Former Astronaut Dies After Cycling Accident

[kmehrzad]

When is this madness going to end?

http://celebs.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978491821

A local child killed during a cycling accident this week - http://wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=2040428

There HAS TO BE better education and stricter laws about this kind of thing ... how many cyclists have to die before something is done to protect us?

First thing to tackle is disabling texting capability in cell phones while in a moving vehicle.

[uforgot]

I think Bill Lenoir just fell off of his bike. I don't think there was anyone else involved was there? That's what I heard, anyway.

[Veronica]

I don't see anything in either article that indicates a driver was at fault.

Children do dumb, unpredictable things and it's just as likely the child was at fault as the driver. That doesn't make it less tragic for anyone involved. I've had teenagers deliberately jump out in front of me. And I've had kids deliberately ride, weaving their way down the middle of the road, just for the hell of it, because it amused them to make it so I could not safely pass.

The other article says the guy fell off his bike.

Motorists are not inherently evil and I believe most accidents are truly that.

Veronica

[channlluv]

Yes, the article said he was out building bike paths when he fell. There was no mention of a car being involved. And the other article about the little girl who was hit in the crosswalk said the driver was a man in his 80s. No mention of texting or anything going on. Maybe you were referring to a different article. There were a lot of accident report links on that WTOP site.

Although I do agree that there should be some kind of international PSA about safer driving and watching out for cyclists. Maybe one like that motorcycle PSA that has the car driver stopping and looking before turning left, and out of nowhere this motorcyclist slams into the driver side door. "How long do you have to look for a motorcycle?" or something like that.

Roxy

[kmehrzad]

I heard a different take on the incident with the little girl ... her sisters made it across the road, she didn't and the 80 yr. old driver didn't see her, etc.

Regarding texting, that's my hot button. How many times have you ridden alongside someone and seen them texting on their phones? Scares the living daylights out of me when I think one quick second is all it takes for them to be looking down and not see a pedestrian, cyclist, whomever. They're certainly not concentrating on the road or their surroundings.

[salsabike]

I
Motorists are not inherently evil and I believe most accidents are truly that.

Veronica

Glad to see I'm not totally alone in this point of view!

[Veronica]

Regarding texting, that's my hot button. How many times have you ridden alongside someone and seen them texting on their phones? Scares the living daylights out of me when I think one quick second is all it takes for them to be looking down and not see a pedestrian, cyclist, whomever. They're certainly not concentrating on the road or their surroundings.

How about changing the radio station or eating, or having a conversation with your passengers? All those can cause a moment's inattention. Cyclists can have moments of inattention too.

I just hate the assumption that the driver MUST be at fault in every accident involving a cyclist and MUST be punished in some horrific way.

Veronica

[crazycanuck]

Roxy-There are safety commericals here in Western Australia regarding inattentive drivers-One shows a mother trying to calm her fighting with her children in the vehicle & she runs into a motorbike. The other has a man looking at a map & he runs into a large vehicle.

If i can locate the link, i'll post it.

[jessmarimba]

I was driving yesterday and stopped at a 4-way stop - a cyclist with no helmet wearing headphones saw me stop and decided to speed up and turn left (in front of me) without stopping or signaling. Grr. And I try to be so overly accommodating to cyclists...usually...but I leaned out the window and yelled at this guy. At least I went with the assumption that he probably wouldn't stop so I hadn't already started out of the intersection. One life saved, for now.

[jobob]

Glad to see I'm not totally alone in this point of view!

You are most certainly not.

[DebSP]

I saw the US Federal Government. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics for 2005: 39,189 fatalities in car accidents, 4,881 were pedestrians, 784 were cyclists and the rest were either passengers or drivers or in the "other" category. :( I just wish that our roads were safer for all users. That everyone paid a little more attention and showed a little respect. Yes roads were designed for motor vehicles but not exclusively! And a related thought, I ride more rural roads. When cars squeeze by me in the no passing zones, I often think what would they do if I was a tractor pulling a hay wagon with a slow moving sign.

[OakLeaf]

How about changing the radio station or eating, or having a conversation with your passengers? All those can cause a moment's inattention. Cyclists can have moments of inattention too.

