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Bicyclist dies in collision with SUV in Newton

Wasn't wearing helmet in collision this afternoon at Commonwealth and Lowell avenues, Wicked Local Newton reports.

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Damn, five hours earlier, on Commonwealth Mall, Tom Menino started off his Bike Week remarks first with a promise to get back in the saddle next week now that his knee surgery has healed. Then he told us all to wear helmets. He said when he was in rehab for his knee, he met permanently disabled kids who were in that state because they had been in bike wrecks without helmets.

Years ago in Boston, a scofflaw driver not looking broadsided me on a bike when I had the light. Being in the right didn't keep me from broken fingers, broken wrist and serious concussion. The doc treating me said the three long cracks in the helmet would have been in my skull if I had been bareheaded. I would have been dead or crippled.

Helmets, yes.

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He said when he was in rehab for his knee, he met permanently disabled kids who were in that state because they had been in bike wrecks without helmets.

Yeah, I'm calling that a massive load of bullshit. #1, rehab for his knee wouldn't put him in contact with children who were "permanently disabled". #2, children under 16 represent ~10% of bike injuries these days. The vast majority are adults.

Did he meet any of the people in the emergency room with broken arms, wrists, ribs, and legs from being hit by cars or doored? Did he trundle his fat ass down to the morgue and look at the body of the 21 year old kid whose body was crushed by the 39 bus?

How would we react if the mayor had stood on the basketball court in JP where that 14 year old was shot, and said "If only he'd been wearing a bulletproof vest"?

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When I blew out ligaments in my ankle playing soccer, I did my rehab at a center that had everyone from permanently disabled veterans and accident victims to much lower severity sports rehab like mine.

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I can think of three places in the area right offhand, two where I've worked, that serve individuals with minor sports injuries as well as having special training in working with people with severe permanent disabilities.

It isn't the 1800s; people with disabilities mainly get their care at the same places as people without. It isn't like you take your brother with multiple disabilities to MGH for PT and they say, "sorry, he's going to need to go the tard hospital, because this is the normal-people hospital."

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And did he die of a head injury? Or is this an irrelevant fact?

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I kind of agree with anon above - if it turns out he didn't die of a head injury, whether he was wearing a helmet or not is irrelevant, and definitely not headline-worthy.

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um, which headline says anything about helmet wearing? Not UHub's and not Wicked Local Newton's...

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neither of them. But, my little genius, it is in the very first sentence of the Wicked Local article. Sheesh!

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I meant "headline news" as a main focus of the article. If you mention it in the first sentence, a lot of people tune out and just think "oh he wasn't being careful", even if the poor guy never had a chance.

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I agree. It's like saying someone in the car who was killed after being shot "wasn't wearing a seatbelt"

What's the point, besides putting the blame on the victim?

What would the reaction be if in an article about a rape, the first sentence was "the victim, who was not wearing a chastity belt..."

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Back when I reported on stuff like fatal traffic accidents for a newspaper, it was standard practice to note if the person was wearing a seat belt if relevant.

Would a helmet have helped this person? Obviously, we don't know at this point, based on what Wicked Local has reported.

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If the person in the car was killed because of a landslide, would seatbelt status be included?

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Note I said "relevant." If a passenger was ejected from a car during a rear-end collision, yes, seat-belt use was relevant. Ditto for somebody who went through a windshield (this was back before airbags were very common) because the car suddenly decelerated, but he didn't.

I never covered a car caught in a landslide (those just aren't all that common out in Framingham); I suppose if the hill fell on a car stopped at a light, seat belts wouldn't help; but if the driver suddenly slammed on the brakes because he saw a landslide straight ahead, and his passenger went flying through the windshield, then, yes, it would be relevant.

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A pedestrian who was not wearing a full body suit of armor was shot and killed.

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I hope it wasn't my old pal Ped Xing!

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For two reasons:

1. It's a very convenient place to mount my blinky lights.
2. If I get creamed by an SUV, I don't want the first eight words of the newspaper article to be about how I wasn't wearing a helmet.

