

Black wallnut 

Oh I get it. You play LEO on TV or you stayed at a Holiday Inn last night. Obviously you arrived to the scene and with your years of experience and reached your conclusions. What you are calling suspicion is a hunch, or guess or gut reaction. The LEO at the scene eliminated two of your 4 but also did not elaborate on other possible causes.

Bald Paul

Actually, I watched a cop show on TV while staying in my room at the Holiday Inn.
Welcome to my ignore list.

Roughstuff

Out come the "get rid of cars" whackos. Never mind that deaths, and even more importantly, deaths per vehicle, and per vehicle mile, have been falling for, well, forever. I hear the rate of automobile deaths in North Korea is very very low, in case any of you folks want to practice what you preach.




Green is deaths; blue if deaths per 100 million vehicle miles; and the dash is per 10 thousand vehicles. If the left scale were LOGARITHMIC, which it really should be since we are talking about percentages here, the decline since the mid 1970s would be much more clear.

And more frustration for anti-autombile eyes...

​​​​​​https://www.aier.org/article/in-praise-of-parking-lots/

Shimagnolo

Video taken this morning.
I started Southbound on 63rd, and just merged onto 119 (aka Diagonal Hwy), heading Southwest toward Boulder, as the video starts.
At the end, note the flowers on the left, and ghost bike on the right.

base2 

There is so much lulz here, I don't know where to begin.

To start with: Aside from being an opinion piece. Government mandate (building codes) often make it illegal to build anything else. This deprives the land owner or property developer from best utilizing the space.

Second: By government mandate it is illegal to build anything other than low density non-economically viable single family dwellings in the suburbs. The knock-on effect is automobile dependency.

Third: When cities ban cars from places, economic activity actually increases. This is proven by each & every city that does so. Times Square, by recent example outpaced NYC as a whole by 9% simply by banning cars from the square.

4th: In terms of land value per acre, the most valuable land in a city is being used for vehicle storage, not revenue generating activity. Why is this considered good policy? My city gathers 80x more tax revenue with converting on street parking to business/dining use than it did using that resource for vehicle storage.

Your car might be your freedom & you are free to choose that all you want. What the Urbanists are fighting for is the freedom to also choose something else.

(Your chart is bogus, btw.)

Paul Barnard

No rumble strips. Not that there should have to be, but it may have given young Magnus a chance to dive to the right.

UniChris

How long after the crash was that truck driver criminally charged with the same specific crimes which were actually prosecuted?

How long has elapsed this since very recent tragedy?

Sound criminal charges which will win in court are those which follow a careful investigation.

Any charges filed right off the bat within a couple of day are just a wild guess, unless there's obvious initial evidence of impairment - functionally they're essentially "placeholder" charges.

I'm sure the authorities know who the driver is and where they live. If an investigation concludes charges are appropriate, they can be filed based on the findings of that investigation, rather than initial guesses.

Paul Barnard

Just wait and watch. Absent drugs, alcohol or proven distracted driving, the driver probably won't even suffer a traffic violation.

Shimagnolo

There is a plan in the works to put in a bikeway along that highway, similar to the one along US36 (Boulder <-> Denver), but with a twist: Because 119 has a grass median, the plan is to put the bikeway in the median. Play the video on this page to see the proposed route:

Diagonal Highway 119 Bikeway Design Project

tungsten

Yup. Skiing trees look at the gap not the tree you trying to avoid. Riding skinnys - look at the skinny not the ground (or distance to that ground lol).

homeless in ca.

Rigorously enforcing speed limits and other driving infractions would be a good start.

GhostRider62

Too many drivers watching movies and playing video games while driving on highways like that. Get a lifted truck and when you pass another vehicle on a highway, glance over. Since we can assume the driver is not a murder, what is left? He wasn't paying attention. What competes for our attention all the time. Gives us little dopamine hits.

JoeyBike

The merge lane ending near the point of impact sheds some light for me. Many ppl are terrible at merging. I could picture a person looking in driver's side door mirror trying to merge, running out of room put two wheels over the fog line while fixated on traffic to the left and not looking through the windscreen at all.

