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Bicyclist struck and killed outside Boston Medical Center
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RIP
What a tragedy.
MARTY WALSH CLOSE THE
MARTY WALSH CLOSE THE GODDAMNED ROADS ALREADY!!!
* Or at least make them
* Or at least make them narrower. Especially this one.
Traffic calming
The upside is less traffic, the downside is people driving like they are on I-90 through Montana.
Perhaps roads should be narrowed and have temporary speed bumps to discourage high speed driving.
I-90 through Montana
I remember Letterman getting in trouble for that.
Ha ha ha ha ha! (organ trill) Hee hee!
Speed bumps don't belong on
Speed bumps don't belong on any public road. If you can't safely get over one driving at a sensible speed for the road (i.e. the speed limit or a little under), then it's nothing but a road hazard.
you’ve perfectly described
you’ve perfectly described what a speed bump is. A structure that you can get across safely while driving a reasonable speed.
And even if *you* can get
And even if *you* can get over one at a reasonable speed in your car or SUV, that doesn't mean they're ok for everyone else, like someone in a low-ground-clearance wheelchair van.
Close the roads?
Are cars supposed to drive on the sidewalk? How would they fit?
How will Fitzy and Karen get
How will Fitzy and Karen get their coffee if they can’t drive their SUVs everywhere? Make it themselves?!1!
Three Stereotypes In Two Sentences!
You're chauvinism for having nothing but pedal power is wearing thin.
Truck
I think the tractor trailer was the least damaged in this crash, given the interest by investigating officers.
SUV? No.
With no explanations proposed yet, I’d gather inattention on one or both parties involved or a right turning truck and an unseen, trapped, poorly positioned cyclist.
BUT I HAVE ONLY CONJECTURE TO OFFER.
R.I.P. John Forester. He knew to advise cyclists not to be next to trucks at intersections.
The idea is that if you make
The idea is that if you make the road just wide enough for cars to fit through, they have to go very slowly in order to properly "thread the needle" so to speak. And frankly semi trucks shouldn't be driving through that intersection at all. They should be taking the interstate highway around downtown unless they have somewhere to go in the middle of the city. I guarantee you this driver was just taking the shortest northbound route and/or avoiding the central artery tunnel because he was carrying hazardous materials.
design for the smallest and you leave out the outliers
If the road is just wide enough for a car, an ambulance wouldn't fit. Nor an MBTA bus.
Nor would a delivery truck bringing masks to the hospital. Even a small truck. Though 18-wheelers have been mentioned in several mask delivery stories.
No win situation
He was taking electric transformers to the electric company. He wasn't joyriding thru the tight Boston downtown streets for fun. I feel for the family of the victim. It's so scary to drive a big truck thru there it's not even worth any amount of money to worry you might hit and kill a pedestrian or cyclists. They truth is that the truck driver can be doing everything in their power to watch out and watch the roads, the cars and maintain an eighty thousand pound machine and watch for pedestrians and cyclist zooming around them but still accidents happen. I'm sure his conscience is torn over killing someone and he still might go to prison just for trying to do his job. No one ever see that side of it.
The fact that a truck driver
The fact that a truck driver can be doing "everything in their power" to avoid hitting bicyclists and pedestrians (which suggests not speeding even though MANY truck drivers speed through that intersection) and STILL HIT THEM is proof that there is no safe way to have big trucks driving through there at all and so they should be banned (just as they are banned from the Central Artery Tunnel).
Hard to do that right here
since a hospital is at this location.
Imagine if we treated the 35
Imagine if we treated the 35,000 Americans killed by drivers every year as seriously as we are treating this virus. Instead a drivers license is effectively a license to kill.
Dude...
...you've already posted your "blame all the drivers" comment in this thread, and it's understandable, because a cyclist was killed. But you're being a real asshole. Like, a complete, stay-up-at-night-thinking-of-new-ways-to-do-it asshole.
Can you explain how this is an asshole statement?
I don't see it. Seems true and not overtly aggressive to me
It's a long-running feud on this site
Kinopio gets mad when a driver kills a person and get away with it.
Everyone else gets mad at Kinopio.
It's more than that though.
Adam could post a photo of the make way for ducklings group, wearing cute hats and scarves, and Kinopio would come back with something like:
THESE DUCKS COULD WOULD BE SAFER IF THESE CARS AND THEIR MURDERERS WHO DRIVE THEM WEREN'T AROUND!!!
