B. Carfree

Because even when the evidence is sitting right in front of the police, they can't be bothered to pick it up. They can, however, make time to harass cycling advocates and the colleagues of deceased victims.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius...ce-4757178.php

FBinNY 

The article talks about a cop who's a horses rear end, but gives the reader no info to make any other judgement, either about this accident or the issues in general.

The fact that there are cops like this one shouldn't surprise anybody, but I'm not sure they're typical. Here in the NYC burbs, I find cops to be generally bike friendly, and willing to assign blame to motorists in accidents and also in one case in a near miss.

DX-MAN

FB, I've been following this for a few days (it showed up on my FB page, posted by Steve Marmel), and while this article doesn't cover much of the actual incident, other stories do. This does fill in some of the blanks from the others, though, for me at least.

I know it won't happen, but the SFPD needs to 'spank' this officer publicly and officially, and announce some remedial training for him and the department as a whole. I'm guessing I'm in the minority of Americans who don't necessarily think every public representative needs to appear perfect at all times without being vilified. They can admit there's an issue, deal with it, and reap major PR reward points nationwide.

mconlonx

Where I ride, I wave at cops and they wave back.

Some pass me too closely at speed.

One fun day, there was a cop with a radar gun checking out traffic speeds and as I passed, I asked, "How fast?" He laughed, but said, "Way slower than I care about." Freakin' jerk...

I'm at 50%, reporting cars passing too close and cops actually issuing citations, no video.

Remember, cops are people and there's a corresponding percentage of a$$holes in their ranks, compared to the general public. Cop in the OP was one of them, hope he get's what he deserves.

bshanteau

I watched the TV coverage in which that policeman awkwardly explains what he was trying to do. He purposely parked his patrol car where a right turning car should be on that street (in the bike lane, as close to the right curb or edge of the roadway as practicable) as a way of teaching bicyclists who came by to go around it on the left, not the right. In other words,

NEVER PASS A RIGHT TURNING CAR ON THE RIGHT!

Of course, in this particular collision, we may never know whether the truck was passing the bicyclist or vice versa, so we don't know if there is anything the woman who was killed could have done anything to prevent it. Nevertheless, that is a valuable lesson for us all.

B. Carfree

I guess you missed the "money line" in that article:

Yeah, that's right. SFPD not only was too lazy to bother looking for the rather obvious video evidence in a potential homicide case, that evidence would have disappeared within one more day. Further, they apparently lied about their efforts to the SF bike coalition.

It's not just the horse's ass who didn't give a hoot about the death of yet another cyclist. This looks like a departmental problem. Compare the effort expended here with the work done to nail a cyclist who ran a stop sign and then was speeding, like the majority of the motorists, when he likely legally entered an intersection and fatally ran into a pedestrian.

B. Carfree

It should be rather difficult for even an inexperienced cyclist to be right hooked in a bike lane if the motorist makes a proper right turn. The motorist is required to make the right turn from the right hand lane, in this case the bike lane, after safely merging into it. It's pretty tough to share a bike lane with a motor vehicle, so even if the cyclist is overtaking the motorist there shouldn't be room to get hooked.

Now, if the motorist doesn't take control of the bike lane, bad things can happen and they are all the fault of the motorist for turning from the incorrect lane. Of course that doesn't help the cyclist much and that's why folks do need to learn how to ride, including following your helpful big red font advice.

FBinNY 

I didn't miss that, but didn't see it as a "money line". As I said, there wasn't enough information (for a reader of the article) to render any kind of judgement about the accident. I don't know what the video showed ot might have showed, or whether the police had witness statements.

For all I know as an outsider, this might have been a classic case of a cyclist hit while passing in the blind spot of a truck. I don't know whether this is or isn't the case, whether the truck was moving or started a right when the light changed or on red. There's simply no information on which I could form any kind of opinion except for the specific conduct cited by the witnesses.

Sorry, I'm not more sympathetic, I just don't like to form opinions unless I have some basis on which to do so.

turbo1889

I would like to add an addition second line to that statement:

EXTRA ESPECIALLY, NEVER PASS A RIGHT TURNING HEAVY TRUCK ON THE RIGHT!