I just hate the assumption that the driver MUST be at fault in every accident involving a cyclist and MUST be punished in some horrific way.

Veronica

There's a difference between a moment's inattention, vs. deliberately choosing to remove your attention from the road.

No, the automobile driver isn't always at fault, but as a general rule, people who risk killing someone ELSE when they deliberately don't pay attention (automobile drivers) choose to pay less attention than people who risk DYING when they have even a moment of inattention (motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians).

You want to know what I think? I think no one should be allowed to operate a four-wheeled vehicle until they've had a motorcycle license for five years.

And I don't think there's any excuse for changing the radio station or eating, either, even though those are CHOICES (not lapses) to take attention away from the road momentarily, whereas talking on the phone and texting are CHOICES to take attention off the road for an EXTENDED period of time. It's no different from the CHOICE to get behind the wheel after a "couple of beers" or more.

An automobile or truck is a lethal weapon. Operators should be held to a HIGHER standard than the operators of firearms, since negligent operation of a firearm is most likely to result in a non-lethal injury, if any, to a single person. The "line of fire" even of a shotgun is a fairly small area compared to the front or side of an automobile that's out of control. You don't hear about someone "accidentally" killing half a dozen people with a firearm at a farmers' market.

[Veronica]

There's a difference between a moment's inattention, vs. deliberately choosing to remove your attention from the road.



But how many of these accidents are caused by that deliberate choice? Certainly not the two in the original post. Cyclists, as a group, seem to use every accident as an excuse to vilify motorists and further their own agenda, whether or not the event fits.


Veronica

[OakLeaf]

But how many of these accidents are caused by that deliberate choice? Certainly not the two in the original post.

Nothing "certain" about the little girl. Maybe it was her LEGAL fault, maybe it wasn't. The story doesn't say.

I think most, to the tune of 90%+, so-called "accidents" are caused by that deliberate choice, and I'll include at least half of single-vehicle two-wheeler "accidents" in that enumeration also. The choice is to take their attention off the road. What they choose to do with their attention instead is secondary, IMO.

They wouldn't even pick up the phone, or the hamburger, or the iPod, or whatever, if they thought that they had even a little responsibility for the deadly machine they're operating.

There are a few things that are unavoidable. An odd draft of wind blows something into your properly protected eye. A vehicle in the oncoming lane hits a pebble or piece of hardware and pops it into you, even though you're properly positioned in your lane. A stinging insect flies into your jersey.

Most so-called "accidents" are not the result of something like that.

I'm not saying I'm perfect. In my lifetime I've made very bad choices behind the wheel and behind the handlebars. Thank God none of them have been disastrous, for me or for anyone else. But I'm not so arrogant as to say that I shouldn't have been punished for them, or to suggest that I have some God-given right to live in a place that requires me to operate a vehicle because would be a full day's walk to town and back.

[Veronica]

Nothing "certain" about the little girl. Maybe it was her LEGAL fault, maybe it wasn't. The story doesn't say.



That's my point. I'm not arguing against whether or not the person at fault should be punished or how. My issue is the use of news articles to whip up a furor for or against a cause when there is nothing to back you up and the assumptions that get made based on the article.

The OP went into a rant about texting. There's nothing in either story about texting. I agree texting while driving is stupid, irresponsible and dangerous. BUT there's nothing about texting here.

Veronica

[Eden]

I'll agree that there's nothing in either article to indicate texting was in any way at fault, but overall I'm much more in agreement with Oak.

Driving is treated way to lightly in this country. It is an activity that is acutely dangerous, yet we are very accepting that one might have a "moments inattention" and have an "accident".

I don't hold with the idea that inattention = accident. Inattention = negligence. I don't think it should be a felony, but I do think it should have consequences beyond you'll feel sorry.....

For the last 15 years drivers have pretty consistently killed from 37 to 44 thousand people every year. That's as many people as breast cancer kills every year, and we have yet to whip out a ribbon campaign for car accidents. We have the dubious distinction of having the #1 automobile accident death rate per population in the developed world. Auto accidents are the #1 killer of children in the US- above all childhood illnesses - combined....

