Cyclist Hit by Car in Arlington

[Guus]

@GuyContinental 67728 wrote:

Just thought that I’d post a street view of the intersection- it’s pretty messed up:

Maybe the trail re-alignment will fix this???

I agree that the intersection is pretty messed up. Arlington has done well over the past years but there is still plenty of work to be done. There are two improvements slated for that area, if I’m not mistaken:

– The Ballston Pond renovation will improve some of the trails: http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/EnvironmentalServices/Sustainability/page75451.aspx
– The Marymount building will be torn down and replaced, which will include a cycle track. http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/CPHD/planning/applications/site_plans/page89730.aspx

[Riley Casey]

Your description of the collision ( hard to call it an accident when the driver was apparently so inattentive ) almost makes the whole discussion of lighting and visibility moot. After ten plus years of urban commuting though I’ve become a really big fan of disruptive bike lighting on city streets. At dusk and into the darkness there is simply too much light point pollution for a car driver to pick out a cyclist against the headlights and neon thru the windshield. A strobing handlebar light combined with a fixed helmet light combined with a multi flashing tail light combined with a down facing strobing flashlight ( whew ) to illuminate my bike frame and my reflective tire walls has kept me alive ( and looking more than faintly ridiculous ) for a long time and I highly recommend it. I don’t have the luxury of riding trails much so my over the top lighting scheme is probably not appropriate there but then there is usually less on a trail to run a cyclist over too.

Please let us know how you fare – and if your bike survived 😮

@car(e) free family 67704 wrote:

Yes, I was using a more standard bike light at the time of the accident. I have a Sigma Illux light on the front. It is fairly bright but I am looking to upgrade to something better that also has a mode that won’t blind other riders on the trails.

This is the one I currently have and was using that morning:
http://www.sigmasport.com/us/produkte/beleuchtung/safety_lights/illux/?punkt=features

[Arlingtonrider]

I’m so very, very sorry this happened to you! You did everything right, and you deserve tons of kudos for your quest to live car-free, your efforts to do everything right and for writing your blog to share ideas with others. I truly hope you’ll be ok and feeling much better soon!

I wanted to add that local (bike accident) attorney Bruce Deming just published a great book called “Surviving the Crash: Your Legal Rights in a Bicycle Accident,” that is excellent and just now became available through Amazon (on Kindle or paperback). It’s an easy read, but very informative and well-written, and it could be incredibly helpful to you right now. I got a copy last week and am very happy to have it. Welcome to the forum.

[fuzzy]

It changes when culture changes.

how old was that driver? Did she get her license in 1974, 1984, 1994, 2004? Earlier? What was being taught then & now? You get your license and pay the state XX$ to renew and aren’t aloud to smile in your new photo. That’s it!

How about instead of looking pissed of in the dmv line, and in the photo, you have to take some sort of written or practical test? No- I know why we will not be doing that- because no one has the time for it, so until then folks like you will be getting creamed out there. The only beneficiary to this system is the insurance company & medical service providers.

A few days after I took the WABA safety class I followed the advice of one of the instructors. He said that he finds during the day he is more visibly if he ride with his front light on. A few days later I almost got creamed by a car turning left in-front of me opposite my direction. The driver stopped when she saw my headlamp. Perhaps you could run a red rear and clear flashing lamp on the bike of the bike, something flashing on the ridiculous side of things…Photon torpedoes or something.

[mstone]

@GuyContinental 67728 wrote:

Just thought that I’d post a street view of the intersection- it’s pretty messed up:

It’s pretty out of date with all the construction that’s been going on there. It looks as though the new configuration leaves more room (the projecting curb was cut back). I don’t think it’s been restriped yet, unless they did it very recently.

For myself, I usually hopped on the sidewalk at the intersection at glebe, sometimes at the driveway before wakefield. With the construction it’s been horrid at fairfax/glebe (disappearing lanes & crosswalks, ditches, bad temporary light timing, etc) and I’ll just do whatever looks safest at the moment. Sometimes I’ll end up on the south side of fairfax and cross at the hotel, but that’s really horrid (no room, long light). I’ll be glad when they’re done with all the intersection projects in the area.

[mstone]

@fuzzy 67744 wrote:

How about instead of looking pissed of in the dmv line, and in the photo, you have to take some sort of written or practical test? No- I know why we will not be doing that- because no one has the time for it, so until then folks like you will be getting creamed out there. The only beneficiary to this system is the insurance company & medical service providers.

…and the car manufacturers, and the sprawl developers, and the highway builders, and the schools and churches and jobs which are far from housing, and the entire culture that assumes that driving a SOV is an immutable law of nature. If it were more difficult to get in a car and go somewhere, the culture would look very different. In order to maintain the status quo, it has to be easy to drive–we’re in a world where judges hesitate to take away the licenses of repeat DUIs or people convicted of vehicular manslaughter, because “how would they get to work?”