Huh, I missed that
I'm gonna go back and check the last couple ducklings threads
no, don't do that.
I am hyperbolizing.
You must be new here
I suggest you read other threads and Kinopio's comments.
Tone policing
The last refuge of the factless.
I've been on here for a little while
and I don't think what you're implying is true. I think you may just not like the message.
Sure, they're there every time there is a tragic bike or car accident but this is what activism looks like and I don't think they do it in an overly aggressive manner, just a manner that might make you a bit uncomfortable. You need to understand that the cyclist is the little guy in these situations and is in desperate need of better representation and consideration in this town.
I’ve been here slightly longer than Kinopio
And what lbb, with whom I have had many a disagreement, says is absolutely true.
Just for kicks, I’ll note that some things I have been reading (about the higher incidence of Covid-19 in minorities and the lower rates in California compared to New York) have been kind of implying that using a car as a mode of transportation might be good when it comes to Covid-19, as it allows for social distancing. I don’t think it’s anything other than theory, but thinking of the likes of ole Kino, I gave pause.
do I need to remind you that not everyone has a car?
A lot of people who live in this city can't afford a car on top of expensive rent. If you can't work from home, it doesn't feel safe to travel to work on the T. The city could be making it safer to ride a bike or walk, but they're doing nothing, so:
1) it's less safe to take the T due to covid
2) it's less safe to walk due to covid, even though streets are empty and the city could block off some parking and "widen" sidewalks.
3) it's less safe to bike because decreased traffic means speeding cars (maybe unintuitive but look at speeding rates in NYC)
So, sure, it's great to drive if you have a car. And it's great to go camp out in your country house if you have that too.
Tone police chief
What Klinopio says on this subject is true and reasonable. Although it is technically unlawful to kill people with a motor vehicle, records show that there are very little consequences. If we took the problem seriously, it would stop.
The facts that show that road traffic is so reduced that Los Angelos has blue skies. Under these conditions, why should there be any accidents? Public transportation is source of community transmission. That doesn't increase the morality of driving a car.
Yes, it's the tone
And to be honest, I'm surprised that he doesn't react to a triple homicide by saying the same thing. He's a one hit wonder that was an earwig when he debuted. At the end of the day, he is implying that the fight against Covid-19 is not as important as lowering motor vehicle fatalities. Two completely different things. The man is tone deaf.
By the way, people, the news last night reported that the cyclist ran a red light.
Ok thats a bad faith argument
Kinopio never said tackling road violence from motor vehicles was more important than combating Covid-19.
Now it does play on what I've seen on Fox News and Twitter, where morons are saying "cars kill more people per year, we gonna ban cars now?" as pushback against the needed measures to combat Covi-19. And the answer is no, of course not but we should be able to speak up about it and address road violence.
If we're gonna play the implying game, well I guess you just said that cyclist deserved to die. Which of course, I do not believe you are actually saying that but we gotta be consistent yeah?
Also can you point to that news report you saw saying the cyclist ran a red light? I'm not finding anything when using the search criteria below:
https://www.google.com/search?q=boston+cyclist+red+light&safe=active&tbm...
EDIT: Oh look, now this thread returns a hit on the search terms!
Also Streetblogs Mass is reporting the following:
https://twitter.com/StreetsblogMASS/status/1253031702651375619
Again, I would argue
That a statement like
Is extremely tone deaf.
But please, enlightenment on what you and Kino are watching on Fox News.
Oh, and is was WBZ-TV at 11 last night that reported the light blowing. That's the only news I watch every day.
Again Kinopio is not wrong
Trust me, nothing enlightening about the clips I see from Fox News, except further displaying the idiocy of some of the population. The road violence has been a frequent talking point used to push back against the needed stay at home orders, seeming to imply (I won't pretend to know exactly what they are thinking) that well the flu and cars and heart disease are killing more people but we don't shutdown the country blah blah blah. Its a horrible talking point but it just almost so close to getting to the real issue.
Seriously, imagine if we did tackle road violence as a generally united community like so many have done with the stay at home orders and social distancing, we could really work to curb road violence.
Did you mean this WBZ-TV story?
https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/04/22/person-hit-by-car-in-boston-mass-...