I think our laws regarding driving should be much more stringent. I think our system for getting and keeping a drivers license should be much more difficult and I think that if you ever grievously injure, maim or kill someone because you were inattentive or aggressive behind the wheel - unless it was truly an accident - you should lose your license to drive - forever.

[redrhodie]

I agree with much of what has been written in this thread, from both sides, but I agree with this most of all:



I think our system for getting and keeping a drivers license should be much more difficult and I think that if you ever grievously injure, maim or kill someone because you were inattentive or aggressive behind the wheel - unless it was truly an accident - you should lose your license to drive - forever.

It's far too easy to get and keep a driver's license. I've had one driver's test in my life, when I was 16 years old. Isn't it time for a refresher course and a new test? I can't see why this isn't done every 10 or 12 years.

[zoom-zoom]

I think our laws regarding driving should be much more stringent. I think our system for getting and keeping a drivers license should be much more difficult and I think that if you ever grievously injure, maim or kill someone because you were inattentive or aggressive behind the wheel - unless it was truly an accident - you should lose your license to drive - forever.

Another ditto from me. If a person "accidentally" kills someone with a gun the punishment is usually more fitting. If they do so with a car it's often a slap on the wrist. A friend of a friend killed someone while drunk driving...to the best of my knowledge she served no jail time and had her driving PRIVILEGES restored just a year or two later...WTF?!

Too many view driving as a right. I'm all for the technology that prevents ANY cell phone function from a moving vehicle. My hubby pointed-out that this would prevent passengers from using the devices, too...tough sh!t, I say. No one will die from being unable to use a mobile device in a moving vehicle.

[channlluv]

Amen to that.

Whatever did we do in the back seats of cars before cell phones came out...oh wait, that came out wrong. I meant as kids, while our parents were driving.

The only thing I use my cellphone for while driving is to reference the GPS app, and then I always review all the directions before I start the trip and try to memorize the street names I need to look for.

I almost hit a teenage boy on a bike a few days ago. I was in a mixed residential/commercial neighborhood looking for an address, so I was driving slowly, thank goodness, because this 14- or 15-year-old bolts out from between parked cars on this little black BMX-looking bike with one of those really tilted back saddles -- how do they ride those things? -- and right through the street in front of me. No helmet, of course. If I had been going much faster he would have been a hood ornament.

Cyclists need to be educated about safety just as much as motorists do.

When I was little, our small town police department had this half-block-sized miniature town called Safety Town where our elementary school class -- I must have been in Kindergarten or first grade, maybe -- went to learn safety rules about where to cross the street, looking both ways, the various traffic signs, and so on. I don't remember riding my bike there on that field trip, but the mini-streets were big enough for kids to do that. Wouldn't it be great to have something similar in every community to teach kids real safety rules?

And +1 on the too-easy-to-keep-a-license point. My 84-year-old grandmother just renewed her driver's license by mail. No test. Nada. Just sign here, send the check, and look for it in the mail. I'm so glad she doesn't own a car anymore.

Roxy

[Veronica]

Are you willing to pay extra money so you can have someone to give you that driver's test every ten years?

Are you willing to pay extra taxes so that there can be an after school program to teach kids bike safety? It can't happen during school time - I don't have enough time to cover my required curriculum.

And maybe you as an individual are willing to pay for those services, but do you think society at large is?

Veronica

[Eden]

That argument, though I'm sure it would be effective for many, only looks at the short term and doesn't see the forest for the trees.

Automobile accidents are expensive too - to the tune of $230 billion per year. If a prevention program worked it wouldn't necessarily add to the average person's cost of living, and could possibly actually save money. How much higher are your insurance premiums (health and auto) because of all those accidents? How much more in taxes do you pay because of benefits to people who are hurt or killed, to support hospitals who treat the uninsured? To support people after their lives and finances have been torn apart? Prevention is generally cheaper than cure....

[redrhodie]

Are you willing to pay extra money so you can have someone to give you that driver's test every ten years?

Are you willing to pay extra taxes so that there can be an after school program to teach kids bike safety? It can't happen during school time - I don't have enough time to cover my required curriculum.