Although I have never driven 18-wheeler rigs on-highway (I have driven them off highway in farm fields at harvest time) I have driven up to 10-wheeler trucks (5-ton) on-highway and regularly drive 6-wheeler trucks on-highway (I own a 2-ton truck and have driven many other agricultural trucks on-highway in that size range besides my own). Trucks can really crush you, not just because they are bigger and heavier with big double wide wheels in the rear but even more importantly because those big rear wheels are not usually fendered like a cars rear wheels but there is a big open gap under the flat bed of the truck right in front of those big double wide rear wheels that can suck a cyclist in and ensure those big rear wheels roll right over them. With a car if/when you get right hooked you get bumped by the side of the car, with a heavy truck you get sucked under the big rear wheels and crushed.

And, yes of course, if your the one driving the automobile and especially if its a heavy truck as I describe you need to check your crush points on both sides in your mirrors and if possible with a head twist over the shoulder look before you turn either direction but especially before turning right. With a long enough truck you can take out things as wide and as big as cars in your crush zone on the inside of the corner your making much less cyclists.

FBinNY 

This might be true with a car, but not necessarily with a truck. Trucks need free space to their right when turning right because the rear wheels take an inside track. The longer the truck, the more room needed. This is why you'll see a sign "truck makes W-I-D-E right turns" on the back of many trailers. So a truck cannot move over to block a cyclist from passing on his right when making a right turn on most city street corners. He can, should, and must signal the turn, but it's up to the cyclist to heed that signal and not slide up to where he's on that narrower inside track that the rear wheels will take.

Ask any truck driver, and he'll tell you that it's not only bicycles. Cars routinely slide up into the rear wheels track causing accidents.

Taking it one step farther, it's not only trucks. Even when cars are moved over and signaling a right, but stopped at a light, or to yield to pedestrians or other traffic, cyclists will filter up on the right. A car only needs a 2-3 feet between stationary cars to slide up, and many will do so creating a hazard. It's not reasonable to expect drivers to move over so far as to make sliding up on their right impossible, cyclists have to take some responsibility here.

If a car passes a rolling cyclist then turns right, (regardless of road markings) then it's a right hook, and the driver is responsible. OTOH if a cyclist passes a right turning car, or one signaling a right turn, then it's attempted suicide by car.

B. Carfree

Okay, I'll ask a truck driver... myself. First of all, it wasn't clear that the "truck" involved in the incident was a truck at all. It was likely a box van (class C vehicle). Trucks have three or more axles and require either a full commercial license (class A) or a junior commercial license (class B) to operate. All too often, the press reports class C vehicles as trucks, which rather confuses the issue.

Secondly, a proper right turn for a truck involves taking the oncoming lane on the street one is entering in preference to staying left on the street one is leaving. Go ahead and look at the advisory manual for commercial drivers for your state; I'd be rather surprised if it is different from what California puts out (where this incident occurred). If a truck driver chooses to turn right from a lane other than the right lane, s/he is responsible for anything that is on the right side of the truck; that's why we have mirrors and are required to use them (the commercial driving test deducts boatloads of points if the driver doesn't make extensive use of the mirrors). Yes, for fifty-three footers in urban settings one often cannot make a right turn from the proper location. That's why most urban trucks have much shorter trailers. (By the way, it's not the length of the truck that matters, it's the pin-axle length. It's a whole lot easier to deal with two twenty-five footers than a fifty three footer on a city grid.) Also, even where a truck must make its right turn from a location that is well left of the curb, well-trained truck drivers will take the bike lane well in advance of the intersection as a wake up call to any overtaking cyclists or over aggressive motorists and then move back out to where they need to be to clear the curb with their turn. These are basic good driving habits that one should expect from professional drivers.

I find your assertion that class C vehicles should turn right without blocking the bike lane to be sad. Sure, it requires some knowledge of where one's wheels are, but the reason one is required to turn right from the right hand lane is to keep inattentive road users from foolishly passing on the right. If one leaves several feet of bike lane clear, then one is simply doing a poor job of driving.

FBinNY 

I don't know about California cities, and as I said, the article cited in the OP had no details about the accident so I made no judgement on that.

OTOH, the streets in east coast cities are too narrow, and the parking line ends too close to the curb for long vehicles to make a turn without swinging out first.