This was from 3pm that day, perhaps you can find the 11pm story you are hanging your hat on? I am not seeing it when I search their site.
https://boston.cbslocal.com/search/?q=cyclist+2020+april+massachusetts
What is wrong with this statement?
It is is true and and vocabulary isn't lurid. I watched the video from WBZ's story and there is nothing about red lights. I read comments saying this on other news articles though. That is how lies get spread.
Okay, let me pose this hypothetical
Let's say Covid-19 didn't exist and Kino said that 35,000 people die in motor vehicle crashes each year is a horrible statistic (assuming he cares about the occupants of the vehicles, who are the bulk of the casualties, which we know he doesn't) and I decide to chime in and say
I would be deeply castigated, and rightly so. In the end, Kino is attempting to compare a scary virus that has killed (as of this writing) over 50,000 Americans in 3 months with no known treatment or vaccine with a means of death that has actually been worked at to bring down the numbers. He's a one trick pony, "cars are bad," and bringing it up in terms of Covid-19 is tone deaf at best.
a waste of disrespectful words
You don't have to assume any number is accurate when it is easy to google. It is just a sad attempt to imply that the numbers are fake. Maybe you don't pay attention to much but your own superficial ideas, but there is a lot of effort put into heart disease. At least one tv commercial per hour for medicine and Heart healthy emojis on food labels and menus. That is a poor comparison. Not only is very little effort and attention put into safety for pedestrians and cyclists, but insecure people like you actively attack anyone that cares about their deaths.
If I only wrote what you think I wrote
Which I'm assuming I didn't, since your post bares little relation to what I wrote.
I mean, unless you are saying that initiatives like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration don't exist, which it would seem Kino seems to think.
Effortless
The existence of the NHTSA does not disprove Kinopio’s statement
This is not what activism looks like
People sitting on their butts typing things are not doing activism.
You mean comments specifically?
Writing letters to media and better yet to politicians, and writing laws or proposals, gathering allies, working out valid arguments, criticisms, or other forms of literary activism CANNOT be done while sitting on your butt?
That’s not true.
And while a very weak form, I’d say comments can make a few minds reconsider their positions. Political campaigns and intelligence agencies do it, does it have NO effect?
"You need to understand..."
They're there every other time too, and this isn't activism. Activism is changing things. Kinopio is to bicycle advocacy what PETA is to animal rights: where PETA says "meat is murder", Kinopio says "cars are murder". Never once has he shown the least degree of nuance. Never once has he indicated the least understanding of situations outside his own narrow bubble. Never once has he advocated a solution of any kind, much less one that's workable for those without his privilege.
I understand that just fine. What you don't understand is that Kinopio is not providing those things or paving a way to get to them.
stop whining
If you are going to make such dramatic accusations, you can at least quote an actual example of Klinopio stating something unreasonable.
Oh, I don't need to
Give it a week and keep your eyes peeled and your mind open. You'll see plenty.
you don't need to be honest?
you don't need to be honest? how consistent.
Wow
I am not your enemy.
Wow?
Why shouldn't you be called on your dishonest accusation? so you are the victim now? There is a custom search bar on every page. It would be easy to prove your accusation if it were true.
I suggest
You find something other than your vehicle to keep you warm.
Warmth
The Beatles told us that happiness is a warm gun. Just sayin'.
What the hell...
...are you even talking about?
If you think Kinopio's statements are offensive
You should read the story on this very site about the cyclist struck and killed outside of BMC.
Nothing Ever Changes *SIGH*
I see that large truck pulled over, and seemingly being inspected by police, in one of the photos. Yet another case of an overly large truck killing a cyclist on Mass Ave?
Yeah, dollars to donuts that
Yeah, dollars to donuts that this truck took a right hook over a cyclist and never checked their mirror to see if there was anything in their sweep. I think this is the majority cause of cyclist deaths in the area.
Whole area
From Harrison to Albany to Mass Ave Connector/Melnea Cass along Mass Ave is rife with all modes of movement: pedestrian, cyclists, and motorized vehicles (covers mopeds to semis). It is a mess for everyone, but incredibly so for those most vulnerable - peds and cyclists.
Heartbreaking.
Slow Down
I was getting dirty looks for doing 73 in a 55 on Route 3 in Chelmsford because I wasn't going fast enough.
You are not Will Smith in the opening of I Am Legend driving through Manhattan in your Shelby Cobra. You are not the only person left on the planet. Slow the f down.