I'm skeptical about the extent to which this thing actually protects my skull and its contents, though. I hope I never have to find out. But as the previous commenters have noted, the promotion of bike helmets seems to implicitly shift the responsibility onto the bicyclist, regardless of who is actually at fault.

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So you're not responsible for your own safety and health? Who is?

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I just read this story at a friend's house, started to ride my bike home, and very narrowly missed being hit by a car that started behind me (out of my sight) and sped past and made a right across my path. I was starting from a stop after waiting for a green light AND in a bike lane. I was wearing a helmet (wouldn't have prevented the collision!) and two different rear lights, as well as bright clothing and a bag covered in reflectors. What else can a person do?

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...the helmet-wearing rate is around .1-.5%. In Boston it's 30%+. Want to guess where more people die per mile biked?

http://bicyclesafe.com/helmets.html

The main problem with helmets is not with the helmets themselves, it's with the attitude towards them, the idea that they're the first and last word in bike safety. If that's the definition (and that's pretty much how people view helmets) then there are two big problems with that:

* A helmet does nothing to prevent a cyclist from getting hit by a car.
* The effectiveness of helmets in preventing injury is seriously exaggerated.

Read that last sentence until it sinks in.

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Amsterdam also has the greatest mileage of cycletracks (separate bike lanes detached from the road) and the highest percentage of bike users in the world. If everyone's on a bike and nobody's competing with the cars that are left for space...imagine how few people die! No way, not Amsterdam? Imagine that. I bet it's because they don't wear helmets.

The effectiveness of helmets in preventing injuries they are intended to prevent is about 85%. They aren't force fields and they aren't placebos. Are you suggesting people NOT wear helmets?

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I've been hit by a dozen or so cars over my former career as a messenger, never wore a helmet. And never got a head injury. Yes I could have. Yes if I had it might have mitigated it. But the real problem was that drivers never had the courtesy to share the road. I was never hit blasting through a red light. I was always hit in the following three ways:
Rear-ended. That's right someone saw me and deliberately rammed me from behind.
Side-swiped. The infamous crunch of being cheese gratered between a moving car and a parked one.
Right turned. "Oh I didn't see you" even though they just passed you to cut you off turning in front of you with no turn signal.

In Amsterdam those who drive cars do things like look around them, and drive more carefully. If everyone drove like that the only need for a helmet for any biker would be as prevention against self-inflicted clumsiness or the invariable street car tracks / pot hole toss up.

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But the real problem was that drivers never had the courtesy to share the road.

Courtesy? And you were a bike messenger? Bwahahaha! You're obviously lying. Courtesy isn't in a bike messenger's vocabulary.

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First off the whole concept of the reckless bike messenger is mostly a myth.

Sure messengers are often in a hurry. They get paid by commission only, and a pathetically small amount per job completed. And their clients demand they hurry, with nearly every job a rush.

But the idea that bike messengers ride recklessly as a group is completely false. For one thing most of them are intimately and alertly aware of their surroundings and unlike disconnected drivers and distracted pedestrians they become at one with their bicycle. They have the hours and the skills gained to be the best possible bike riders in the city. Just the fact that so many use track bikes (long before they were made trendy by hipsters) is an indication of that skill. When most 'civilians' (a term for non-messenger riders) put their bikes away due to inclement weather, couriers are riding in rain, ice, snow, and freezing weather. I myself can claim to have worked right through such events as the April Fool's blizzard of 1997. We kept delivering even during the Big Dig when the streets were more like dirt roads and one had to do battle with dump trucks and pot holes the size of Volkswagons.

And I should mention too that a large number of professional cycle racers got their start as bicycle messengers.

Pedestrians who have had close brushes with bike messengers or gotten a rude word towards them from one have almost exclusively been jay walking and not paying attention, something it is illegal for them to do.

