I used to be a hardcore daily bike commuter. (By “hardcore,” I mean I commuted 20-30 miles roundtrip every day in Chicago in January.) Lately, I’ve gotten lazy, especially since I now live about thirty seconds by foot from a train station that takes me to a spot about thirty seconds by foot from my job.<\/p>\n
Also, since I’m now supporting two people (including my nearly two-year-old daughter), I’m a little more reluctant to get myself killed.<\/p>\n
I was reminded of the perils of biking in Boston this afternoon when a 22-year old bicyclist was killed by a dump truck in an area where I used to ride daily<\/a>:<\/p>\n The bicyclist, a 22-year-old man from Halifax, was riding between two lanes of traffic on Huntington Avenue when he was clipped by a taxicab near Northeastern University at about 2:30 p.m., police said. After being clipped by the cab, the bicyclist was run over by a McCauley and Sons Co. dump truck, police said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n When I was a bike commuter, I was fairly cavalier about this sort of incident. I realize it’s still fairly rare and biking may not be any more dangerous than driving. But we still see these events in Boston fairly regularly. I don’t think it can be fixed fully by better driver education\/behavior (or better bicyclist education\/behavior). There are just too many streets that are poorly designed and naturally hazardous.<\/p>\n On a related note, Nat<\/a> mentioned this nasty run-in during a recent Critical Mass in San Francisco<\/a> (the article is obviously from the driver’s point of view — there may be another angle on this):<\/p>\n Susan Ferrando, her husband, their two children and three preteens had come to San Francisco from Redwood City to celebrate the birthday of Ferrando’s 11-year-old daughter. They went to Japantown, where they enjoyed shopping and taking in the blooming cherry blossoms. Things took a turn for the worse at about 9 p.m., when the family was leaving Japantown — just as the party of about 3,000 bikers was winding down its monthly red-lights-be-damned ride through the city.<\/span><\/p>\n Suddenly, Ferrando said, her car was surrounded by hundreds of cyclists.<\/p>\n Not being from San Francisco, Ferrando thought she might have inadvertently crossed paths with a bicycle race and couldn’t figure out why the police, who she had just passed, hadn’t warned her.<\/p>\n Confusion, however, quickly turned to terror, she said, when the swarming cyclists began wildly circling around and then running into the sides of her Toyota van.<\/p>\n Filled with panic, Ferrando said, she started inching forward until coming to a stop at Post and Gough streets, where she was surrounded by bikers on all sides.<\/p>\n A biker in front blocked her as another biker began pounding on the windshield. Another was pounding on her window. Another pounded the other side.<\/p>\n “It seemed like they were using their bikes as weapons,” Ferrando said. One of the bikers then threw his bike — shattering the rear window and terrifying the young girls inside.<\/span><\/p>\n All the while, Ferrando was screaming, “There are children in this car! There are children in this car!”<\/p>\n …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n