In any case, My post isn't to assign blame, It's for cyclists. I can't change what motorist or truck conduct one may encounter, but I might make a cyclist more aware of the risks of sliding up on the right at intersections. It's all well and good to assign blame after the fact, but it's far better to be aware of hazards and prevent injury to ones self by smart defensive cycling.

turbo1889

@ B. Carfree

I agree and understand what your saying about using part of the oncoming traffic lane being preferable for a right turning truck (I do not use the term lightly, unless it's at least a 2-ton with a longer bed length then a light pick-up truck I don't consider it a truck proper) but in practice most of the turning trucks I see will edge over as far as they can to the left within the right most main traffic lane if not straddle the line between the two right most traffic lanes (either straddling the line between the right hand turn lane and right most straight through lane, straddling the line between both right hand turn lanes where there is two right hand turn lanes, or straddling the line between both through lanes where there is two through lanes in the direction of travel and no right hand turn lane) basically they are trying to give themselves as much room on the right side as possible while still not leaving enough room for the typical 4-wheel fool to try to squeeze into their right wedge crush point. This leaves more then enough room for a 2-wheel fool either motor-cycle or bicycle to move into their right wedge crush point on a right hand turn. Where bicycle lanes are more prevalent this may not be the case but up here where bicycle lanes are very uncommon it is the rare exception that a truck driver will move over to the right tight enough before a right hand turn to block bicycle traffic from trying to pass him on the right while he is making a right hand turn.

I've driven a lot of mainly agricultural smaller size no-pivot trucks - 2-ton through 5-ton, two or three axles in my years. All of them I drove on a regular drivers license not a commercial. Some of the heavier trucks I've driven that is only legal in my state if they are privately owned and not owned by and used for business, that's especially the case with the ones with three axles total, double axles under the rear cargo bed but most of what I've driven has been two axles only but some of them have been awfully long trucks and you definitely noticed it when trying to turn on in-town street corners. I've always just copied what the commercial truck drivers up here do as far as moving to the left edge of the lane on preparation for a right turn and always being extra vigalent about my mirrors especially the right mirror and also turn the head and do an over the shoulder check when possible watching out for someone trying to edge into that right wedge crush zone. You also have to watch the left wedge crush zone when taking a left turn so you don't smash up someone waiting at the stop line in the left most lane of the road your turning onto.

So far the only accidents I've been involved in when driving such smaller, no pivot, but still "trucks" in my opinion vehicles have been people rear-ending me because I actually slow down for road hazards and such and speed-demon 4-wheel idiots just can't seem to keep from hitting stuff right in front of them including the back end of a slower moving truck.


I think the bicycle/truck collisions with the bicycle getting right-hooked are among the most dangerous to cyclists because of the way longer trucks wedge in on the side and have a crush zone there when taking a corner and also because the big dually wheels on the rear are rarely fendered in on the front side of those wheels, especially with a flat-bed two or thee axle truck with which I am most familiar and thus unlike a car can suck a cyclist in right under those big wide wheels and crush them to death. Being on the right of a truck forward of the rear wheels when the truck is taking a right turn is like the ultimate death trap with the bottom of the bed over the wheels right at the height to wedge in on the cyclist and tip him over right in the worst spot where he gets sucked in right under the big rear wheels.

I certainly don't put a whole lot of the blame on the truck operator for that unless the truck passes the cyclist and then right hooks in on him. If it's the cyclist trying to pass the truck on a right when the truck is signaling for a right hand turn I put a whole lot of that on the cyclist. Yes, you are correct that when you drive a vehicle that is even heavier and larger then a car you do have a higher standard of responsibility and should be held accountable accordingly and I for one always check my crush wedge zones before turning with at least the mirrors wagging my head back and forth to get the maximum viewing angle out of them and if possible and I don't have a load that blocks my view do an over the shoulder eye-ball check as well before turning. It's part of the additional responsibility that is necessary when operating a significantly larger and more dangerous vehicle then even a car.

But when addressing cyclists rather then those driving trucks (most of those on this forum) about cycle/truck collisions what I'm going to stress is the incredible danger of passing a right turning heavy truck on the right side and that cyclist should never ever, ever, ever try to do that because it's one of the ultimate death traps. If you as a cyclist get wedged over on and sucked in under those big rear wheels that's nearly a 100% fatality situation and on many trucks the area forward of the rear wheels is set-up just like a funnel of death to suck you in under those rear wheels with a big open cavity forward of those big rear wheels almost like it was made for the purpose.