Drivers who have had close brushes with bike messengers or gotten a rude word towards them from one have almost exclusively done something that almost killed said bike messenger and was illegal for said driver to do.

So if a bike messenger has ever said something discourteous to you guess what... It's YOUR fault.

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Pedestrians who have had close brushes with bike messengers or gotten a rude word towards them from one have almost exclusively been jay walking and not paying attention, something it is illegal for them to do.

It's the Pete Nice of bike messengers.

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It's the truth. Sheep should stay in the sheep pen where they belong.
I remember one messenger made these great stickers expressing such a sentiment.
They read "Get back to your f*cking cubicle"

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... of your profession.

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So you support jaywalking without looking around where you are going?

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...nearly take out people crossing in cross walks -- who have walk lights. More than once. Maybe one of those reckless bike messengers was you -- or your work buddy.

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Or maybe the cyclist was more than aware of the spacing and timing needed to thread through those people.

But that's off target since we're talking about people who are not in a crosswalk here, people who cross in the middle of the block without even having the intelligence to look around before jumping out into traffic. And it's not just bikes that get affected by that. A car or bus coming along would smush them dead instead of just knocking them down.

There is more than enough room on the streets for everyone: bikes, peds, cars, skateboards, trucks, nuns, buses (just not Segways)... provided everyone remains constantly aware of their surroundings and isn't trying to play Frogger.

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... you think zipping through a cross walk (with pedestrians crossing) against a red light is defensible conduct.

You want to talk about jay walkers, fine. I want to talk about scofflaw bike messengers -- not exactly a rare species.

Perhaps you and your godlike colleagues think you can safely zip past people crossing in a cross-walk -- but what gives YOU the right to scare them -- when they are where they are supposed to be (and you have no legal right to be there at that time)?

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Some of us are better than the rest of the herd. Sorry but humans are by their nature elitists.

But these are people who are on their bikes 10-20 hours a day, and the vast majority of them can handle their bicycles like extensions of their body. Are at one with their surroundings, and know precisely what is reckless and are far from being so despite the impressions of the uninitiated.

Maybe you've never had to work a job where you don't make crap or lose your job if you don't rush. Where some dispatcher is yelling in your ear by radio all day. But messengers are mostly independent contractors making a paltry sum per delivery and on the rare occasion that the delivery is worth more money it is because some lawyer put a super rush on it. So you either hurry or don't get paid.

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...with a profession that depends on flouting the law in order to make a living wage? Maybe I don't like the fact that some big-shot lawyer can pay somebody money to do something that (according to you) by its very nature causes you to do things that (at a minimum) scare pedestrians (and drivers).

You strike me as astonishingly arrogant. So much so that it's hard to feel sorry for the fact that you may have a rotten job.

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greases the wheels and really isn't anything that isn't going on in any other city. "Flouting the law"... do you look at the screen after you type? Maybe some "big-shot lawyer" or bike messenger doesn't give a damn what you think because they're too busy getting their job done while you're posting comments on a local blog.

BlackKat, thank you for being a voice of reason in little Pollyanna's garden.

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right on.... bike messengers, boutique cyclists, critical massholes, all are the scourge of everyday commuters who rely on the bicycle for transportation

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It would be the absolute height of hypocrisy to chastise motorists for red light and crosswalk violations on the one hand and excuse cyclists for the exact same behavior on the other because they're, like, "in tune with their surroundings." No one is that much of a douche.

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Get back to your f*cking cubicle!

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I'm jay walking!

HA! Get it? JAY walking!

See, because...

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I do my best to make sure that messengers stay on the street - but not on the sidewalk. If you are one of those douchebags who thinks that the narrow sidewalks of Boston are your play pen, let me introduce myself ... via a shoulder check into the nearest solid object. Or as a simple muscular obstruction preventing anything other than a collision with me or a pole or a wall or a return to the street.

Maybe you came along after messengers were threatened as a group due to the irresponsibility of many of their members and didn't bike on the sidewalk.

