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FROM THE SUMMIT Earlier this year there was a string of cycling accidents reported in the Fremont Argus newspaper. It certainly caught my eye because of the number of accidents. On January 29, a senior citizen was cycling in a crosswalk in Walnut Creek and involved in a hit and run accident. With the help of a good Samaritan the police was able to catch a 67 year old woman driving away and evading capture. March 6, a women cyclist in Fremont rear-ended a parked truck that just happened to be covered by a swarm of honeybees. Nobody was stung, and she was taken by ambulance to Eden Medical Center. Also on March 6, on Alvarado Niles on the 880 overpass was hit by a car at the highway on-ramp. This cyclist received major injuries. On March 12, at 37 year old cyclist was hit westbound on Winton Avenue on the 880 overpass. This person was on life support. The police sergeant was quoted saying the bicyclist was riding on the shoulder, "which he is entitled to do". I never found out if this cyclist lived or died. I tried to understand what was really happened in these accidents, and with the news you can't make heads or tails out of it. So let me make a few guesses on my own and leave it to you to see if I am right or wrong. The January 29 hit and run accident was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The better place to cycle is on the roadway acting like a vehicle if you are comfortable with that. Cycling using pedestrian methods places you in more dangerous position than vehicular cyclists. I assume the car ran the stop sign or signal light and the cyclist didn't look to see was safe to cross and just maybe avert this accident. So scary. I can imagine the woman cyclist who rear ended a parked truck was going to pass on the right. Then she realized there wasn't enough space for her and decided to stop or turn left. By then she hit the parked truck. The only thing the honeybees did was have the truck stop. Unfortunately the woman cyclist was positioned too far to the right to begin with, probably in the door zone. If she was cycling using vehicular means she would have been in position to pass on the left properly and safely. Accident averted. The other March 6th accident on Alvarado Niles I'm guessing is the fault of the car for hitting the cyclist. This was a 6 pm rush hour traffic crash. I'm thinking the driver didn't see and recognize the cyclist in the roadway and to realize that is a hazard and to avoid hitting him. Maybe he was wearing dark blue or black which is all too common. The March 12 crash got me thinking about bicycle transportation engineering and what John Forester had written about marking of roadways causing cyclists to be poorly positioned and in harms way. To me this is that example. This cyclist could have been so far to the right with high speed traffic approaching from the rear and right side. The cyclists was in a place where motorists were not looking, that is being out of the "cone of vision". I think if maybe he had been farther to the left he might be alive today. Additionally, if Hayward had replaced the old style of off-ramp with what we have in Fremont this accident would have been totally avoided. My understanding is that Hayward declined to upgrade their highway off-ramps which would have made them safer for cars and cyclists. There are things you and I can do to reduce our chances of being injured. First off, do your cycling in the safe position on the roadway as well as observing other traffic principles. That is, get educated. Our website has links to help you to learn and do Street Skills. Make it easy for motorists to recognize you as a cyclist so they can avoid you. My friend Wyatt executes this concept better than anybody. And equally important, we need to organize and act on a local-level and regional-level to demand correct cycling facilities. We don't have a local-level voice advocating for cyclists' requirements. Fremont, Newark, and Union City should each have a separate local cycling advocacy organization demanding action, and a city sponsored bicycle advisory committee recommending change. Wynn Kageyama |