6 ms·

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

74 points by latchkey 4y ago

sidfthec 4y ago
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.
- wesleywt 4y ago
  Insane American car culture. I prefer European cities by a long way.
  - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
    https://n1info.hr/english/news/eu-sees-increase-in-road-deaths-in-2021-with-19800-people-killed-in-accidents/ https://n1info.hr/english/news/eu-sees-increase-in-road-deat...
    - trgn 4y ago
      I mean for sure. But let's be real here, the difference really is night&day. There's a spectrum etc etc, but there's genuinely a categorical break somewhere. And america is on the other side.
      - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
        > There's a spectrum etc etc, but there's genuinely a categorical break somewhere Care to specify that? And how that breakdown is objective?
- mslate 4y ago
  Wrong takeaway
  - sidfthec 4y ago
    "We should be building more protected bike lanes" is one obvious takeaway that I 100% support and vote for. My comment is another takeaway that isn't discussed enough.
    - Retric 4y ago
      Sure, as long as you take that same view at every single deadly car accident. A cyclist died, let’s ban cars is an equally valid view as a cyclist died, let’s ban bicycles. Yet, most people defend cars subconsciously.
    - 90-00-09 4y ago
      Interestingly, parents also drive with their children in the car and sometimes get into accidents. What a bizarre world we live in!
      - sidfthec 4y ago
        Interestingly, they drive vehicles with a massive amount of technology like crumple zones, and buckle them into specially designed seats so that if they get into an accident they have a good chance of surviving. Bikes are extremely exposed in comparison. One small tap could be devastating.
        mslate 4y ago
        They drive vehicles that cost $10,000USD per year to own. And maybe they need two, if they have 2 or more children(!). Cars are a great technology, but a city cannot scale with everyone owning their own car, and families cannot build wealth paying $20,000+/year for their 2-car transit lifestyle.
    - mslate 4y ago
      You are implying that the parent you saw biking with their child is at fault for endangering their child. No, the drunken driver and traffic engineering is at fault. Some parents cannot afford a car or two, especially living in a city like San Francisco. You assume that they can. This is what's not discussed enough.
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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- notch898a 4y ago
  Do you offer them a ride? Everyone is out to criticize parents at all time, usually while doing fuck all to help.
  - jjulius 4y ago
    Am parent, can confirm. Trust that we are making the best decisions we can make for our children. People quick to criticize parents are often lacking key context and important details specific to that familial situation. Judge not lest ye, and such.
- snozolli 4y ago
  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?
  - sidfthec 4y ago
    I vote for those who want to limit cars in the city and build protected bike lanes. That's not the current reality, though. The current reality is that biking in SF is extremely dangerous.
    - snozolli 4y ago
      I vote for those who want to limit cars in the city and build protected bike lanes. "I vote for one thing, but that won't stop me from victim-blaming and maintaining the status quo." You know what's way cheaper than building bike lanes and the public transit necessary for private car restrictions? Better testing of drivers, regular re-testing and ongoing education, and severely punishing drivers who kill cyclists and pedestrians through negligence or malice. As it stands, you're virtually guaranteed to get away with murder so long as you do it in a car. There's an epidemic of idiots who barely know how to control their multi-ton vehicle on a good day. But hey, thoughts and prayers, and malice in your comments, right?
      - sidfthec 4y ago
        [flagged]
        snozolli 4y ago
        People here seem to be taking the stance that we need to sacrifice a bunch of people (including children) in order to get attention to the issue. Wow. Just wow. You're a bit abhorrent.
        dang 4y ago
        Crossing into personal attack will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. I'm not going to ban you because we haven't warned you before this thread, and because you've posted good comments—but I've also noticed other cases where you broke the site guidelines in previous threads. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
- et-al 4y ago
  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.
- jjulius 4y ago
  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.
