tcs

Bethesda, MD:

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/state-depa...174104266.html

Address of accident:

Bald Paul

She probably felt somewhat safe in a bicycle lane. Such a tragedy. I do hope the driver is charged.

CliffordK

Not a lot of information to go on.

Trucks are bad news. And, simply stopping next to one that is turning is not sufficient to keep safe as the rear wheels don't follow the front wheels.

This accident apparently happened mid-block which is less predictable than at intersections.

mschwett 

terrible.

all lives are equal, but maybe the fact that she's a diplomat / state department employee will result in charges and prosecution for the driver, and more attention to bicycle safety.

rydabent

When her case comes up in court, the judge should throw the book at the truck driver, as a warning to all.

Steve B.

I wonder if "failure to yield right of way" is a citable offense in MD. ?

JW Fas

In the past decade I've observed that CDL standards have slipped considerably. The way I see many truckers drive nowadays makes me wonder if they got their licenses out of a cereal box.

CliffordK

There apparently is a shortage of drivers, so time to hand out more Cracker Jack boxes!!!

Driving, or riding a bike, I always give the trucks a lot of space. Most truck drivers hate it when drivers do stupid things around a big rig.

One thing I'd like to see would be a lot more flashing lights when the truck is doing a right hand turn. Make it absolutely unmistakable that the vehicle is turning.

As far as the report above, I can't tell if it is a tractor-trailer, or a single flatbed. Both are deadly, but the tractor-trailer cuts the corner much more than the shorter vehicles. But, they also usually swing wide when approaching a corner if possible.

GamblerGORD53

The most likely scenario is the truck slowed to make a wide turn, then cyclist caught up and entered the **** zone.

Daniel4

Doesn't sound like an accident to me. Someone is negligent or careless.

Daniel4

That's what we wish. Because the driver remained at the scene, he'd most likely be released without charges.

Daniel4

Or perhaps some physical barriers installed too.

Mtracer

This does sound likely. It’s possible the truck was large enough the cyclist was beside it when it slowed and signaled a a turn and the cyclist had no real opportunity to even see a turn signal, if used.

I think the truck driver likely turned without even considering the possibility that a cyclist would come up on their right side. Even though they almost certainly passed the cyclist moments before.

I’d bet the truck driver will say “I didn’t see them “ and nothing will happen. Unless of course the driver was under the influence at the time.

UniChris

That does nothing to prevent crashes with turning motor vehicles, because there has to be a gap in the barrier at every turning opportunity

Actually, a barrier may make such crashes more likely, because it tends to cause both the cyclists and the drivers to ignore each other as irrelevant, when in reality the possibility of turns means they're still part of the same interacting traffic flow and need to be paying constant attention to each other.

Daniel4

Some streets in Toronto have what I have described and they work well.

The only gap is where the pedestrian crosswalk is AND we hope the motorist is smart enough NOT to drive on the pedestrian crosswalk when there are clearly marked barriers guiding the motorist how to do the wide turn.

If motorists still do that, well you just can't legislate stupid because those are the same drivers who go through Do Not Enter signs and get their vehicles stuck in the TTC tunnels.

UniChris

Try actually looking at the picture of where this happened.

Your proposed barrier would have to have nearly as much percentage of gap for each commercial driveway, as it could barrier.

And each of those gaps is a deathtrap, if the users on the two sides of the fence cease thinking of each other as cooperating in use of the same road.

work4bike

This is, in part, why I always ride with a mirror. Right Hooks are one of my most common threats on the road, especially the roads that have countless entrance points to so freakin' many shopping centers -- and a speed limit of 45-mph, but we all know they're going at least 55.

I can't count how many times I've had to take quick action to prevent a Right Hook on these roads.

I don't want to sound like I'm victim-blaming. We just don't know the circumstances and even though I'm good at avoiding RHs, I very well know that this is probably they one way I'll get it one day. They can be very tricky to avoid in some circumstances. Not only do less and less people use turn signals nowadays, but you can be on some roads where you can't hear someone slowing down, because the speed is such that they don't -- a lot of people like taking turns at the fastest possible speed, from what I have seen.



