A Hazardous Bike Commute

I had a sobering ride in this morning. A car and bicylist accident just past the Ballard bridge on the Burke at one of the Fred Meyer intersections. The good news was the cyclist was starting to stand up as I slowly rode by. Who knows whose fault it was, nevertheless, typically riders are on the losing side of that proposition.

Last year I witnessed a cyclist taken out as a women opened her driver's side car door just as the rider was coming by and threw him to the middle of the street. It also dented her black Mercedes door. I saw the rider later at the hearing and he had suffered a broken collar bone. The women was not fined or cited since it was her first offense, or something like that. She didn't even have to appear in court.

So the point is, it's dangerous commuting on a bike. The Seattle PI wrote a good piece on that concern and a published report by the advocay arm of the Cascade Bicylce Club. Besides the story describing how many of the routes and paths are not connected, leaving us riders to fend for ourselves out on the street, it also noted a silent ride on May 17 to raise awareness for cyclists on the rode and to remember the people who died riding their bikes. Sounds like a war story. Maybe it is.