DC Cyclist Killed this AM

[madscot13]

oh I'm fine and safe. And incidentally I walked to work today.

the area where that bicyclist was hit, Dupont Circle, is pretty dangerous to bike in. At least in my opinion.

[ny biker]

oh I'm fine and safe. And incidentally I walked to work today.

the area where that bicyclist was hit, Dupont Circle, is pretty dangerous to bike in. At least in my opinion.

Dupont Circle is dangerous period.

[madscot13]

Dupont Circle is dangerous period.

good point

[Zen]

How do you mean dangerous?
It's not exactly the 'hood, far from it

[ny biker]

How do you mean dangerous?
It's not exactly the 'hood, far from it

Traffic-wise. I was referring to the traffic circle itself, which like most of the circles in DC is nuts for anyone whether they're driving a car or walking or biking. I go out of my way to avoid them.

I've since learned that this particular collision happened outside the traffic circle at a nearby intersection. However it was at R and 20th Sts which is basically a 3-street intersection because it's very near where Connecticut Ave hits R St. And from what I'm reading it's a really bad place for a large vehicle like a garbage truck to try to make a right turn.

If only Pierre L'Enfant had stopped with a grid layout for DC's streets, it would have been much better. The traffic circles and diagonal avenues make things ugly.

[Blueberry]

Yep - Dupont is (barely controlled, if controlled at all) chaos. Not exactly the best place to be. Period. I'm always careful walking or driving (haven't tried biking there).

Still - it sucks. From what I'm hearing, sounds like the driver should be at fault.

CA

[F8th637]

Here's a great write-up on the local listserve of what one guy deduced happened after visiting the crash site and taking stock of the paint lines where the impact occurred:

Tuesday evening, I went up to the site of this crash to look at the
situation. I wanted to see what the traffic control there is. I
also found the paint the cops put on the street to show where things
were. There didn't seem much mystery to the situation.

Both the cyclist and the trash truck driver were headed the same way
on R Street. The intersection where the crash occurred has first
20th crossing R Street and then Connecticut a few feet later. The
same traffic light controls traffic on R Street for both crossing
streets. I could see from the paint on the street where the point of
impact was and where the truck stopped.

The crash seems fairly easy to reconstruct.

The cyclist was in the bike lane. She probably just made the green
light at 19th Street and was trying to get the next green light a
block ahead for 20th and Connecticut. She was young, in good
condition, and reportedly pretty high spirited. It would be natural
to assume that she was going fairly fast. A good guess would be
about 20 mph (about 30 feet per second).

The trash truck driver was trying to make the tight, right turn onto
20th. This turn is extremely difficult for such a large vehicle. A
certain amount of momentum makes it easier. He evidently was
concentrating on getting that perfect momentum to make the turn and
remained oblivious to everything else. The paint that shows where
the truck finally stopped seems to indicate this.

Someone mentioned that there was a report that the cyclist was on
the sidewalk. I find this hard to believe. The sidewalk there is
not very inviting. It's narrow, has cracks and obstacles. The
street there is easy to bike. There would be no reason to be on the
sidewalk. If she was on the sidewalk, she would have had to be going
a lot slower and possibly could have avoided the crash. The point of
impact marked on the pavement is not in the right place for a
sidewalk rider. All indications are she was in the bike lane.

For the crash to happen the way it shows on the pavement, the trash
truck driver had to have turned right almost on top of her. It looks
to me like he just ran her over. It does not seem possible this was
a situation where he passed her a long way back and she caught up
with him. She had to be next to the truck when he turned. This
strengthens my contention that the charge against the motorist should
be negligent homicide.

I think I have noticed this truck driver before--or at least one for
the same company in this neighborhood. He stopped every morning at a
restaurant just across the street from me. A zillion trash trucks
rumble through the neighborhood every morning, and this guy stood
out. Most of the drivers of these trucks seemed quite careful and to
take great pride in being able to negotiate those enormous, clumsy
trucks precisely where they want them. This guy struck me as the
opposite. He seemed sloppy and relying the size of his vehicle to
intimidate everyone else. I never thought about this enough to
realize that he was a crash waiting to happen, but in hindsight,
that's what it seems. In might be good to check the driving record
on this motorist. If we want to make an example of someone, this
seems a good candidate.

In vehicle crashes of any kind there are usually complications and
mitigating circumstances, but this seems to me more straight forward
than any I can remember. It looks to me like the cyclist was doing
everything the way she was supposed to and the motorist was doing
everything wrong. The only possible mitigating circumstance that
might have happened is that the cyclist and truck traveled at the
same speed for the entire block, shadowing each other. This would
make it easier for the truck driver to miss seeing the cyclist, but
this is still not an excuse. If this was the case, the bike lane
worked against the cyclist. If she had been in traffic, she probably
would be alive now.

Also in looking at this situation something became apparent to me
about bike lanes. More than in anywhere I've ridden, DC seems to
have more of the type of motorists who just don't see cyclists. Even
a cyclist right in front of them or beside them just doesn't register
in their mind. It seems to me that bike lanes make this phenomenon
even more pronounced. To this type of motorist, the bike lane seems
to make cyclists even more invisible. They just take that space out
of their consciousness. It's a blank spot to them.

Comments made by motorists in the media and on various local
websites seem to run along the same theme: cyclists should stay to
the side of the street. They are all wrong. In this case the
cyclist was staying to the side and that killed her.

In other cities I've ridden, bike lanes sometimes work. In
Portland, Oregon, for example, studies have shown that traffic on a
street calms and drivers show more alertness after a bike lane is
installed. Because of a different mentality in DC, this does not
seem the case. I would think Portland and perhaps places like Davis,
California, are the exception rather than the rule. A higher
awareness of cyclists seems to exist there.

This adds more evidence to my contention that bicycle advocacy
should not be aimed at facilities like bike lanes but should be
directly aimed at stricter testing of motorists, stricter enforcing
of traffic laws, and the all important one: having bike cops give out
traffic tickets to motorists. Those things and those alone will make
cycling safer and the last one will make cyclists more visible to
motorists--especially the ones who most need the help.