Los Altos Hills bicyclist killed in big-rig crash was a mother,nurse and a 'go-getter'

On Dec 23, 1:23*pm, Duane Hébert wrote:
On 12/23/2010 12:54 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:



On Dec 23, 8:58 am, Duane H *wrote:
* On my commute, I have
to take roads that allow trucks and buses and are barely wide
enough for cars. *It's not always possible to stay away
from them. *In some ways, the buses are worse as they actually
have complete right of way when leaving the curb.

On top of all of this, the trucks and buses are stuck in the
same rush hour traffic as all of the cars. *Everyone is tired
and ****ed off and no one is at their best to begin with.

I'm waiting for some bike lanes and/or paths to get put in in
this area. *There are a lot of accidents and traffic is getting
worse each year.

Frank can feel free to pipe in any time he wants with his
controlling the lane spiel but there are absolutely NO
cyclists on this route doing that. *And as they add bike
lanes and paths more and more cyclists show up.

Hmm. *How do you add bike lanes to roads that are "barely wide enough
for cars?"

I said and/or paths. *Do you have a problem with your eyesight?

No more than most. I chose to comment on one aspect of your post.
That doesn't necessarily mean the other aspect made more sense.

So how _do_ you add a bike lane if the road is barely wide enough for
cars?

Widening a road is one thing. *Putting down a paint stripe is
another. *The latter strategy adds no width, no room.

Again with the same crap. *It's not widening but reserving.

How do you reserve five feet of the road for bikes alone, if it is
barely wide enough for cars?

- Frank Krygowski

On Dec 23, 2:32 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Dec 23, 1:23 pm, Duane Hébert wrote:



On 12/23/2010 12:54 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On Dec 23, 8:58 am, Duane H wrote:
On my commute, I have
to take roads that allow trucks and buses and are barely wide
enough for cars. It's not always possible to stay away
from them. In some ways, the buses are worse as they actually
have complete right of way when leaving the curb.

On top of all of this, the trucks and buses are stuck in the
same rush hour traffic as all of the cars. Everyone is tired
and ****ed off and no one is at their best to begin with.

I'm waiting for some bike lanes and/or paths to get put in in
this area. There are a lot of accidents and traffic is getting
worse each year.

Frank can feel free to pipe in any time he wants with his
controlling the lane spiel but there are absolutely NO
cyclists on this route doing that. And as they add bike
lanes and paths more and more cyclists show up.

Hmm. How do you add bike lanes to roads that are "barely wide enough
for cars?"

I said and/or paths. Do you have a problem with your eyesight?

No more than most. I chose to comment on one aspect of your post.
That doesn't necessarily mean the other aspect made more sense.

So how _do_ you add a bike lane if the road is barely wide enough for
cars?

Widening a road is one thing. Putting down a paint stripe is
another. The latter strategy adds no width, no room.

Again with the same crap. It's not widening but reserving.

How do you reserve five feet of the road for bikes alone, if it is
barely wide enough for cars?


The answer is obvious - too easy.

Dan O wrote:
On Dec 22, 12:52 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Dec 22, 11:51 am, Chalo wrote:



Peter Cole wrote:
wrote:
Yeah, the circumstances are
a bit creepy, but again, the truck driver was not at fault.
And you know this how?
This guy struck and killed 2 cyclists in 3 years. The first victim's
parents sued and won $1.5M in a wrongful death. There were no witnesses
to the second fatality, so it's the driver's word -- a frequent case in
bike fatalities.
Something tells me the driver's word is not going to prevent another
wrongful death settlement in this case. Maybe that will finally get
this accursed trucker into a less lethal profession.
Dude. If you can't excuse yourself from a certain line of work after
killing people *twice*, someone needs to do it for you. Three times,
you need not to drive anything anymore.
I wish we had enough transportation alternatives to have sensible
rules like: If you are driving and you're involved in a crash with a
fatality, you don't drive again. No fault, no exceptions. But as it
is now, in half the country that would amount to house arrest.
I think we should do it anyway. Alternatives would arise.


+1


Would it be as effective as revocations are now?
Revoked/suspended drivers regularly pop up in the Chicago
Tribune after driving through a red light into someone.

Maybe as effective as handgun bans or that heroin prohibition?

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

The trucker's past involvement in fatal crashes:

There's a large literature on the "accident prone." As well as
disbelief in the distribution of random rare events following a
Poisson distribution.

Not many people know about the outcomes of truly random Poisson
process; and Chalo was much earlier correct, that few drivers involved
in a two fatal crashes don't suspect -- correctly or not -- that they
are cursed, jinxed, PTSD's, or otherwise well-advised to radically
reduce their risk of being in another.

Harry Travis

On 12/23/2010 4:07 PM, A. Muzi wrote:
Tºm Shermªn™ °_° wrote:
On 12/22/2010 3:22 PM, kolldata aka AVOGADRO IV wrote:
On Dec 21, 10:35 pm, wrote:
JC Dill wrote:

Here's an article that says the CHP determined the bicyclist was at
fault, not the truck driver.

http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_16910167?source=most_viewed

The truck driver has killed people three times with his truck, and he
still gets to keep doing his job? In what other field of work
(besides so-called "policing") would that possibly be permitted? Even
if that's just dumb luck, the guy should be taken off the road in the
name of public safety.