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SwirlyGrrl, maybe – hopefully – I'm misreading your comment, but it really sounds like you are talking about hurting other people because they ... ride their bicycles on the sidewalk.

Even if sidewalk riding were illegal (and not just somewhat dangerous), does it really warrant "a shoulder check into the nearest solid object" and not just a, "Hey, get off the sidewalk!"?

It seems that simply trying to get from one place to another in this town has a corrosive effect on our humanity. Whenever I read comment threads about bicycles, I see lots of fantasizing about hitting people. SwirlyGrll's comment is actually quite tame compared to some of the violent ideation I've seen on bicycling threads, and she sounds like Ghandi compared to the commenters at the Herald.

Maybe these sociopathic fantasies are just that – Swirly, how many sidewalk bicyclists have you actually knocked to the ground or slammed into a pole? – but even still I don't think they are making anybody's commute any safer.

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Sidewalk riding IS illegal in any "business district". For a damn good reason- it's very dangerous to pedestrians, particularly people coming out of buildings and such, children, etc.

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I simply got tired of literally diving into the street off of narrow sidewalks because some douchebag courier was barreling down through a space barely wide enough for the bike because he or she was simply too farking lazy to use the street system properly. I refuse to endanger myself because somebody is biking where they don't belong AND risking bringing down all sorts of stupid ass anti-bike laws - as we have seen in the past - due to their utter laziness.

Hardly "just wanting to hurt somebody" if I'm simply USING THE GODDAMN SIDEWALK AS INTENDED. I'm simply refusing to move or refusing to be intimidated by a jerk who needs to learn about the risks they take when they do stupid arrogant shit.

OH, and did I mention this: I HAVE BEEN CYCLING FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS. I'm not anti-bike - I'm anti-scofflaw and anti-stupid regardless of mode used.

I don't care what you think here - you clearly have no clue about the conditions or are denying the reality of downtown sidewalks from the 18th century. Note that the person who was whinging about her "right" to intimidate pedestrians on the sidewalk was the same person who said that sheep need to stay in their pens and people shouldn't leave their cubicles as they are then in her special way. Fine - I agree with the pens - jaywalking is out of control and I do not yield to jaywalkers when I'm cycling through a green light and they get all sheep stupid on the streets - but I also don't ride in their pens or harass legally crossing folk. That is pretty simple, now isn't it?

As for "number slammed into a wall" - one. The asshat was headed straight for an elderly person with a walker. As for "didn't dive out of their precious little way and forced them off of where they don't belong even if that meant they had to stop or make contact with an obstacle" = too many to count. Once they started having to wear numbers this problem abated some, though - I'd just photograph their asshattery instead.

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While not a courier now, retired some 10 years ago. I was one for many years in my 20s.
I never saw anyone riding excessively on sidewalks. It was always just a few feet from where they curb hopped to the preferred lockup spot in front of a building.

I think just as I was fading out of the scene there was one kind of slow guy who was actually technically a walking courier who rode some junk bike instead and he might have sidewalk rode... and he is still around I think, but he was awfully challenged and not the norm.

Against traffic the wrong way on High street. Yes we've all been guilty of salmoning.
But on sidewalks... I've never really seen that in any sort of prevalence.

In fact the only distance biking I have ever seen in Boston on sidewalks has come exclusively from civilians on those rent-a-bikes you get on the Common, and that tricycle guy who whoops as he goes down Newbury.

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Amsterdam and Paris are actually safe for cyclists to the extent that they don't NEED to wear helmets. And yes, believe it or not, cycling clubs there DO discourage any sort of helmet campaigns. Why? Because they discourage people from riding.

How often would you leave your house if you had to put on a bulletproof vest each time?

How funny that when gangbangers are shooting up neighborhoods, we don't hold press conferences and tell them that they can get bulletproof vests at the local hospital cheap? Yet, our fucking brilliant mayor does just that.

And am I suggesting people not wear helmets? Not yet. Go read the article I linked to in another comment.

