Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Terrible news :^(

Truly unfortunate. Details and discussion here:

http://benjacat.blogspot.com/2008/06/about-that-plain-dealer-article.html


Posted by Gary Burkholder at 6/18/2008

2 comments:

Cycling Phun said...

I didn't not know this Patrick gentleman. Still a very rough to read, man. A myriad of horrible factors coming together in an unfortunate, and very permanent, ending. No one will ever know if anything could have saved Patrick, but the bottom line is it ended in the worse possible way. I don't think anyone should be vilified in this situation, unlike the Mexico crash. That was clear cut, and he should pay big time. I'd be more likely to pray for the family of Patrick as well as the driver of the truck who will have to live with the knowledge that someone died that day, whether it could have been prevented or not, at his hands. I think I freak out more at the idea of hitting a cyclist while driving, than I worry about being hit.

6/18/08, 11:32 PM
Gary Burkholder said...

I agree with you there. I was coming home from work last night and traffic was really backed up turning left onto Broadview. What I sometimes do in this situation is go straight through the light, make a right into parking for a line of storefronts, backtrack a little ways and then make a right onto Broadview.

Before I made my right into the lot, I saw two kids riding down the sidewalk towards the drive. I stopped and waited for them to pass (although I could have easily made it w/o stopping). I mainly stopped just in case someone would be turning in behind me and not see them.

The same two riders headed south on Broadview as I was going in the same direction. I caught a light or two before getting to my street and there had also been a car accident immediately before my street heading in the other direction. Traffic was really backed up to the point that it was stop and go both ways.

It got to the point where traffic was backed up going the other direction when I was waiting to turn left on my street. As I went to make my turn, I barely noticed the same two riders continuing south on Broadview, this time on the other side of the street.

I had been looking ahead toward the oncoming traffic which had stopped to keep the intersection clear and to let me turn left. I was in no position to see riders on the left sidewalk proceeding in the same direction I was. Thus I didn't see them until I was 1/2 way through my turn. They were far enough away on the sidewalk and they wouldn't have reached the cross walk before I had cleared it. The point is, I did not see them until I was committed to turning and I don't know if the car behind me would have seen them as well.

I sometimes ride down the sidewalk in the same way on Broadview since there is a significant hill in either direction when I head out. However, I try to be very aware when crossing any driveways along the way, because drivers are not looking for riders on the sidewalks (even though I'm sure that's where most drivers would say cyclists should ride).

I've actually started riding the road instead of the sidewalk when heading out from my street, and it seems to work better even though the traffic seemed intimidating at first.

6/19/08, 10:11 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)