  - sidfthec 4y ago
    > I am fully aware of the risks of riding bicycles with children attached on busy streets. > It is not your place to correct them. So you seem to agree with me, but don't think I should be the one to say it. Who should be the one to say it?
    - jjulius 4y ago
      See this[0] comment. I'd wager that it's not the point you're making that you're being scolded for, it's the fact that you're trying to tell a parent what to do, which, depending on your approach, may imply that they haven't already weighed the risks. Curious - are you a parent? [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35484996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35484996
    - singleshot_ 4y ago
      The parents, but because they have made the choice not to, no one.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > I get scolded every time I bring it up. Then stop bringing it up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35239672 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.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    This is not victim blaming. Nobody blamed cyclists here. It is a true and obvious statement from an observer that cycling is dangerous in San Francisco.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Cycling is dangerous everywhere there are cars. SF is not unique in this.
      - twblalock 4y ago
        Danger is a matter of degree. There are plenty of places where the risk of getting hit by a car is lower than in SF.
        jacquesm 4y ago
        Of course, there are also places where the risk is higher. SF is just an example used because someone prominent died in SF whilst on a bicycle. The easiest thing the USA could do to make cycling safer without investing a cent in infrastructure is to adopt the rule that by default if a car hits a cyclist the car is at fault. The effect of that would be instantaneous, every bike would have an invisible force field of liability around it. Sure, some might abuse it, but nobody in their right mind is going to play chicken with a car.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lm28469 4y ago
  Victim blaming 101
- twblalock 4y ago
  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.
  - mslate 4y ago
    It is literally victim-blaming. You are choosing to frame a reality where transiting by car is the only acceptable way to live. Many don’t bike by choice, they bike because of economic reality—especially as parents. San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities on earth, and you must cover rent for cars in addition to yourself. If you want to discourage family formation then go ahead, make it prohibitively expensive to exist as a family in our cities.
    - twblalock 4y ago
      I don't run the world and neither does the OP. I don't even live in San Francisco. It's not our fault that things are this way, and it's really dumb to blame us for pointing out facts. Is it now also victim-blaming to tell people to wear seat belts, or to look both ways before crossing the street? Telling people about danger is not a form of blaming. People seem to be reacting to something the OP didn't actually write. Stop ascribing beliefs and motivations to people you don't know based on a few sentences of written text.
      - mslate 4y ago
        Thank you for admitting that you don’t live in San Francisco. The fact is you don’t know who this parent is. You have made the assumption that they are taking unacceptable risks. I don’t know your motivation, but your criticisms aren’t constructive.
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  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.
- dang 4y ago
  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 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
vondur 4y ago
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.
evmar 4y ago
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-fatalities 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.)
- y-curious 4y ago
  Apparently SFPD issues traffic citations on average of 10 times per day. Gee, I wonder what happens on our streets when we stop enforcing the law? https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article/sfpd-traffic-tickets-17355651.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article... https://transpomaps.org/san-francisco/ca/sfpd-traffic-enforcement/analysis https://transpomaps.org/san-francisco/ca/sfpd-traffic-enforc...
  - mike_d 4y ago
    SFPD needs a dedicated bike enforcement team. Ticket unsafe riding, helmets for minors, etc. We can then expand that to enforcement of things bike people complain about like cars parking in bike lanes.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Putting cops on bikes would be a great start.
      - d136o 4y ago
