JoeyBike

At 7:30 a.m. the sun angle off the horizon in South Florida is 8*. At 8:00 a.m. it would be about 19* or about two fists high with your fist at arm's length. At 9:a.m. the angle off the horizon is about 23*. The farther north you go, the lower the sun will be this time of year. If the driver had her sun visor pulled down, or had residual sun spots on her retinas, it would be very easy to NOT see very well. This is normal human behavior behind the wheel at sunrise/set. Add one distraction and......WHAMO! But I wholeheartedly defend your right to ride when/where you please.

This time of year the sun would be South of East a bit. So a car traveling due East would see the sun directly over a line of cyclists riding on the fog line or the shoulder. Nobody wants to spend time looking right into the sun. So they DON'T look there. This current "experiment" on the highways of Florida proves my point.

BTW...the sun does not even make it to 45* above the horizon this time of year, so it appears "stuck" very low for a couple hours after sunrise and before sunset.

https://www.suncalc.org/

italktocats

14 people hit, nice "accident"

and people wonder why i side on the other side on high speed roads, because im not gonna lose my life for stupid ****s like that!

Cuyuna

Agreed! I won't even ride on the shoulders of major roads. Too much inattention behind the wheel and accidentally drifting over the fog line into my personal space.

JoeyBike

I have done quite a bit of bicycle touring in the USA. When traveling West, I start at daybreak knowing the sun will illuminate me to Westbound traffic all morning. When cycling East all day, I sleep in and let the sun get well above the horizon before blasting off. Just using physics (optics and lenses) and astronomy (sun angle) to NOT tilt the field of play against me. These weren't commuters on bikes just trying to get to work when they had to be there by whatever route they could do it. It was a "pleasure" ride. They could have chosen any time of the day or any route. It's always a gamble. This time the dice were loaded.

italktocats

i dont even ride into the sun, ill take a different road, i dont wanna get murderd

JoeyBike

I don't want to look into the danged sun myself.

Maelochs

Dude ... get your head out of your websites and look at THE VIDEO.

The section of road where the collision and killing occurred, IS NOT HEADING EAST. it is heading north

Maybe you haven't paid much attention, but "eastbound" roads do not always run perfectly east.

You come here to 'prove" how smart you are (and how dumb everyone else is) with your scientific analysis ... and ignore the actual evidence from the scene from moments after the crash. Very impressive for someone who thinks he rides in a war zone.

italktocats

true but i can use cap/glasses or the tinted build in visor in my helmet, im not bothered by it, but the effect it has on the people behind me

Maelochs

Anyway ... this was an unfortunate occurrence. The lady got two speeding tickets in ten years? I'd say she Doesn't have a history of speeding. 85 on a highway ... is normal on a lot of highways... and particularly on I-95.

The whole deal is she admitted to being distracted by something ... and while distracted, she lost control of her vehicle and hit more than a dozen people. That is the nub of the criminal negligence case. She was operating a large motor vehicle in close proximity to cyclists who were operating legally, she surrendered control of her vehicle, and she killed at least on and hit more than a dozen.

here is a story people can attack me for-----some time long ago, when my job required that i travel many hours on occasion, often on little to no sleep, i was heading towards Atlanta (I think) and while fumbling with my music, came far too close to a couple of motorcycle riders. I was sufficiently focused on the road to see i was drifting and pulled it back in time ... but I felt terrible, because I surely scared them (I used to ride myself, too.)

All it took was one incident, where no one even had to make a serious avoidance maneuver, for me to be sure that Every time I passed a motorcycle on the highway i got Way over to the far edge of my lane. it became an instinct ... because what would be a fender-bender for two cars could well be a funeral for a biker. And if I had hit the bikers, or forced them to crash trying to avoid me, even if they did so ineptly and hurt themselves unnecessarily ... i would still say i would have been guilty of negligent homicide.

This lady not only was so distracted that she Didn't notice she was in another lane ... she didn't care enough to slow, or to wait to deal with the distraction, or whatever, until she was safely past the cyclists.

it really is simple. You cannot use environmental conditions, spilled coffee dropped cigarette, the desire to turn op the volume when your favorite song came on ... Nothing is a legitimate excuse for hitting other road users unless the other road users instigate the collision. there is No excuse.

italktocats

War in Afghanistan2001-presentdeaths 2,216
traffic death usa 36000

uhhhhh

italktocats

my grandmother never had an accident, but she sure has a lot of dents in her car from "people running into her car when he leaves it on the parking lot" all it tells us she hasnt been caught doing the same thing before

JoeyBike

"Leone also said the driver said the sun was in her eyes just before the crash, adding that a condition he called “sun blindness” is a factor in some crashes on the east-west roadway near Interstate 75, calling it a “brutal area for sunlight” at that time of day.State Road 84 eastbound was shut down from I-75 northbound to 148th Avenue while police investigated." Source

Another report I read stated "Hwy 84 at S. Flamingo Rd" as the crash site. If true, this would put the driver looking directly ESE into the sun almost exactly.

Anything else you might like to add? Dude.