What lane were you in?
And if it was to the left of any other vehicle, were you actively completing a pass?
Center Lane Of Course
Remember - In Massachusetts you are only allowed to use the left lane for passing!
Just like you are only supposed to use the HOV lane if you have more than one person in the car (or if you put your cop reflective vest that you got from your brother over your passenger seat).
Just like you aren't supposed to throw that ticket book right next to your inspection sticker when you pull into a meter.
Just like you aren't supposed to question a construction worker parking in a HC spot with NH plates but with a MA covered up HP placard, because you know, privacy issues.
Hey! It's The Law!
So
So you're saying that you were in fact in the left lane?
not a social action
Don't validate any reason for driving in response to other's supposed emotion. Follow traffic laws, use your signal to communicate with other drivers.
People are speeding like
People are speeding like maniacs around the south end since there is no traffic anymore to slow them down. My guess is that it's all the gig app drivers trying to cram in as many deliveries as possible. I've seen people going at least 45mph down tiny neighborhood streets in the South End. I doesn't sound that fast until you realize how much ground is covered in a short time on small city streets at that speed. I would have hoped given the relative quiet of the city the police might have more time to enforce traffic laws before someone gets killed but looks like I'm too late on that wish.
Last time I had an
Last time I had an appointment at MGH I was almost hit by a speeding car while I was 1/2 way across the street in the crosswalk. Fwiw, at that crossing there is no traffic signal or stop sign. However it's a clearly marked crosswalk on the MGH campus! I literally dashed forward, terrified I was going to get hit. The car screeched to a halt AFTER passing the crosswalk and the driver did give a wave of apology. I looked back at the car and of course it had the Uber and Lyft stickers. What if I were elderly or on crutches and wasn't able to react quickly? I could have been struck by this a$hole. The entitlement is off the charts with these guys.
RIP
Bicyclists be safe out there!
RIP
Drivers be less murderous out there.
I am!
And I would appreciate it if the drivers would be too.
Before jumping to conclusions
From what has been reported so far, is there any indication of who is at fault here? Is there any indication that speed was a factor? It is horrible that someone has lost their life. A person who loved, and was loved. No matter whose fault this was, this is going to be a very hard, and sad day for some people, including anyone who was involved.
Cyclist
Tragic.
I was there
I saw the whole thing, was brought to NPD headquarters as a witness. The truck had the light, the “bicyclist” was a mass/cass regular. Bike didn’t even attempt to slow down at the intersection, 1000% not trucks fault. Too bad nothing is done about the drug addicts over there, I’m actually shocked this doesn’t happen more.
what's NPD?
My first guess is "Northeastern University Police Department", but this is nowhere near their campus.
As loath as I am to give any
As loath as I am to give any credit to the obvious no-account troll post, the N key is next to the B key on your standard qwerty keyboard.
makes sense
If you login you can correct errors.
Many cameras
I hope investigators look at the footage from the cameras that I could see in street view. Your comment seems have a lot of emotional content.
Massholes drive cars.
Massholes drive cars. Massholes ride bikes. Massholes walk. Nuff said.
Sad and frightening
My condolences to the victim's family and friends. I've cycled along Massachusetts Avenue through that intersection many times, and I can echo comments others here have made about how busy that stretch is. Tim Mc's speculation seems plausible to me as I had my own close call a few blocks away on that same side. I was gliding slowly southbound down the bike lane careful of traffic zipping by inches away on my left, while also being mindful of car doors possibly flinging open on my right. A vehicle came up quickly from behind and made a sharp right in front of me as I approached Shawmut. I stopped in time. Had I been going any faster, I wouldn't have had time to react, and that could have been me lying in the street. Yes, even on two wheels, rolling down that part of Massachusetts Avenue, like so many other places in Greater Boston, is truly "threading the needle."
Lane Droppings
If you want to kill someone it is better to use a car than a gun. More pedestrians die than motorists in Boston. It should be just over a week until the next pedestrian death. Don't blame the police for non-enforcement. It is the construction of the way that determines the speed of the vehicle. Urban Traffic calming works. Speed and stop vs. slow and steady. The safest drivers on the highways are the ones going between 74 and 84 MPH. It is the lane leaping assholes that slow the highway down and cause accidents. Stay in your lane and keep your speed up.