Chalo

OH YEAH ? my post last night followed the initial bya few minutes and
itsnot here. DUH.
Nazi's in Google's Garage.

What I wrote---

The CHP determined the CHP and State of California was not at fault.
CHP done same if the cyclist had killed the trucker.

The State is bankrupt. You have a problem. Sue. But we can't help you.
Sorry.

The voters in California need to grow up and realize that you can not
have government services without tax revenue.


California? Everywhere!

My own state is significantly upside down after a two term [choose:
incompetent/thief] putz as governor. We've proved you can have both high
taxes and lousy services, given enough random disappearing chunks of
state monies.

Not like the legacy of bad government implimented by Tommy Thompson had
anything to do with it. /sarcasm

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On 12/23/2010 7:48 AM, Duane Hébert wrote:
On 12/22/2010 9:08 PM, Tºm Shermªn™ °_° wrote:
On 12/22/2010 9:33 AM, Jay Beattie wrote:
[...]
but personally, the last
thing I want to do is ride abreast with a giant truck.[...]

I will not drive drive next to a semi-truck for any longer than
absolutely necessary.


I will reply with a quote (yes quote) from Tom Sherman:

quote
D A N G E R !

D A N G E R !

/quote

That is an altered quote. There should be a tab between each character,
not a single space.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On Dec 23, 9:37*pm, incredulous wrote:
The trucker's past involvement in fatal crashes:

There's a large literature on the "accident prone." As well as
disbelief in the distribution of random rare events following a
Poisson distribution.

Not many people know about the outcomes of truly random Poisson
process; and Chalo was much earlier correct, that few drivers involved
in a two fatal crashes don't suspect -- correctly or not -- that they
are cursed, jinxed, PTSD's, or otherwise well-advised to radically
reduce their risk of being in another.

I've long believed that accident proneness is randomly distributed.
There are people I know who never seem to have crashes, and people at
the opposite tail of the curve.

One woman I've mentioned before was at the bad end of the curve. I
watched her topple three times in one bike ride, including while
trying to put her bike onto her car's rack. She was famous clumsy,
despite looking slim and athletic. She also broke an arm skiing later
that year or the next. Since she moved away, I'm not sure she's still
cycling - but probably not.

- Frank Krygowski

On 12/23/2010 9:47 PM, Tºm Shermªn™ °_° wrote:
On 12/23/2010 7:48 AM, Duane Hébert wrote:
On 12/22/2010 9:08 PM, Tºm Shermªn™ °_° wrote:
On 12/22/2010 9:33 AM, Jay Beattie wrote:
[...]
but personally, the last
thing I want to do is ride abreast with a giant truck.[...]

I will not drive drive next to a semi-truck for any longer than
absolutely necessary.


I will reply with a quote (yes quote) from Tom Sherman:

quote
D A N G E R !

D A N G E R !

/quote

That is an altered quote. There should be a tab between each character,
not a single space.


I cut and pasted it. You must be mistaken or your
newsreader is altering your post.

Per Frank Krygowski:
I've long believed that accident proneness is randomly distributed.
There are people I know who never seem to have crashes, and people at
the opposite tail of the curve.

I went to high school with a guy who had car
crash-after-car-crash.

From the outside, it looked random.

But if you drove with him through a few close calls, you realized
that he had some sort of attention/focus issue. For instance,
there would be something with the car radio - either he decided
to turn it on and find a station, or it was too loud, or
whatever... but for those few instants, the world outside of the
car ceased to exist for him: he was totally focused on the car's
radio.

One woman I've mentioned before was at the bad end of the curve....

That woman could be me. I'm so far to the left of the
clumsiness bell curve that it's ridiculous. I suspect the
reason I don't have injuries is that I recognize the situation
and am extremely cautious - especially on my MTB. If I didn't
accept that I was such a klutz, I'd probably wind up in the ER
couple times a year.
--
PeteCresswell

On Dec 24, 6:31 am, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:
Per Frank Krygowski:

I've long believed that accident proneness is randomly distributed.
There are people I know who never seem to have crashes, and people at
the opposite tail of the curve.

I went to high school with a guy who had car
crash-after-car-crash.

From the outside, it looked random.

But if you drove with him through a few close calls, you realized
that he had some sort of attention/focus issue. For instance,
there would be something with the car radio - either he decided
to turn it on and find a station, or it was too loud, or
whatever... but for those few instants, the world outside of the
car ceased to exist for him: he was totally focused on the car's
radio.

One woman I've mentioned before was at the bad end of the curve....

That woman could be me. I'm so far to the left of the
clumsiness bell curve that it's ridiculous. I suspect the
reason I don't have injuries is that I recognize the situation
and am extremely cautious - especially on my MTB. If I didn't
accept that I was such a klutz, I'd probably wind up in the ER
couple times a year.

I seem to go in and out of Karmic phases. By now I can almost smell
them coming. For the longest time I'm on a bubble and can do no
wrong, then along comes Murphy, and just won't leave me in my misery.