Maelochs

Bicycle deaths are fewer than 1,000 annually.

You are jumping into an ongoing debate (regarding JoeyBike's claim that he rides in a war zone) with no information. I would suggest you do not get involved until you do the research.

Otherwise, you have no choice but to not know what you are talking about.

Maelochs

Yeah Dude .. WATCH THE VIDEO.

I don't care what the driver claimed. The driver was not under oath. And maybe some of the eastbound part of that road are hard to drive in early morning winter sun ... but this was a Northbound segment.

Again ... you do everything except examine the evidence which actually explains things, and you fail to grasp why people do not take you seriously.

Also, as mentioned above by myself and others ... claiming "the sun was in my eyes" is no excuse. If you cannot see, don't drive,. if you persist in driving, do what everyone else does (and everyone else on that stretch of road did) and Don't Stare into the Sun.

Maybe this fact escaped you but .. No One Else hit those cyclists. Everyone else was driving on the same road at the same time.

In any case, the driver admitted to being distracted by something in her vehicle.

yeah ... so ... that is about all the evidence you have refused to consider. Think it over, and please, don't bother getting back to me. Go for a ride.

JoeyBike

There is no video of the incident. This is where I got my "facts":

"Davie Police Sgt. Mark Leone...said...a condition he called “sun blindness” is a factor in some crashes on the east-west roadway near Interstate 75, calling it a “brutal area for sunlight” at that time of day." Source

Why would the officer in charge even mention ^^this if the driver of the car was heading North?? The reporter interviewing the cop called the road: "...the east-west roadway near Interstate 75..."

Unless the knucklehead driver had a dash cam running, or one of the cyclists were filming, the video of the dead car's resting position is worthless for determining direction of travel at the time of the collision. If you have access to a video that shows this conclusively, post a link and I will look at it.

JoeyBike

"The number of estimated cyclist injuries climbed to 50,000 in 2014, up from 48,000 in 2013 [USA]... As few as 10% of bike accident injuries are ever reported to the police." Source

I don't want to get injured, much less killed. And 50,000 is 10% of what? A possible 500,000 injuries? And how much leeway is there from getting a minor injury, major injury, or death? Maybe a couple of inches one way or the other. I'll pass on complacency while riding my bike around auto traffic.

Maelochs

Not if you don't look. There is actually video of moments after the incident ... which is what i said.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/west...6959528393216/

The video link is in the second post of the thread you didn’t bother to read before telling everyone how smart you were.

The video link is in the second post of the thread you didn’t bother to read before telling everyone how smart you were.

Maelochs

All this bickering aside, it was a terrible occurrence. No one in any way involved is happy about it .. except the people who like to bicker online. See you all later when something substantive is posted about this.

Spoonrobot 

Being "blinded by the sun" should not be a defense against charges of vehicular homicide.

I-Like-To-Bike

There has Not been a charge of vehicular homicide in this crash, except by the legal beagles of BF.
There also has Not been a "blinded by the sun" defense made except as a straw man defense by the legal beagles of BF.

CB HI

The photo of the car with that smashed windshield shows why the woman could not run.
https://miami.cbslocal.com/2018/11/2...-car-in-davie/
Time 1:02 shows the angle of the sun in respect to the road by looking at the building shadow angle with respect to the road. Plus the shadows throughout the video.

Speed limit is 45 mph. The damage to the car from hitting a soft body female cyclist indicates a car speed way over 45 mph. As with the motorist history of going 20 mph over the limit, the car damage does look much like a 65 mph hit.

The cop has no credibility with me, considering how hard he is bending over to minimize the drivers role in killing a human being..

CB HI

The driver made that claim to the police and the police dutifully echoed it.

This would not be the first time police let motorist off the hook for their deadly actions.

Spoonrobot 

Car damage was something I noticed as well. That's a ton of damage for 45 miles an hour. The video taken within a minute or two of the cyclists being run over does not appear to show the sun being in a position to blind a driver. Please also note that the sun is not perfectly due east during rise - this PDF explains and provides graphics to illustrate.


The fact that two excuses were used and relayed through the press, it evident that culpability is not something the sheriff's office is very interested in assigning.




Impact appears to be here: https://www.google.com/maps/@26.1181...7i13312!8i6656

Spoonrobot 

"I was blinded by the sun" has been a positive defense against both arrest for criminal homicide as well as against prosecution for same and similar charges. It is also a statement that almost always serves to exonerate a driver in the eyes of the vast majority of the driving public.

Sun was in my eyes, I just couldn't see those poor cyclists - other automobile users nod their head in agreement with a little frown for empathetic commiseration. Punishment is light or non-existent, world turns and all non-motorized road users remain unwelcome and without justice when maimed and murdered.

Paul Barnard

What do you make of the shadows of the people assisting the victims in the videos? What do you make of the fact that minutes after the accident a person shooting video in the direction of travel from the accident location shot a video that doesn't show any issues with the sun? Tomorrow an hour and a half after sunrise, look down the road in an easterly direction and tell me if you could see cyclists on that street. The sun was NOT an issue.