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Dangers of Lorries to Cyclists

This was filmed in the UK so their left turn is like our right turn.
The main point here is at intersections stay in-between cars/trucks or follow behind cars/trucks and never put yourself purposely alongside a truck. Stay safe out there, it’s easy to do just be mindful.

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Road Rights: Finding Middle Ground in Maryland

By Bob Mionske
Nathan Krasnopoler was on his way home from the Farmer’s Market. At least that’s what his family is thinking, because the fresh produce he was carrying was scattered along the roadway when Jeannette Walke, 83, right-hooked him on February 26. Krasnopoler, a 20 year old engineering student at Johns Hopkins University, was pinned under Walke’s car and severely injured. He went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital, and has remained in a coma since the day of the collision. On April 9, Krasnopoler’s family announced that doctors do not expect him to recover.
Walke was charged with negligent driving and failure to yield. This was a mixed victory for cycling advocates. For six weeks, it appeared that she might not be charged at all, despite clear evidence of several violations of the law.
It wouldn’t have been the first time that a driver escaped charges in Maryland. In 2009, Jack Yates was killed under the rear wheels of the truck that right-hooked him. No charges were filed. In 2010, Natasha Pettigrew was run down by a driver who continued driving home, and later reported that she thought she had hit a dog, or a deer. No charges filed.
So when charges were filed against the driver who hit Nathan Krasnopoler, it was a small victory for justice—but what a small victory.
Failure to yield? That’s the best we can come up with to describe what happened? Failure to yield is what happens when a driver nearly causes a collision. It’s what happens in a minor fender bender. It does not describe what happened to Nathan Krasnopoler, and neither does that negligent driving charge.
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One reason for this inability to distinguish between serious and minor violations is that the law reflects an unconscious assumption among legislators that the roads are for cars, and thus, that minor violations will only result in fender benders. To kill somebody in another car, it usually takes more extreme behavior, and that extreme behavior is punished under existing law.
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Police Search For Car From Pedestrian Accident In Suitland

SUITLAND, Md. (WUSA) — Prince George’s County Police want to find the driver and car that struck a pedestrian Tuesday night at Silver Hill Road and Swann Road.
Police say at approximately 9:53 p.m., officers responded to a call for a pedestrian struck at the intersection of Silver Hill Road and Swann Road. They found a 30-year-old Hispanic male lying critically injured in the roadway.
According to police, officers sawa dark colored, four-door Honda Accord leaving the area and it possibly had front end damage.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Prince George’s County Police Department’s District III Station, Patrol Officer Eric Guerra, at (301) 72-4900.
You can also make an anonymous call to Crime Solvers at 1-866-411 TIPS (8477) or text "PGPD plus your message" to CRIMES (274637) on your cell phone.
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Say bye-bye to another $12M – another round of rescissions

Background: In the latest budget deal between the Republicans and Democrats, the two parties agreed to rescind (read: take back) $2.5 billion in unspent federal transportation funds. (Note, if Maryland spent it’s Federal money it would not be asked to give it back.)

I don’t know what Maryland will rescind this time but the last round it was $12 million from Transportation Enhancements (TE). That’s 3-4 years worth of bike/ped projects from the TE fund per Maryland’s six-year Consolidated Transportation Program (CTP).

The last conversation with MDOT was that Maryland does spend all its TE money which conflicts with the following report:
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My main position is Maryland can do more, a lot more for bicyclists and pedestrians with TE and CMAQ (Congestion Management and Air Quality) funds then just give it back to the Feds. Read More for the League of American Bicyclists alert:
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Keeping Your Cool, Bob Mionske

I really don’t like "podcasts" but this might be worthwhile if you have "anger management" issues and the very typical "one finger salute." I found it interesting that "just don’t do it" advice Bob considers an "Olympic event" and has suggestions for starting before that point. My personal advice is to empower you with this response: "If you think my riding is illegal call the police. If you take the law into your own hands, I call the police and you go to jail." No need for anger, no need to argue where cyclists should be riding, just a understandable "don’t act out with your car message."
He also goes into some details about the value of vulnerable user laws. Imagine if there was a new third vehicle type that could instantly cut cars in half in an accident. Do you really think society would not invoke stricter penalties for accidents cause by such vehicles? (Or do you think standard speeding ticket fine would be enough?)
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Worst of all is the possibility that Paula’s death might easily have been prevented by a more proactive attitude to road safety

B’ Spokes: This case in the U.K. is frightfully similar to John Yates death here in Baltimore and Alice Swanson’s death in D.C. Too much emphases on faulting cyclists for riding in truck drivers “blind” spot and not on why the heck are we building trucks with blind spots that target bicyclists and pedestrians?

Worst still, Paula has become a statistic. On London roads alone, cyclists die at a rate of about one a month and a disproportionate amount of those fatalities are women struck by left-turning lorries. The sides of a heavy goods vehicle, articulated or not, quickly form a lengthy blind spot that extends behind the cabin like a shroud. Despite their drivers’ best efforts (and a 2009 EU directive demanding a retrofit of mirrors on some vehicles) these enormous beasts have a lack of peripheral vision and an all-too-well documented reduced awareness of what is directly beyond them.

Worst of all is the possibility that Paula’s death might easily have been prevented by a more proactive attitude to road safety in a city that remains alarmingly ambivalent to its cyclists. In Camden borough, cycle lanes are scarce and at the junction where Paula died, only one connecting road has a cycle box. Despite the efforts of the London Cycling Campaign, the borough has not given its HGV drivers cycle-awareness training, and neither have most others.

Improvements are easy to do yet MVA refuses to add a page or two to the Commercial Drivers Licence manual for improved safety around cyclists insisting that horn tapping and labeling cyclists has hazards is sufficient. And there is no directive for improved mirrors in Maryland as if mirrors are really expensive and killing someone is really cheep.

But as long as the society keep blaming the victim any improvements on the truck drivers side seems like an impossibility.
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