Austin cyclist hit and killed

This is horrible! very sad.

That is so sad. I hope they find the guy that kept going...

Please be careful out there everyone!

A special prayer goes out to the family members of the cyclist and the authorities that are searching for the driver.

This user's post has been ignored.

I don't know what Racine is like, but if I want to cycle any distance at all around eastern Iowa, I'm out on highways where the traffic is doing minimum 55. Usually there's no shoulder. I wear bright clothes, watch carefully for everything coming, and as a last resort I have this cyclocross move where I ride my road bike straight into the ditch and up the other side. You ride what you have to ride.

This user's post has been ignored.

Question, The article talks about "signalling that your going ahead" - what is this signal? going straight? There are plenty of situations like this where I live, except usually at 25mph - and I would like to know the proper "forward" signal. Anybody?

There are a lot of situations on my rides where I just want a driver to see me and notice what I'm doing. If I think maybe s/he doesn't see me (pretty much always), I do a great big arm wave like I'm trying to attract someone's attention in a crowd. Then I point where I'm going. That works pretty well (i.e., not dead yet!).

Sorry to hear this.

If anyone from the Austin area wants to send a letter, here is the version we sent last month.





Attachments
----------------
dotjordan.doc (31KB - 46 downloads)

I ride that route pretty much every ride I do. In fact, I'll be riding past that spot in just a couple of hours on tonight's ride and I'm not looking forward to it.

That section and another on/off ramp are the only hairy parts of the ride. The rest of 360 is stop lights and intersections.

When I'm going transiting the ramp, I will usually put my left hand out as if I'm making a left turn and then continue straight while the ramp veers to my right.

I only do that when there is at least a few hundred yards between me and any car coming up behind me. It's also vitally important to know where the sun is in situations like that. If the driver is blinded at all, they will drive at normal speed assuming everything is fine ahead of them right up to the time when they make you a hood ornament.

Barring any unusual circumstances, the driver of the van that initially hit her should get failure to yield at the least. Even if she was in the middle of the ramp, she had the right of way. The driver of the other vehicle should get felony hit and run, but probably really wasn't at fault for the accident itself.

A lot can change based on the circumstances, of course.

I rode in Lance Armstrong's Ride for the Roses back in 2001 in Austin. I thought Austin was bike friendly also, and probably is more so then many other cities, but along the beginning of the route, people had deliberatly broken glass all over the place and they drove by us in their pickup trucks holding signs that said "We don't ride our horses in your town, don't ride your bikes in ours". I couldn't believe it! What a bunch of dumba** rednecks. I would have expected to see that in Dallas, but not Austin.

Before we start puttin' down Texas as not bicycle friendly. I lived in Ft.Worth/Dallas for about 3 years, and that is where I started road cycling. Every weekend throughout the state there is always some organized ride going on. They are always big with 1000+ people at each one (Hotter than Hell is more like 15-20,000). Yes, occasionally you will get the red neck that throughs beer cans or runs you off the road, but more often than not it is very friendly.

Last year here in Colorado, when I did the Triple Bypass, someone had thrown Tack all over the road on Squaw Pass. This stuff happens everywhere. Just about 4 months ago a cyclist was hit and killed in Highlands Ranch, CO.

It's dangerous everywhere, and we have to watch ourselves when we are on the road or even trails. It's sad everytime a cyclist dies.

The problem is: getting off at the ramp probably wouldn't have helped in this case.

If you look at the link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=759+S+Capital+of+Texas+Hwy,...

You can see the right turn lane coming out of the shopping center to the right is it's own lane that becomes the off ramp for Bee Caves Rd. You can see it if you scroll to the north where the two white cars are. Further north, where you can make out the left turn only symbol on the road is where she was hit. In that section, there is practically no shoulder. She was probably all the way over to the right and got clipped by the trailer. It had nothing to do with her staying on 360 or taking the ramp. She would have been hit anyway. The fact that there is no shoulder is the reason I ride right down the middle of that damn lane when I'm going through there. If they're going to hit me, they're going to go right through me, not brush me because they're trying to squeeze by.