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Paul Barnard

I have seen cyclists ride right into the danger zone of vehicles that were signaling their turn and in the process of a turn. I suspect an alert cyclist would have been able to avoid this if it were truly a right hook as opposed to more of a sideswipe. Physics just don't support a large truck making a rapid hook into that parking lot. Visually and audibly there were likely indicators of a slowing truck, and that is supposed to serve as a warning. I drive in areas with a fragmented bike lane system. It can be hard to remain constantly aware of when there is a marked lane beside me. I will never overtake a cyclist and turn right in front of them. I have had cyclists ride into my danger zone as I am turning.

UniChris

One of the things that does tend to happen for similar reasons is a truck initially pulling left, before turning right.

This can easily confuse cyclists - even adults can misread it, but it's especially an issue for children just starting to experience the world alone, but not yet having personal experience of driving, or in a place like NYC you also have adults who've never driven. It's also tied in with ones degree of modeling what others are going to do - plenty of right angle path intersections where one needs to swing wide on a bike too, so the concept isn't foreign, just the thought that it could be what is happening in front of you.

I suspect it's also yet to be determined if the turn signal was on, and how visible it is if one is already beside. "Yet to be determined" means exactly that - we don't know.

But Paul does have a point - these types of things often have a number of additional clues which an aware and experienced cyclist is far more likely to pick up on, than a less experienced cyclist is.

noimagination

I understand how you feel, but there is too little information on what actually happened to make this kind of statement. The cyclist (Ms Langenkamp) and the truck driver "... were both traveling in the same direction when the collision occurred..," which could indicate that the truck driver passed Ms Langenkamp and negligently turned into her path, running her over. However, given the imprecision of the description, it is also possible that the truck driver passed Ms Langenkamp several hundred yards before the parking lot entrance, put on his turn signal, slowed, waited for a car to clear the driveway entrance, then turned into the driveway while the cyclist was riding into the path of the turning truck. I'm not sure of the traffic laws regarding marked bike lanes, I assume that the driver has a duty to check for overtaking traffic in the bike lane, but the cyclist also bears some responsibility for not riding into the "danger zone" of a turning truck (of course, only if the truck doesn't turn in front of her in the process of passing her, or immediately thereafter). I once saw a cyclist ride into the 2 ft. space between a stopped bus and the curb. If he'd gotten squished, would that really have been the bus driver's fault?

We just don't know enough, at this point, to assign responsibility.

I agree with most of you that some variant of the first scenario seems the most likely, given the experience of the rider as described in the linked article. But, we can all make mistakes. Once I, personally, pulled out right in front of an oncoming car that I just didn't notice (fatigue? lack of contrast (light colored car/light colored roadway/light colored sky)? simple inattention? other? I'm still not sure) and just caught motion out of the corner of my eye and turned my bars just in time to avoid being flattened. Completely my fault, and I've ridden tens of thousands of miles over decades.

A knee-jerk reaction ("Burn the witch!! Burn her!!") is not productive at this point.

LarrySellerz

The truck ran her over. Of course its his fault/responsibility even if she was being negligent. Its like if a pedestrian is doing something moronic its still your if you hit them on your bicycle.

Steve B.

It comes down to a question of does the cyclist have right of way on a marked bike lane and does the driver of the truck have a responsibility to yield to cycling traffic in that lane. There is no stop sign for cyclists as far as I can tell, so there is no expectation for cyclists to be stopping and yielding to turning traffic. I can I would suspect the answer is going to be yes, the truck driver has a responsibility to yield, which he did not do. Question is will the police cite him for failure to yield, which I suspect they won't do.

work4bike

This link has a video of the actual crash scene, I thought it was a much different scene. Also there are two videos on the link that are difficult to listen to -- much sympathy.

Correction: Third video in link is crash scene of totally different accident in DC, which is a little SE of Bethesda.

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/l...d-c3142bc1fd83




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3alarmer 

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...when I lived in that area, River Road in Bethesda was one of many streets I did not have the courage to ride on.
Speed limits used to be 45 mph, which was just too fast for me riding along with cars whizzing past.


But when I Googled it just now, it looks like the residents insisted that the speed limit be dropped to 35. Didn't help much in this instance.

3alarmer 

...different person, different incident, different location. Foggy Bottom is all the way down in town, Bethesda is north, up in the MD 'burbs.