Bicycle Safety

According to eyewitness statements reported by the SF Weekly and the Chronicle, a 5-Fulton bus collided with a cyclist this morning on Market Street and the driver refused to stop, despite pleas by passengers to stay at the scene of the crash.

Many urban cyclists have a tale to tell about a car door that swung out into their path and nearly knocked them from their bikes. Hopefully, the story ends there, with no injuries or further harm. Some haven't been so lucky, however, as they've been thrown from their bikes or hit when swerving into traffic. In addition to bearing the physical scars, the memories of collisions with doors has altered their riding habits or led to piqued anxiety.

Cyclists traveling inbound on Market Street are being squeezed into an unnecessarily narrow bike lane as a result of safe-hit posts installed to enforce the new required right turn at 10th Street. The posts, put in place by the MTA to the left of the existing bike and right-turn-only lanes, have shaved what was already a skinny passage for cyclists.

It’s something even the most experienced cyclists do: wipe out while crossing a set of train tracks. When you ride across rails, you need to maneuver your bike’s angle of approach so that you hit the tracks as perpendicularly as possible. But even knowing that, some riders don’t slow down enough to sashay properly, and … Continued

The MTA might have a solution for the dangerous conditions at the Fell Street Arco gas station, where motorists queueing up to buy gas routinely block the bike lane and force cyclists to navigate between bumpers or try their hand a lane over in speeding traffic. 

Now that the new police chief has announced he is going to "review" department procedures with respect to Critical Mass, I think it might be a good time to "review" the history of the relationship between Critical Mass and the police. I have to emphasize that this relationship has evolved in the context of a police department that has been consistently biased against bicyclists for as long as anyone can remember. Recent efforts to bring the SFPD into the 21st century have not yielded noticeable results yet. Chief Gascón has an opportunity to direct the department culture towards an altered cityscape with thousands more bicyclists and pedestrians, or he can maintain an obsolete approach to reinforcing a car-centric society's prejudices. I have to admit that I'm not hopeful. Also, I hope this review further debunks the silly reporting from KPIX starting last summer, that somehow Critical Mass is not paying for the police that accompany it, and thus costing the city some $100,000 a year in police overtime.

The driver of a Chevrolet Blazer who struck and killed a 28-year-old cyclist in Los Gatos has been arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter.

San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón vowed last week to implement significant crime reducing strategies through his Compstat system and restructured enforcement based on best practices from inside and outside of his department, including two measures that have pedestrian and bicycle advocates astir.

Joshua West, a 28-year-old Los Gatos resident, was struck and killed while riding his bicycle this morning by a driver who lost control of his SUV.