        Giving the cops great bike equipment seems like an amazingly creative way to fund the police. Get them the best e-bikes.
        pg_1234 4y ago
        Putting cops on human powered bikes instead seems like a great way to keep them in the required physical condition to enact an arrest without shooting someone.
snozolli 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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_.
- vuln 4y ago
  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.
  - sethhochberg 4y ago
    The driver crossed the center line into the opposite direction of travel.
  - davey48016 4y ago
    The Reddit link that latchkey posted says "A speeding car heading North careened into the opposite lane and hit a cyclist."
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - snozolli 4y ago
    So was this cyclist going against the flow of traffic? It's really weird that your mind immediately imagined a situation where you can blame the cyclist.
causi 4y ago
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.
- jmoss20 4y ago
  The Presidio is not dense.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    Most of San Francisco is not really dense either. Outside of a few well-known areas the entire place is a suburb.
- occz 4y ago
  >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.
aerostable_slug 4y ago
[flagged]
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  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)
  - cookingrobot 4y ago
    SVB wasn’t a local SF story though - tech companies around the US banked there.
    - BoorishBears 4y ago
      Not saying SVB was a local SF story, the users on this site were just surfacing very local takes. There was a lot of first name basis name dropping considering the exact fact that SVB wasn't some local institution.
  - latchkey 4y ago
    Why did I post it? I'm a cyclist. I spent over 20 years in SF. Started multiple tech and non-tech companies and worked for multiple more. I've also been a member of this site since 2009. The last few days have been pretty rough emotionally... Bob Lee (I used his software daily for years and admired him from a distance) and now this? Along with another news of another attack [0] too. SF has some major issues going on and the more the news is spread, the better in my eyes. Otherwise, nothing is going to change. It is also very relevant given the history of this site and its relationship with SF. [0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/marina-sf-crime-attack-fire-commissioner-17883532.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/marina-sf-crime-...
    - BoorishBears 4y ago
latchkey 4y ago
Drunk driver according to reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/BAbike/comments/12dop3f/fatality_on_arguello_in_the_presidio_anyone_know/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BAbike/comments/12dop3f/fatality_on...
- notch898b 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - stanleydrew 4y ago
    It is sad, but not specific to San Francisco. See e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese
creato 4y ago
> 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 4y ago
  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-set-to-decide-ban-on-cops-pulling-over-drivers-for-low-level-traffic-offenses/ https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/sf-police-watchdogs-...
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > you cannot “prove” reckless driving. So, everyone cited for reckless driving automatically wins if they go to court? Or, maybe, “you cannot ‘prove’ reckless driving” is a lie?
    - tlogan 4y ago
      Who knows. Police officers during hearing and in private definitely expressed that concern. The problem is not if it is lie or not, it is what king of impact this have on police officers who are enforcing the law. These people are not robots.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Who knows. Who knows if an offense regularly charged in the legal system in question can be proven to the extent required in that legal system? Like, this isn’t a deep mystery that doesn’t have an clear and ready answer. > Police officers during hearing and in private definitely expressed that concern. Police, when advocating public policy, are very used to be taken at their word even when they are making readily falsified lies, and therefore they lie quite freely, confident in not being called out on it. This is very much one of those cases. > The problem is not if it is lie or not, it is what king of impact this have on police officers who are enforcing the law. The problem is buying the police line that police are passive entities being affected and not engaged in active manipulation.
d136o 4y ago
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.

