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USA Cycling champion dies after being struck by car in San Francisco’s Presidio

74 points| latchkey | 2 years ago |sfchronicle.com

116 comments

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[+] evmar|2 years ago|reply
Looks like SF averages about one person killed by a car every ten days or so, though bikers are a relatively rare proportion of them:

https://sfgov.org/scorecards/transportation/traffic-fataliti...

(Edit: this comment came out more heartless than I intended! I think this story is a real tragedy. I was just connecting it to the larger tragedy of car culture.)

[+] d136o|2 years ago|reply
I recently learned that cops can’t drive after fleeing vehicles in SF.

I looked into this because I saw multiple instances of cars driving insanely fast near me, and soon after seeing cops with their lights on. These cars were doing 45+ in a residential area where max 30 or 25 would be appropriate.

[+] causi|2 years ago|reply
As someone who despises even stepping foot in a downtown area, I still recognize that cars just don't make sense at population densities that high. Big cities have much better ways of getting people around, and efficient car infrastructure is physically impossible in a place like that. People need to recognize they can't have all lifestyles in all settings. I like cars and quiet so I stick to rural living.
[+] occz|2 years ago|reply
>As someone who despises even stepping foot in a downtown area, I still recognize that cars just don't make sense at population densities that high. Big cities have much better ways of getting people around, and efficient car infrastructure is physically impossible in a place like that. People need to recognize they can't have all lifestyles in all settings. I like cars and quiet so I stick to rural living.

I respect your choices and opinions, but on the point of quiet with regards to cities - cars are largely responsible for cities being noisy.

This is immediately evident in cities where mostly carless neighborhoods and high traffic streets can be found within walking distance of each other - the carless neighborhoods are almost entirely silent.

I suppose you might be referring to the noise generated by neighbors in multi-family buildings, which is absolutely fair, but can mostly be solved by appropriate insulation.

Again, I respect your choices and opinions, but it's important to note that these are problems that can be remedied, even though they in practice rarely if ever are, especially in the U.S.

[+] jmoss20|2 years ago|reply
The Presidio is not dense.
[+] d136o|2 years ago|reply
This rider could have been you or someone you know. I feel for them, their family, and their friends.

I did a pretty regular bike commute while living in LA, Westwood to Santa Monica. Years later while driving through I noticed one of the white bikes (shown in article) memorializing a bikers death at a particular intersection I crossed every commute (Santa Monica Blvd and 405 intersection). It was utterly tragic and a reminder of how often I had been in the same danger that killed another unlucky rider. It could have been me.

[+] snozolli|2 years ago|reply
I used to bike through the Presidio every weekend and I couldn't even imagine how it's possible to kill a cyclist there with the low speed limits and clear views.

Keyte said Boyes was traveling in the bike lane when a car hit him head-on

That explains it. There's no escaping that level of incompetence. Self-driving cars can't get here fast enough.

[+] trgn|2 years ago|reply
Agreed with the overall sentiment, but I hope the tech-rush does not us forget the low-tech. Bollards, trees, ... A safe bike-lane really is only a few bollards away, a safe bike-lane can be made _today_.
[+] pm90|2 years ago|reply
Or just ban/heavily restrict cars from cities right now.
[+] vuln|2 years ago|reply
I’m confused. Typically when using a bike lane you go with the flow of traffic. So was this cyclist going against the flow of traffic?

I know when walk you’re supposed to go against the flow to lessen your chances of being abducted (you can see cars as they get close to you) never heard of riding against the flow of traffic on a bike. Seems dangerous.

[+] vondur|2 years ago|reply
RIP to the cyclist. Riding on the Road nowadays is pretty scary. Too many people not paying attention and it seems like far more bad driving since the pandemic.
[+] creato|2 years ago|reply
> Keyte said Boyes was traveling in the bike lane when a car hit him head-on and said he and other friends of Boyes were waiting to learn more details about the crash and the motorist. Keyte said he hopes that his friend’s tragic death brings “awareness around cycling safety.”

> On a NextDoor post, Stephanie Wald wrote that she “witnessed a horrific accident” on Arguello Blvd. in the Presidio Tuesday in which a “speeding car heading north careened into the opposite lane and hit a cyclist.”

