Death of bicyclist under 18-wheeler on rainy night in Cambridge ruled an accident

The bike was stopped or stopping on Vassar street (perpendicular to Mass Ave) probably preparing to make a left turn. The truck was on Mass Ave, turning onto Vassar, and made such a wide turn that it went into the wrong lane on Vassar, and ran over the bicyclist waiting to turn left.

Such a tragedy, and my sympathies to the victim's family and friends.

may have been the contributing factor that led to the state declaring the trucker to be non-liable. Though, since headlights don't send much light to the sides, even having a headlight might not have saved the cyclist here.

I"m curious how some posters arrive at a different conclusion than the report written by the investigators. On what basis would one suggest that it contains "lots of excuses".

Given that the report suggests that the bicycle shifter was set in a high gear and that turning oil trucks by definition are large, slow, illuminated predictable moving objects. Because none of us were there it's up to the investigators to investigate and try to recreate what happened.

Regarding the truck driver not operating safely. MIT video does indicate that he had his turn signal indicator lights on, so we can further deduce that the truck driver slowed down to make a right hand turn, didn't see the non-illuminated cyclist, who was wearing dark-clothes in a rain-storm at night.

Some posters have suggested that the cyclist was stopped, suggesting that somehow he was unable to react in time to the truck swinging to the left. If he was stopped, could he not see the oil truck? Did the truck somehow move in an unpredictable way? I find both scenarios to be pretty unlikely knowing what we do.

Perhaps I'm biased by all of the young, mostly male riders who I see flying around that area viewing motor vehicles, pedestrians and other cyclists as moving obstacle course objects - but the report speaks for itself.

So I ask again, how other posters arrive at suggestions that police are covering up in some fashion, and how they rule out the possibility that the cylist himself might not have met Swirly's standard of "DRIVING SAFELY"?

your comment, but if you read enough of these kinds of threads on UH (let's not even talk about the Globe or Herald) it's hard to miss the sometimes crazed levels of hostility towards people on bikes, not to mention the real hostile and dangerous behavior you see on the roads. And though the angry people scare me, I'm more nervous about the well-intentioned clueless people opening their doors into traffic than I am about guys in pickup trucks throwing beer cans at me. So yes--keep spreading the word. It's not a war--we're all just trying to get where we're going in one piece.

The person in the Gorilla Suit is a Masshole.

The real problem is the Masshole that rides a bike, walks like livestock afflicted with mad cow disease, and drives like an idiot.

That, and we all deny our kinship with Gorillas.

Here's a link to the famous Invisible Gorilla video. It contains a useful practical lesson for cyclists: You often need to assume that other drivers are looking right through you.

But the phenomenon of attentional blindness does not absolve motorists of their moral and legal obligations to refrain from injuring law-abiding cyclists. After all, it's easy to spot the dancing gorilla in the video if you've been told beforehand to expect dancing gorilla. Similarly, there's no excuse for a motorist being blind to a cyclist who is lawfully using a public road.

And in any case, it is well known that operating a multi-ton vehicle is an intensely cognitively demanding task. If you lack the mental bandwidth to drive without injuring people, then you shouldn't drive. If you drive anyway and injure a law-abiding road user, then you did so deliberately and ought to face retribution.

I'm not suggesting that the driver of this truck deliberately killed Mr. Kyaw. I looked at the reports, but I still have no idea what happened that awful night.

Standing in place while a truck accelerates over you is a relative high rate of speed.

When the crash reconstructionist attempts to come to conclusions in cases where there is minimal evidence, the driver always gets the benefit of the doubt unless there is physical evidence that can prove otherwise.

Reaction times (nighttime in this case), throw distances equations, light visabity tests, and other minimum speed calculations were all done here, and there simply is not going to be enough physical evidence to convict someone of a crime here. The officer can only make decisions based on facts.

I am in full agreement with everything Paul Schimek said.

There is one possible scenario, however, that I would love to have explored. Could the cyclist have been riding on the Mass. Ave. sidewalk (at moderate speed) parallel to the truck and, without anticipating the possibility of the truck turning, darted into the crosswalk with the intention of reaching the next section of sidewalk? He might have seen the truck too late and unsuccessfully tried to avoid it.

The nearby Vassar Street cycle tracks do suggest the appropriateness of sidewalk cycling in this area, and the greatest danger occurs when cyclists unseen by motor vehicle operators cross roadways.