74 points by latchkey 4y ago

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.

wesleywt 4y ago
Insane American car culture. I prefer European cities by a long way.
- cscurmudgeon 4y ago
  https://n1info.hr/english/news/eu-sees-increase-in-road-deaths-in-2021-with-19800-people-killed-in-accidents/ https://n1info.hr/english/news/eu-sees-increase-in-road-deat...
  - trgn 4y ago
    I mean for sure. But let's be real here, the difference really is night&day. There's a spectrum etc etc, but there's genuinely a categorical break somewhere. And america is on the other side.
    - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
      > There's a spectrum etc etc, but there's genuinely a categorical break somewhere Care to specify that? And how that breakdown is objective?
mslate 4y ago
Wrong takeaway
- sidfthec 4y ago
  "We should be building more protected bike lanes" is one obvious takeaway that I 100% support and vote for. My comment is another takeaway that isn't discussed enough.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Sure, as long as you take that same view at every single deadly car accident. A cyclist died, let’s ban cars is an equally valid view as a cyclist died, let’s ban bicycles. Yet, most people defend cars subconsciously.
  - 90-00-09 4y ago
    Interestingly, parents also drive with their children in the car and sometimes get into accidents. What a bizarre world we live in!
    - sidfthec 4y ago
      Interestingly, they drive vehicles with a massive amount of technology like crumple zones, and buckle them into specially designed seats so that if they get into an accident they have a good chance of surviving. Bikes are extremely exposed in comparison. One small tap could be devastating.
      - mslate 4y ago
        They drive vehicles that cost $10,000USD per year to own. And maybe they need two, if they have 2 or more children(!). Cars are a great technology, but a city cannot scale with everyone owning their own car, and families cannot build wealth paying $20,000+/year for their 2-car transit lifestyle.
  - mslate 4y ago
    You are implying that the parent you saw biking with their child is at fault for endangering their child. No, the drunken driver and traffic engineering is at fault. Some parents cannot afford a car or two, especially living in a city like San Francisco. You assume that they can. This is what's not discussed enough.
deleted 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago
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notch898a 4y ago
Do you offer them a ride? Everyone is out to criticize parents at all time, usually while doing fuck all to help.
- jjulius 4y ago
  Am parent, can confirm. Trust that we are making the best decisions we can make for our children. People quick to criticize parents are often lacking key context and important details specific to that familial situation. Judge not lest ye, and such.
snozolli 4y ago
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?
- sidfthec 4y ago
  I vote for those who want to limit cars in the city and build protected bike lanes. That's not the current reality, though. The current reality is that biking in SF is extremely dangerous.
  - snozolli 4y ago
    I vote for those who want to limit cars in the city and build protected bike lanes. "I vote for one thing, but that won't stop me from victim-blaming and maintaining the status quo." You know what's way cheaper than building bike lanes and the public transit necessary for private car restrictions? Better testing of drivers, regular re-testing and ongoing education, and severely punishing drivers who kill cyclists and pedestrians through negligence or malice. As it stands, you're virtually guaranteed to get away with murder so long as you do it in a car. There's an epidemic of idiots who barely know how to control their multi-ton vehicle on a good day. But hey, thoughts and prayers, and malice in your comments, right?
    - sidfthec 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - snozolli 4y ago
        People here seem to be taking the stance that we need to sacrifice a bunch of people (including children) in order to get attention to the issue. Wow. Just wow. You're a bit abhorrent.
        dang 4y ago
        Crossing into personal attack will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. I'm not going to ban you because we haven't warned you before this thread, and because you've posted good comments—but I've also noticed other cases where you broke the site guidelines in previous threads. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
et-al 4y ago
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.
jjulius 4y ago
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.
- sidfthec 4y ago
  > I am fully aware of the risks of riding bicycles with children attached on busy streets. > It is not your place to correct them. So you seem to agree with me, but don't think I should be the one to say it. Who should be the one to say it?
  - jjulius 4y ago
    See this[0] comment. I'd wager that it's not the point you're making that you're being scolded for, it's the fact that you're trying to tell a parent what to do, which, depending on your approach, may imply that they haven't already weighed the risks. Curious - are you a parent? [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35484996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35484996
  - singleshot_ 4y ago
    The parents, but because they have made the choice not to, no one.
jacquesm 4y ago
> I get scolded every time I bring it up. Then stop bringing it up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35239672 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.
- twblalock 4y ago
  This is not victim blaming. Nobody blamed cyclists here. It is a true and obvious statement from an observer that cycling is dangerous in San Francisco.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Cycling is dangerous everywhere there are cars. SF is not unique in this.
    - twblalock 4y ago
      Danger is a matter of degree. There are plenty of places where the risk of getting hit by a car is lower than in SF.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        Of course, there are also places where the risk is higher. SF is just an example used because someone prominent died in SF whilst on a bicycle. The easiest thing the USA could do to make cycling safer without investing a cent in infrastructure is to adopt the rule that by default if a car hits a cyclist the car is at fault. The effect of that would be instantaneous, every bike would have an invisible force field of liability around it. Sure, some might abuse it, but nobody in their right mind is going to play chicken with a car.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lm28469 4y ago
Victim blaming 101
twblalock 4y ago
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.
- mslate 4y ago
  It is literally victim-blaming. You are choosing to frame a reality where transiting by car is the only acceptable way to live. Many don’t bike by choice, they bike because of economic reality—especially as parents. San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities on earth, and you must cover rent for cars in addition to yourself. If you want to discourage family formation then go ahead, make it prohibitively expensive to exist as a family in our cities.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    I don't run the world and neither does the OP. I don't even live in San Francisco. It's not our fault that things are this way, and it's really dumb to blame us for pointing out facts. Is it now also victim-blaming to tell people to wear seat belts, or to look both ways before crossing the street? Telling people about danger is not a form of blaming. People seem to be reacting to something the OP didn't actually write. Stop ascribing beliefs and motivations to people you don't know based on a few sentences of written text.
    - mslate 4y ago
      Thank you for admitting that you don’t live in San Francisco. The fact is you don’t know who this parent is. You have made the assumption that they are taking unacceptable risks. I don’t know your motivation, but your criticisms aren’t constructive.
oh_sigh 4y ago
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.
dang 4y ago
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 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

vondur 4y ago

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.

