Comments

1
Happened to a 12 yr old girl here in Kent a few weeks ago. Will only get worse as more cycle...
2
time until someone blames the cyclist...oh wait...#1 already posted
3
Well, it only took one comment before someone blamed the cyclist, but because it is Bailo, I do not know if it should count.
4
@1: Every transportation study that has been conducted on cycling in urban areas directly contradicts your misinformed views.
5
Sounds like she could use some stew.
6
For those who don't know, Boren and Pike is a traffic light-controlled intersection where two principal thoroughfares rushing steeply downhill (or slugging uphill) cross each other. If the two parties about to cross are rolling downhill, a building set tightly against the corner blocks their view of each other until they come to the intersection. The traffic light is very necessary.

Best wishes to the bicyclist (and the truck driver).
7
While I am loath to defend him I am not sure he is blaming the cyclist as much as pointing out the rather obvious fact that as more people cycle more people will get hurt cycling. Well unless we improve our infrastructure.

Is there anything that can be done with that area? It's a goddamn cluster fuck for cars, bikes, and people with steep hills, blind corners, and a ton of traffic. The streets seem to narrow for grade separated bike lane, but is there anything that would help?

And while someone will probably get the blame at the end, unless either the truck driver or the cyclist was a total asshole the real blame probably rests on our infrastructure.
8
Ugh. Just horrible. Hope she gets better soon.
9
a dump truck always wins. ride like they're trying to kill you - cautiously.
10
I'm amazed those double dump trucks are legal within the city. The more of those we have in the city, the more people will get hurt.
11
This proves my politics are correct and your politics are doggy do do.
12
@7: Not necessarily. When there are more cyclists, drivers learn to share the road and drive more cautiously.
13
@1 and @7. I don't think you understood @4. Every single study done on whether rising numbers of cyclists correlates with a rise in cyclist injury and/or death have shown that the more people ride, the less likely they are to be injured. So get on your bike and join the party. The more, the safer.
14
Thanks for posting this, Dominic. I hope she gets better soon. How is your friend who got doored a few months back faring?
16
@7 I'm not going to be a knee-jerk Vehicular Cyclist here, but this doesn't sound like an infrastructure problem it sounds like a legal compliance problem.

Crossing against the signal? Right hook? We don't have enough facts to know who cause the crash but I do know for sure that the road itself didn't cause the crash.
17
Jesus. That is terrible.

One of those articulated dump trucks popped the curb on a high speed turn a few months ago and took out a ladies shopping cart by QFC while she waiting for the light. What a "Holy Shit" moment. We were both just stunned. The driver had no idea and kept barreling down Broadway out of sight.
18
@13,

But wouldn't total number of injuries still go up? Especially in the short term?

@16,

I don't know what it is specifically about that intersection, but drivers there act like assholes, even more than usual. I'm going by my experience of crossing that intersection several times a week for the five years I lived on the Hill. I'd almost been hit many times by left- and right-turning drivers. I also saw more than one impatient driver cut into the *oncoming* lane to pass a slow or left-turning vehicle.

Putting Pike on a road diet might cut down on some of the asshole behavior. Turn the left lane into a dedicated left-turn-only lane and don't allow right turns on red. It'll slow down traffic overall, but slower traffic leads to fewer deaths.
19
@10 How would you build something in the City without them?
20
I walk passed this intersection 10 times a week. Ive seen maybe one or two cars run a red light, however I have seen about a dozen cyclists run red lights and its always going downhill on Pike Street. One of them zipped right between me and another pedestrian crossing the street.

They cruise downhill at high speeds, but once they approach the intersection @ Boren Ave, they are traveling too fast to realize the oncoming cars (which have right of way) heading right for them and cant break in time.

What this intersection needs are two massive jumbotron TVs that let you see around the corner for incoming traffic, that way the cyclist can bomb through the red light without any fear of being injured.
21
@19- You use single body dump trucks. Those things are forbidden in the Northeast.
22
Cyclists in Seattle are so stupid its ridiculous. With cars, ... we have insurance because we all recognize that accidents happen. This is the nature of an accident, by definition. They happen. Moving on .... with Cyclists, ... they seem to think they're entitled to not have any accidents. That's insane. Therefore, cyclists in Seattle are stupid, arrogant idiots that think that if you hit them, by accident, you've committed a crime against humanity and you should be locked up for life. Blows me away....... I'll be the first to admit, .. the are some absolutely brain-dead drivers out there. Especially here in the NW. But the fact remains that as entitled to your place in the road as you may be, ... when a dumb idiot driver runs you over you're dead as hell regardless of who's at fault.

Now if cyclists in Seattle weren't arrogant, loud mouth, insurance-less, I-own-the-road types of buttholes, more people might be inclined to give a shit. But hey, ... you reap what you sew.
23
JoeAnonymous 1 @22 Do you teach a Logic course in the Philosophy department of some local university? I only ask because your analysis is unparalleled in its parsimonious insight; so awesome, I would take that class in a minute!

I hope you get tenure, because one truly does reap what one sews(sic).
24

@22 HAHA "you reap what you sew". Fucker doesn't even know what that means.

I guess in the long run it's just a moo point. You know, a cows opinion.
25
@23, @24 -- maybe he meant "buttonhole" instead of "butthole".
26
so why did Danny's letter for Thursday get pulled?
27
So many cyclists, so little time. We need more dump trucks.

Please wait...

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