And maybe you as an individual are willing to pay for those services, but do you think society at large is?

Veronica

Yes, I'd pay for the test. The fee in my state for a road test is $26.50. That seems fair to me, especially if it was only every 10 years or so.

I'm sure most other people wouldn't want to pay for it, would argue it takes too much time, is not fair, whatever. I'm sure it would be extremely unpopular. I think it would probably make people better drivers, though. Maybe insurance providers, or AAA could give discounts for a good score.

I'm not sure how I feel about teaching kids bike safety after school with tax dollars. It certainly would have helped me avoid being doored when I was 14. Do schools still teach driver's ed, and is that covered by taxes?

[Aggie_Ama]

I would pay more for my driver's license if it meant it was harder to get one. When I renewed mine last year (done every six years) it was $25. That is $4.17 a year! Judging by the number of people I see carelessly driving I would happily test again to prove I am not one of them. Driving isn't a right, it is a privilege and should be regulated as such. I had been tested at 26 to make sure I was still up to par on driving I would have accepted it. Or if they based it off your driving record, I have known people who have had wrecks every 3 years that were their fault and they are just cruising along with the rest of us!

[Crankin]

Around here, most towns do driver's ed through Community Education; not part of HS curriculum. So, subsidized a little by taxes, but parents still have to pay a nice sum. Most people I know send their kids to private driving schools, where it is easier to schedule the behind the wheel time required.

[PamNY]

In a perfect world, driver's license tests would be more frequent, and enforcement of traffic laws would be better.

Cyclists would be licensed, too, and somehow prevented from phoning/texting while on the bike.

[oxysback]

In a perfect world, everyone would follow the law. Therefore, we wouldn't need any additional testing, fees, whatever.

You can have all the laws you want. Doesn't mean every single person will follow them.

[lph]

I took my drivers licence when I was 35. I was freaking terrified. I was adult, conscientious, aware, a mother, a seasoned cyclist well used to duelling it out at close quarters with cars, trucks and motorcycles at high speed, and I was terrified I'd kill someone.

I realize now that much of that feeling was not having car handling under my skin, and now that I drive regularly I know the car and how to position it a lot better. But I try to never forget that feeling of how much you don't see from a drivers seat, and how very little time it takes to lose control. The feeling of danger I had was exaggerated, but still real and justified. I use that memory to remind myself to practice often and keep up my skills, and to actively judge if I should drive at all under difficult conditions.

I would welcome a compulsory re-test for a drivers licence after ten years. At age 16 (18 here) you may be old enough to master the physical act of driving, but at age 26 you're a responsible adult old enough to really come to grips with what you're doing and how it can affect lives.

[jessmarimba]

A repeat test would be good, but what about people who WILLFULLY don't follow laws? I'm sure plenty of people know that they SHOULD use their turn signal and not run red lights, and that tailtgating while going 80 mph is a bad idea...but would remember well enough to behave with an instructor in the car. :(


A lot of people get so entitled behind the wheel. I like the theory - I can't remember who wrote the essay - but if we all drove around with a giant metal spike sticking out of our steering wheels and no seatbelts, we'd all be much better drivers.

[sundial]

When I see a cyclist riding on a busy highway, I almost cringe. So many drivers are distracted and it only takes a second for a life to be completely changed.

[channlluv]

I saw three riders today on the streets near my school. Two men and a woman all riding and chatting -- it was a great day for it -- and then as I was leaving the school parking lot, I saw them again, only this time the woman was lagging behind because she was focused on dialing her phone. It took her a few seconds and both hands off the handlebars to do it, and then she rode on down the road one-handed while holding the phone to her ear. I'm glad it was the middle of the day and traffic - cars and kids crossing at the crosswalk between the schools - was minimal.

Roxy

[OakLeaf]

A week ago Wednesday I saw a boy riding in the grass and not actually in the road at all, on a road that I avoid on the bici as much as possible (I was in my car at the time). It's a narrow, high-traffic country road. I don't remember exactly what he was doing, but I remember thinking it was very unsafe.

The next day, a boy was killed on that road when he reportedly hit a patch of gravel and veered into the path of a truck. The age and location match the boy I saw. :( :(