MIT scientist on bicycle struck, killed by truck at Beacon and Charlesgate; driver drove away

Who likes road signs? Not me. Get off the road if you don't know where you are or going! Hate the needless No Turn On Red signs. Speed limit signs? The universal speed limit is enough: "safe and prudent".

As to asphalt: I miss concrete roads. They last longer and are safer with shorter stopping distances, especially in the wet. Asphalt is cheaper, quieter, and just something to do with oil refining residue. :-)

Now what. Honor her life with a candlelight vigil, or learn from her death and reduce more senseless deaths?

Ghost bikes can be reminders to cyclists and motorists to be safer, besides taking a bike off the road.

What is offensive and disrespectful to her life and the other cyclists who have died is more promotion of bicycling on streets ill suited for it. More senseless deaths will surely follow. Bike nuts are like extreme Islamists by promoting martyrdom. Stop urging more people to needlessly risk their lives and court death. There may be no 72 virgins or 72 bicycles waiting in heaven.

from Arlington. His name escapes me, but I think the cops took his guns away?

You clearly put time and thought into your comment.

First, I don't have a car agenda, I'm representing what the public wants. Capitalism generally works out better than communist planned economies, so public service needs to take note. The demand for facilities for car transportation is far greater than that for bike transportation, so that's what needs to be supplied rather than what a small minority wants at the expense of the largest demand. Pedestrian mobility is less than car demands, yet still far greater than bicycling, so take excess sidewalk space for bike tracks, not high demand travel or parking lanes. Urban planners seem to be communists!

1. Sorry about the cynical response. I have a computer science education. I too frequently see overly complicated, fanciful, and failure prone solutions proposed at work, here, and elsewhere on the web. The examples I gave of how well intentioned ideas like side impact protection, passenger seat air bags, and child car seats all had some unforeseen negatives are why people stuck in bubbles in Kendall Square or Silicon Valley sometimes need a reality check. Geeks on bikes are one of those sub-cultures.

2. I intended no generalization of people who ride bicycles as bike nuts. Most just want to get from A to B, or get some exercise. City street riding is not so much pleasure riding given the stress. Anyway, I meant the bike zealots and evangelists that preach for more people to ride and disproportionate public consideration for their agenda.

3. More people carpool to work, even than ride bicycles, and bicyclists pay no user fees or fares (like T, bus, cab, tolls) for all their demands. Cyclists would do well to come up with a more attractive funding model to win over the majority. Welfare for a bicycling population dominated by educated, white, male professionals isn't appealing to the general public.

The current approaches to bike and ped safety have real and hidden costs. Road work costs are easily measured. Many things are not measured. When scarce road width is taken away from the majority mode demand and given to low demand modes like bike lanes and tracks and excess sidewalk, traffic congestion, travel times, frustration, yellow light squeezing, aggression, and stress levels all increase. This costs productivity and health. Is more stress for 80% of the population a good trade off for 1% additional (beyond current 1-2%) people to get a little more exercise? Promoting walking is a slightly better case - walking burns more calories than riding a bike at non-race speeds and doesn't need to take high-demand road space. The challenge is that far more people already walk than cycle with little realistic opportunity to grow.

4. I advocate more lanes for two reasons: to counter demands for fewer lanes; to bring attention to the facts that many roads are at 1935 capacity levels or less with changes to only reduce capacity, rather than increase it to meet demand. Adding supply increases congestion only in rare topology cases. Has adding sidewalk width made them congested with pedestrians (instead of street furniture)? Does a bridge to nowhere create congestion? Do ghost cities in China get populated because they are there? No. Supply only gets consumed when there is demand, both pent up and growth.

People need to think of transportation as economic activity. People are going to work, going to buy things, going to provide goods and services. During recession, transportation needs decline. When costs and availability of transportation and energy are artificially manipulated there is a direct effect on jobs and the economy. Constricting transportation or promoting more expensive transportation (MBTA) hurts people. Hurts their standard of living, and thus health.

Yeah, because adding parking spots in the middle of a dangerous intersection is exactly what a smart person would do.

are four, five, six, seven or even eight parking spaces worth making the road even less navigable and more dangerous by bicycle and foot than it already is?

(And this is the 3rd anon I am responding to, and I'm not sure if you are all the same or not).

Manslaughter by motor vehicle requires a BAC over .08 or someone under the influence, as would felony motor vehicle homocide. The only difference is the increased penalty (MGL 90, s.24G(a) and (b), vs. MGL. 265, s. 13.5) for the manslaughter charge.. Both statues have reckless, negligent, and wanton elements, and motor vehicle homocide is an either/or, while the manslaugher requires wanton and reckless operation, with the influence element. Bottom line is that the manslaughter charge probably isn't going to be used here, nor is the felony homicide charge.

And a person dropping a hammer from a roof could most certainly be reckless. More often than not it would be negligence, but if you are working on the roof and willingly disregard safty procedures and a tool falls off that roof, that could be a reckless assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (ABDW requires an either/or for the reckless/wanton element).

And your barrel example still could be a crime. If you push a large item onto a public sidewalk where people are known to walk, and you have no way to see that sidewalk, and you knock someone over into a car and they die? That could easilly be looked at as reckless conduct, and most certainly shouldn't be labeled an "unforeseeable consequence". Again ABDW doesn't require Intent when a reckless/wanton act is commited.

See Margery Eagan's idiotic column today? She says bikes take up too much space for her to feel comfortable in her car, so bikes have to go.

I'm having a conversation here....

The fact remains that many bikers are maniacs that break the law and /or don't know how to ride, and anyone who has ever been out of their house has seen these people ride their bikes. And these people serve on juries and are judges, attorneys, and cops.

So yea, if there is some doubt that a driver may not have been reckless, they will not be convicted of a crime.

And no, I did not " make every person on a bike" anything, but it says a lot that you thought I did.