bostonbiker

Tag: collision

  • About the Chris Weigl crash —

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    jsallen
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    Comments below are by Kirby Beck, who worked on the Weigl crash as an expert consultant. Beck is a retired police officer, avid recreational cyclist, co-founder and trainer #02 of the International Police Mountain Bike Association. I phoned Beck on January 7, 2025 to assure that I have permission to publish his comments. During the…

  • A shared-lane marking placement

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    jsallen
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    Dorchester Avenue at Savin Hill Avenue, Boston, August, 2014, from a Google Street View: The door zone bike lane ends and then a shared-lane marking directs bicyclists to zigzag to the right where they are exposed to right-hook and left-cross risks. A right hook occurred here on May 21, 2012. More recently, the bike lane…

  • Massachusetts passing-on-right law

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    jsallen
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    We’ll start with a video where a motorist abruptly changed lanes to pass a vehicle on the right at speed and had to swerve left to avoid striking a bicyclist who had been concealed by the vehicle being passed. Here is a shortened version. The full video is on YouTube. I’ve also seen a YouTube…

  • Making Commonwealth Avenue work for everyone?

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    jsallen
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    The Barr Foundation has published an interview with Livable Streets Executive Director Jackie Douglas under the headline “Making Our Streets Work for Everyone”. The main point which Douglas makes is that progress, and a victory, as she describes it, were achieved by bringing groups with different interests onto the same page. The Boston Globe published…

  • Meng Jin, and Charles River Dam Road

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    jsallen
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    MIT student Meng Jin died as he rode up to and past the corner in a bike lane on Museum Way, to the right of a truck that turned right onto Charles River Dam Road. That tragedy has led to a call for barrier-separated bike lanes on Charles River Dam Road, a non sequitur, in…

  • What is the authority for this sign?

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    jsallen
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    The sign in this photo, which I have copied from a Facebook post, is well-intentioned, but it arouses very mixed feelings in me. I have no sympathy for people who ride at unsafe speeds around other path users, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD9u01lVxe8. There was a death on the Minuteman path in Lexington, Massachusetts this year resulting from…

  • Fatal crash of November 9, 2018 in Cambridge, Massachusetts

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    jsallen
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    This morning’s fatal crash was reported by State Police as another in the string of tragic right-hook collisions which have become the largest cause of bicyclist fatalities in the Boston area. Once again, a bicyclist was crushed by a large truck which turned right.[ Update: the cyclist was Meng Jin, a male graduate student at…

  • Sheet of ice draws praise from advocates

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    jsallen
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    The headline of the Boston Globe article with this picture is “Snowbank becomes accidental hero for area cyclists”. The shiny area in the bikeway is meltwater from said snowbank. When the temperature drops below freezing, the meltwater becomes a sheet of black ice. This problem is unavoidable with a street-level barrier-separated bikeway. I discussed it…

  • Gillooly’s presentation

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    jsallen
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    Deputy Commissioner James Gillooly’s presentation about the planned separate bikeways on Commonwealth Avenue is online at the URL below. I have prespred a version synchronized to his talk about it at the 2015 Massachusetts Moving Together conference. Gillooly, J. (2015, 11 01). Commonwealth Avenue Phase 2A… Retrieved June 25, 2016, from http://www.movingtogetherma.org/Pdfs/2015presentations/Gillooly-Issued_Move%20Together%20-%20Session%202D.pdf — deleted by…

  • What’s wrong with this picture?

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    jsallen
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    As hunting seasons are introduced to control the deer population in Boston suburbs and nearby parklands, I’m reminded of an article which appeared in the alumni magazine of Middlebury College, one of my alma maters. The article told how Middlebury College sanctions students’ involvement in hunting, and described the usual controversy over hunting which occurs…