I would also note that commercial truck drivers are among those who treat me with the most respect on the roadways as a cyclist and the drivers I have the least trouble at all with. When I see an 18-wheel job in my rear view mirror overtaking from behind when I'm riding a bike FRAP on a high speed highway in-between towns I can almost always be assured of a nice wide respectful pass and when I'm in town riding VC style "taking the lane" in slow speed traffic and I see an 18-wheel rig on the road at an intersection I can be the least worried about that vehicle not treating me like an equal on the roads and failing to yield and trying to take a left turn across my path when I'm going straight through or try to nose out on me from the right when I've got straight through right of way or one of the other various stunts most 4-wheel idiots regularly try to pull on me. But it's also true that I'm very respectful of them as well and I'm not stupid enough to mess around with getting in their crush zones and blind zones on their sides.

P.S. ~ When driving such lighter, non-pivot 2+ ton trucks over the years I have had several motorcycles and very small compact cars try to pass me on the right and get into my right crush zone and have had to stop and wait for them to make their right turn before I could make mine. Most of the cars had to drive with their right wheels off the road and in the gravel, grass, or on the side-walk to get into that position right of me. I don't recall a bicyclist ever doing it but I suppose it's only a matter of time and I would respond the same way I did with the motorcycles. Just stop and wait for them to do what their going to do before I finished my right turn. I think the main difference would be that every motorcycle and aggressive 4-wheel idiot who has done that was always trying to squeeze around me on the right to make a right hand turn. I think only a bicycle would attempt that in order to continue straight through.

B. Carfree

Hallelujah! We have a kumbaya moment of what appears to be universal agreement in A&S. It appears that we all agree that it is dangerous to pass motorists on the right side at intersections (and one must be watchful at driveways as well).

Now if we can just get the traffic engineers to stop striping the bike lanes up to the intersection we might be able to teach some of the less experienced cyclists about this before they become former cyclists. Uh oh, we may not have agreement on that action...

FBinNY 

We almost have bi-lateral agreement there. I've been generally opposed to bike lanes on city streets, (more agnostic on bridges and high speed corridors), which I've been characterizing as "separate but not equal" for the last 20 years or so. Not striping to the corner, might help, but still doesn't encourage cyclists to move out into the lane and pass turning cars on the left.

As I see it bike lanes on city streets are a losing trade off, offering a marginal improvement in mid block safety at the expense of greater intersection danger. Moreover, I liken bike lanes to the zoo paradox. Are the lanes intended to keep cars out, or bikes in?

So much for kumbaya, sorry.

B. Carfree

We're still mostly kumbaya. I agree that many bike lanes are placed to fence cyclists in, often in dangerous ways. I was just offering up a simple first step to help alleviate some of the damage.

Chris516

Here in the DC-Metro region, the thinking is getting something done ASAP, and if a cyclist is in the way, oh well. More than once I have encountered the respective city, county, or state police with a reaction that they couldn't be bothered. The motorized public is far more important to them. So, When it comes to law enforcement, a cyclist is on their own. The only time the police get involved, is when a cyclist dies and/or, is at fault. Enforcement of the law(either cycling laws and/or, a cyclist reporting a bad driver), is low on their list of priorities. All because of someone commuting on a bike, instead of driving.

FBinNY 

IME, police don't like issue citations based on 3rd party reports. Doesn't matter who or what, if they didn't see it themselves it didn't happen.

genec

Of course they didn't see it, they never looked at the available evidence. (Uh that was the very point of the OP)

gcottay

Yes, exactly. Font size and color and all.

We are responsible for our own safety. When we are riding it matters not that drivers should use care in turning across the bike lane or that some drivers fail to signal. We cannot control the actions of others so need to focus on ourselves.

CommuteCommando

OK, the cop was being a jerk, but. . . I do not pass to the right of cars turning right. They used to mark bike lanes that were on the left of right turn pockets. Lately I have seen where the city of Lake Forest CA has been removing these markings, caving to those who believe bikes always belong all the way to the right. That is sad, as is the death of that poor woman in SF.

San Francisco is the closest thing out here to an "east coast city", in terms of what you're talking about. It was the primate city in CA before cars. LA was a sleepy little village at the turn of the 20th. LA grew up with the automobile, and is bad for bikes, but for different reasons. Streets in LA were designed for cars to the exclusion of bikes. I commute in South Orange County, through an area that was mostly orange groves just thirty years ago. The bike infrastructure here is great, but not perfect. Like I said, smart ideas like marking bike lanes to the left of where cars should be turning right, are being removed.