[baiskeli]

@Riley Casey 67733 wrote:

After ten plus years of urban commuting though I’ve become a really big fan of disruptive bike lighting on city streets. At dusk and into the darkness there is simply too much light point pollution for a car driver to pick out a cyclist against the headlights and neon thru the windshield. A strobing handlebar light combined with a fixed helmet light combined with a multi flashing tail light combined with a down facing strobing flashlight ( whew ) to illuminate my bike frame and my reflective tire walls has kept me alive ( and looking more than faintly ridiculous ) for a long time and I highly recommend it.

Very interesting post, thanks. I hadn’t thought about that as an option for cutting through the dawn-dusk light problem. I hadn’t even thought about the dawn-dusk light problem until this thread.

[Terpfan]

I heard the “I didn’t even see you” apology the other morning when someone almost hit me on Abingdon in the middle of the day and when I had on lights, neon-colored clothing, and was taking 1/3 of the lane. At the intersection, I said in response something to the effect of, “well that’s scary given I’m trying to be seen when I know little kids run out into neighborhood streets.” It seemed to give the person ample pause. For whatever reason, some motorists seem to think the excuse is acceptable and it pains me to think of what will happen in the scenario with the little kid or a random animal, etc. It’s like they never took physics and have no concept of what several thousand pounds moving at even a few miles per hour will do to an object.

[jabberwocky]

@Terpfan 67768 wrote:

For whatever reason, some motorists seem to think the excuse is acceptable and it pains me to think of what will happen in the scenario with the little kid or a random animal, etc. It’s like they never took physics and have no concept of what several thousand pounds moving at even a few miles per hour will do to an object.

When I got hit earlier this year, this was one of the excuses the motorist gave. The cop who was handling it (who was awesome) responded with “he’s a lot more visible than road signs, and I wouldn’t accept that excuse if you said you were speeding or missed a stop sign because you didn’t see it”.

[Rootchopper]

I attended a mandatory driver ed class with my teenage daughter a couple of years ago. I think it was 90 minutes long. Then I went to the hour long licensing ceremony in court which included presentations and films. I do not recall hearing the words “bicyclist” or “pedestrian” in the 2 1/2 hours. Maybe the cultural change begins when we teach teenagers that getting a license doesn’t put you in a privileged class above cyclists and pedestrians.

[dasgeh]

@Rootchopper 67771 wrote:

I attended a mandatory driver ed class with my teenage daughter a couple of years ago. I think it was 90 minutes long. Then I went to the hour long licensing ceremony in court which included presentations and films. I do not recall hearing the words “bicyclist” or “pedestrian” in the 2 1/2 hours. Maybe the cultural change begins when we teach teenagers that getting a license doesn’t put you in a privileged class above cyclists and pedestrians.

Yep. And we could start that in the schools, which have local control (DMV = Richmond, ugh). Which reminds me, there are 2 empty “community” seats on the MMTSSSC for APS. Any Arlingtonians out there without kids in APS want to join in the fun. We could really use some more voices with a longer range, community-based perspective.

[Rootchopper]

Thank you for blogging about this. I am sorry to hear about your being hit. My wife was run over by an SUV while crossing a street in broad daylight with minimal traffic and other distractions. The driver was turning left, ran a stop sign, and accelerated into her. He only “saw” her when he heard the impact. (She missed 3 months of work and went through many more months of pain, physical therapy and such.) We hired an attorney to deal with the legal aftermath. That process is only now coming to an end 30 months later.

As for lights, I highly recommend Light and Motion lights. I have had a Stella 200 (lumens) light for 3 or 4 years. They have more recent models that are simpler and brighter.

As for your recovery, I hope it goes quickly. Chocolate, taken orally, heals most wounds.

[jabberwocky]

@Rootchopper 67776 wrote:

Chocolate, taken orally, heals most wounds.

See, this is the sort of wisdom this forum needs more of.

[jpetty1]

Sorry to hear about this, I hope you have a quick recovery.

This is a tricky intersection and difficult connection to the trail. The proposed Marymount University project is planning a cycletrack along the northside of Fairfax between Wakefield and Glebe. The presentation from October 17th meeting that illustrates the cycletrack is still not online. They said it should be uploaded soon.

1000 N. Glebe Road

[care free family]

@baiskeli 67721 wrote:

Sorry this happened to you and I’m glad you’re okay!

I’m confused – on your blog your wrote “It was after daybreak, it was light out.” and that it was 7:25 am.

And it sounds like you would have been heading west, and so was the car, so the driver should have clearly seen you and the sun would have been behind both of you anyway.

This time of day is probably even more dangerous than total darkness if you don’t have a light or reflector. At night there’s contrast and headlights to bounce off of your, and in the day there is daylight, but the only thing that will get you noticed in twilight is a bright blinky light. It’s a good reminder to use those even when the sun is up or not quite set yet.

Hi, so on the day in question, October 24, 2013 sunrise was at 7:27 a.m. So, I was using the phrasing “daybreak” and “it was light out” to indicate that it was much brighter than dawn light since the sun was about to rise.

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