Oh my! I am so saddened. This stirs so many emotions in me.

I've been trying to put together ways to correctly convey thoughts when these issues come up locally.

I simply do not understand how/why people blame the cyclists. While I have great sympathy for the trauma that the driver must feel, the driver is at fault.

I think one point is that we need to stop referring to these occurances as "accidents" We need to call them collisions. Others will try to bring up cyclists who break the rules of the road, but we must be firm that in many/most and certainly this case, that the cyclist was following the rules of the road and that the driver was negligent when he/she took their eyes off the road.

A vehicle becomes a weapon when driven by a distracted driver.

I know that I'm preaching to the choir, but I just feel better by saying it and hope that maybe presenting things this way when we can redirect those who try to blame the cyclists.