Bicycle Safety

Looks like bicycle riders who get brushed by passing drivers can no longer call it getting "Jerry Browned."

Supervisor London Breed has issued a statement explaining her Twitter comments yesterday on safer streets for bicycling which led her to delete her account. Breed had responded to an inquiry sent out by Twitter user Patrick Traughber to every city supervisor and a few other city officials, asking, "In your opinion, what is the biggest obstacle to creating safer streets for bicycling in San Francisco?"

Update: Shahum reported that SFBC staffer Marc Caswell found a surveillance camera at an auto body shop which has footage of Le Moullac's crash, even though SFPD has said no such footage could be found. More on that story later as it develops.

Stanley Roberts asked me to come out yesterday for one of his "People Behaving Badly" segments and help explain how drivers should legally make a right-turn, since CBS 5 didn't get it quite right. Roberts still didn't touch on the point that CBS got wrong -- drivers can't just jump in front of people on bikes because they got to the intersection first -- but it's good to see him devote attention to the issue.

KGO 810's "The Monty Show" was kind enough to invite me to speak this weekend as host Tim Montemayor took on the topic of bike/car relations in light of the recent truck crash that killed cyclist Amelie Le Moullac, the sentencing of Chris Bucchere, and confusion about right-of-way laws in bike lanes.

The woman killed on her bike by a truck driver at Sixth and Folsom Streets yesterday morning has been identified as 24-year-old Amelie Le Moullac, SF Weekly reported this morning. Le Moullac was run over by a truck driver making a right turn from Folsom on to Sixth at about 7:07 a.m., and although SFPD says it's still investigating the crash, officers have already said they have no plans to submit case to the district attorney to investigate the case for potential charges, according to KTVU.

An unidentified 24-year-old woman was killed while bicycling on Folsom at Sixth Street this morning when she was hit by a big rig truck driver, according to SFPD and media reports.

Thanks to Lisa Ratner for shooting this video on Polk last Friday.

On Friday at about 5 p.m., I came across a crash scene on Polk Street at Pine. A bicycle rider had been struck by a driver and thrown into another car, and he was being hauled away in a stretcher. As it happened, I was pedaling up Polk to meet with Lisa Ratner, a videographer, to get some shots of the dangerous traffic conditions on the street (stay tuned for that video later this week).