I wasn't there. Just rationalizing some reasonable explanation beyond phone use or murder. The more we know the more we can try to avoid in our own lives both driving AND cycling. Knowledge is power.

Black wallnut 

I also did not notice paint markings on the scene, perhaps they are there. In my state accident investigators always mark pavement at a scene. With fatality or near fatality the investigations usually last for a few hours to longer. If you know how to read what is marked it gives a greater understanding. I don't think it helps for folks to jump to conclusions about the probable cause of incidents. Waiting until all the facts are learned and then acting upon those works better. Sadly our society has become addicted to being triggered by the news media and sensationalizing everything. USAC got scolded on social media for posting about this incident for calling it an accident by BikeLaw.

Roughstuff

.

one easy way to enforce speed limits is to use the speed limit as OUR maximum speed when WE are driving our cars and trucks.

I doubt this is a common practice.

Roughstuff

The oddest observation I always make is to ask “why do (so many) folks who live in big cities even HAVE cars?” Aren’t they a pain in the butt? And when I lived in London (my only big city….only a 6 month assignment) everything was in walking distance: a pub, stores, small parks, etc. Seems to me NYC was similar whenever I visited. I worked the second shift so I missed morning and late afternoon “ rush hour” anyway.

UniChris

A bit far from the thread which concerns a death in an area very car-centric in its layout.

But something it's easy to miss is the degree to which US cities which are to a degree walking and transit friendly are so much more for the economically privileged than they are for the economically disadvantaged. Living walkably close to a workplace or even a transit station with good service is an aspect of privilege. Try taking the subway in from the Bronx or far reaches of Brooklyn or Queens. It's quite a long ride for the map distance, especially late at night. And then at a certain more suburban distance, suddenly you get commuter train service showing up to speed the trip of the privileged in from higher-cost suburbs. Those yet further up the ladder start their workday while being chauffeured in - at the rarified top of conspicuous consumption there's the possibility of a helicopter ride. And for many more, also the convenience of only showing up physically when really needed (though at least that one is great public "transit" policy)

Additionally, having a work schedule well accommodated by transit is also an aspect of privilege - lots of options for those who work in the offices, fewer for those who clean them overnight, or sell that morning commute bagel and coffee, rebuild the infrastructure overnight... pour the bers or close up the bars, or for that matter, even those who drive the trains and buses.

And that's even in places like metro-NYC that are national leaders in non-car transit. This tragedy happened in all too typical sprawled American landscape, where daily lives involve substantial car distances.

It's also worth noting that like a number of other training ride tragedies, it happened on a stretch of road likely chosen for its apparent suitability for a brisk ride, which is a bit different than the usual transit-planning view of bicycles as a means of getting from one point to another.

Troul 

imo, some drive because of the "safer" feeling as some can be targeted by pedestrian crime when not in a vehicle. Also, weather plays a factor as well as health.
I know I wouldn't ride a bicycle in most of my areas when winter weather hits, especially in areas where it can leave you vulnerable to bad people.
lastly, some places of employment have a stringent policy to follow if one wants to cycle in, making the experience unfavorable to a certain extreme & changing attire is a huge hassle.
Why would someone go thru all the redtape, inconveniences, hassles when they can drive in?

UniChris

In more urban areas, the viable numeric solution for the average public is good transit networks far more than it is bicycling.

Of course bikes and e-bikes should be an option - but the real key to removing cars from the urban commute is mass transit, building remotely affordable housing near the transit origins, and to a significant degree as well, virtual commutes.

Bike-friendly transit even helps support occasional or fair-weather bike usage for the interested but less than die hard committed. (It's also great on weekends for letting city resident cyclists skip past the challenging streets out to glorious rural roads and rail trails)

The place where bikes and bike-form devices have the largest role to play is when distances are too far to walk, but things are too spread and varied in fanout for mass transit to achieve the needed mass of trip commonality to be actually convenient.

Troul 

easier said than done unfortunately

Shimagnolo

Good point, but we don't know if she merged onto 119 from 63rd (as I did), or if she was already driving on 119 when she reached the intersection with 63rd.

[changing topics]

Hey Joey, how's it going?
Still humilating roadies these days?

Shimagnolo

I've never seen that done around here.