evmar 4y ago

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-fatalities 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.)

y-curious 4y ago
Apparently SFPD issues traffic citations on average of 10 times per day. Gee, I wonder what happens on our streets when we stop enforcing the law? https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article/sfpd-traffic-tickets-17355651.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article... https://transpomaps.org/san-francisco/ca/sfpd-traffic-enforcement/analysis https://transpomaps.org/san-francisco/ca/sfpd-traffic-enforc...
- mike_d 4y ago
  SFPD needs a dedicated bike enforcement team. Ticket unsafe riding, helmets for minors, etc. We can then expand that to enforcement of things bike people complain about like cars parking in bike lanes.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Putting cops on bikes would be a great start.
    - d136o 4y ago
      Giving the cops great bike equipment seems like an amazingly creative way to fund the police. Get them the best e-bikes.
      - pg_1234 4y ago
        Putting cops on human powered bikes instead seems like a great way to keep them in the required physical condition to enact an arrest without shooting someone.

snozolli 4y ago

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 4y ago
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_.
vuln 4y ago
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.
- sethhochberg 4y ago
  The driver crossed the center line into the opposite direction of travel.
- davey48016 4y ago
  The Reddit link that latchkey posted says "A speeding car heading North careened into the opposite lane and hit a cyclist."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- snozolli 4y ago
  So was this cyclist going against the flow of traffic? It's really weird that your mind immediately imagined a situation where you can blame the cyclist.

causi 4y ago

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.

jmoss20 4y ago
The Presidio is not dense.
- twblalock 4y ago
  Most of San Francisco is not really dense either. Outside of a few well-known areas the entire place is a suburb.
occz 4y ago
>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.

aerostable_slug 4y ago

[flagged]

BoorishBears 4y ago
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)
- cookingrobot 4y ago
  SVB wasn’t a local SF story though - tech companies around the US banked there.
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    Not saying SVB was a local SF story, the users on this site were just surfacing very local takes. There was a lot of first name basis name dropping considering the exact fact that SVB wasn't some local institution.
- latchkey 4y ago
  Why did I post it? I'm a cyclist. I spent over 20 years in SF. Started multiple tech and non-tech companies and worked for multiple more. I've also been a member of this site since 2009. The last few days have been pretty rough emotionally... Bob Lee (I used his software daily for years and admired him from a distance) and now this? Along with another news of another attack [0] too. SF has some major issues going on and the more the news is spread, the better in my eyes. Otherwise, nothing is going to change. It is also very relevant given the history of this site and its relationship with SF. [0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/marina-sf-crime-attack-fire-commissioner-17883532.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/marina-sf-crime-...
  - BoorishBears 4y ago

latchkey 4y ago

Drunk driver according to reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/BAbike/comments/12dop3f/fatality_on_arguello_in_the_presidio_anyone_know/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BAbike/comments/12dop3f/fatality_on...

notch898b 4y ago
[flagged]
- stanleydrew 4y ago
  It is sad, but not specific to San Francisco. See e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese

creato 4y ago

> 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 4y ago
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-set-to-decide-ban-on-cops-pulling-over-drivers-for-low-level-traffic-offenses/ https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/sf-police-watchdogs-...
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > you cannot “prove” reckless driving. So, everyone cited for reckless driving automatically wins if they go to court? Or, maybe, “you cannot ‘prove’ reckless driving” is a lie?
  - tlogan 4y ago
    Who knows. Police officers during hearing and in private definitely expressed that concern. The problem is not if it is lie or not, it is what king of impact this have on police officers who are enforcing the law. These people are not robots.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Who knows. Who knows if an offense regularly charged in the legal system in question can be proven to the extent required in that legal system? Like, this isn’t a deep mystery that doesn’t have an clear and ready answer. > Police officers during hearing and in private definitely expressed that concern. Police, when advocating public policy, are very used to be taken at their word even when they are making readily falsified lies, and therefore they lie quite freely, confident in not being called out on it. This is very much one of those cases. > The problem is not if it is lie or not, it is what king of impact this have on police officers who are enforcing the law. The problem is buying the police line that police are passive entities being affected and not engaged in active manipulation.

d136o 4y ago

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.