When I lived in SF, I really wished the police would crack down on reckless driving.

[+] tlogan|2 years ago|reply
The problem is that police is banned to do low-level traffic stops (so called “pretext stops) [1]. Reckless driving was not one of the offenses included in The City's policy against low-level “pretext stops,” but during the hearing some people (and I think one retired officer) clearly expressed their concern because you cannot "prove" reckless driving.

[1] https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/sf-police-watchdogs-...

[+] aerostable_slug|2 years ago|reply

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[+] BoorishBears|2 years ago|reply
Since the SVB event I'm becoming increasingly aware of how deeply tied to the Bay Area the zeitgeist of Hacker News really is.

I live in SF, understand how sad this is, but totally agree it makes zero sense as a post here

(I also work on AVs, still wouldn't stretch this into a pro-AV thing)

[+] sidfthec|2 years ago|reply
And yet, I see parents riding bikes on the roads of SF with their small children on board. Makes absolutely no sense to me, and I get scolded every time I bring it up.
[+] dang|2 years ago|reply
Parenting and bicycling (the latter perhaps a little surprisingly) are two of the hottest and most divisive flamewar topics that exist. If you combine them in this way without any insulation, we get flamewar squared. That's probably why you're getting surprising responses from people—you're probably triggering them way more than you intend to.

Edit: you've been perpetuating this flamewar quite badly downthread. Could you please stop? I've banned one account that replied, but your account is also making things worse.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

[+] jacquesm|2 years ago|reply
> I get scolded every time I bring it up.

Then stop bringing it up:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35239672

You get scolded because you are victim blaming. Regardless of whether or not you support better bike infrastructure or limiting cars or whatever measures: it should be safe to bike around town, and if it isn't blaming the cyclists isn't going to help, it will just cause the cyclists to remove themselves from traffic after which there is even less of a reason to do something about it.

[+] jjulius|2 years ago|reply
Alternate headline:

>NASCAR champion dies after being t-boned by car in San Francisco's Presidio

Response with your same sentiment:

>And yet, I see parents driving cars on the roads of SF with their small children on board. Makes absolutely no sense to me, and I get scolded every time I bring it up.

Before you say it, I am fully aware of the risks of riding bicycles with children attached on busy streets. I don't do that myself, but I digress. My point is that there are many other things equally as risky for parents to be doing with their children. It is not your place to correct them.

[+] snozolli|2 years ago|reply
Yes, how dare people try to enjoy life with their family in the city. Don't they know that cities are the exclusive domain of cars and their drivers?
[+] twblalock|2 years ago|reply
It's sad to see this comment being dogpiled by trolls, including the standard and annoying responses like "wrong takeaway" or "bad take" or the sarcastic "how dare people do X", or the standard European city defense, or the most annoying type of response: rephrasing the original post to make a maliciously bad argument.

We don't live in should-land. We live in reality. Parents who live in reality need to protect their children from the dangers that exist in reality.

Parents who live in reality in the city of San Francisco know that it is a dangerous place to ride bikes. It is not ok to tell people to ignore those dangers because they should not exist, or to scold people for making those dangers known. It's also not ok to tell people that they are responsible for solving problems they did not create, and it is really not ok to equate warning people about danger with victim blaming.

sidfthec, you are right and you should not be getting this kind of response.

[+] et-al|2 years ago|reply
And yet, I see women walking down the streets in skirts. Makes absolutely no sense to me, and I get scolded every time I bring it up.
[+] mslate|2 years ago|reply
Wrong takeaway
[+] oh_sigh|2 years ago|reply
Kids in cars die all the time. Do you have any reference for the mortality rate per mile, or some other measure, between cars and bikes?

It's also worth noting that people may design their lives around the fact that they can bike their kids instead of drive them. For example, they might put them in a more local school that they/their kids can bike to, instead of a school much further away that they would need to drive to.

[+] wesleywt|2 years ago|reply
Insane American car culture. I prefer European cities by a long way.
[+] notch898a|2 years ago|reply
Do you offer them a ride? Everyone is out to criticize parents at all time, usually while doing fuck all to help.