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I ride a scooter. I have to wear an even bigger/bulkier helmet than a bike helmet AND I choose to wear a full face helmet rather than just a minimal beanie. It doesn't discourage me at all. I still leave the house and use my scooter in all sorts of weather (sans snow/ice). I'm hardly alone in this. Nobody ever said "I'd buy/ride a motorcycle...except for that damn helmet law."

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They do in fact argue that if people were required to wear helmets to bicycle, they would be less likely to use a bicycle to take a trip for an errand or somesuch.

Every time I get on my bike, I have to put on a helmet, install and turn on two lights, and dress like a fucking traffic cone....all because drivers can't manage something as simple as paying attention to where the fuck they're steering two tons of metal. I have to distract them from their fucking blackberries, ipods, coffee cups, hamburgers, children in the back seat, radio stations, etc. I was doored by someone who hit me simply because she didn't take 2 seconds to look in her mirror before throwing open her door.

Getting more people to wear helmets is like fixing Boston's teenage homicide problem by strapping bulletproof vests onto every kid, or saying "hey, it's okay, we just need to do a better job of saving their lives after they've been shot."

PS:Your argument about your riding habits is about as intelligent as "It's freezing cold today, global warming must be bullshit." YOU != population.

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hand out bullet proof vests. the mayor is a fat idiot.you know about everything that happens in france. you ride a bike better than anyone. we get it.

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"I was doored by someone who hit me simply because she didn't take 2 seconds to look in her mirror before throwing open her door."

I have never been doored in two decades of urban bike commuting. No matter what kinds of laws we pass and educational campaigns we wage to let people know that they've got to look before they open their car doors, eventually someone's going to be in a hurry and forget to check. The best way to keep from being doored is to always ride outside the door zone -- even if that means you're also outside of the bike lane.

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Hi,
My daughter wore the helmet & was biking in the wide biking lane and still got hurt by the negligent driver who didn't check his rear-view window. He opened his door into her face and caused her facial injury. The door knocked out 4 permanent teeth and his corner of the door cut her chin and deep cut through and through her gums. He yelled at her while she was spitting blood and parts of her broken teeth.
We have a mounting bills and still she needs to have 4 root canals for all broken/knocked out teeth, crowns and later on dental implants because no-one will guarantee because the hospital ER was busy and the specialist came after 5 hours later to do the surgery. Then the specialist – oral surgeon finally started performing the oral maxillo-facial surgery with her being just locally sedated because if we would insisted for a full anesthesia (another delay for waiting for the OR and anesthesiologist) would delay re-implantation of her teeth not only 5 hours of keeping a gauze on the 2 through and through cut on her chin but much more. (I learnt that a tooth dies if it is out of socket for more than 2 hours...). She had to keep her mouth wide open through more than 2 hours of surgery. It is not over yet; she will spend so many hours of dental office and orthodontist for months if not years. She is just a kid who is starting 6 grade (TWEEN) at new school and can't eat regular food, can't bite on anything, can't swim, can't get sun on her face for the entire summer (so, her scar would not be more visible due to difference in pigmentation). The driver was not the owner of the car and it looks that car has no insurance…

I wish that someone would recommend to parents of children that regular helmet doesn’t protect mouth, nose, eyes. We are looking to buy her a full helmet like for motorcyclist with a mouth guard if she would ever use a bike.

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"He just didn't look OK to me," [the witness] said. "They did CPR and used a defribulator. He was on the ground for about 20 minutes."

No wonder he died. They should have tried a defibrillator to restart his heart. Instead, it appears that they just stole his Friendly's Fribble. :(

Nice work, Wicked Local. Nice work.

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wicked awesome!

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Until you're a coroner, stop playing one on the intertubes, Adam. We already have a huge problem with drivers (and our mayor) thinking that helmets magically cure all.

I am SO TIRED of every story about cyclists starting with (or focusing on) whether they were wearing helmets. They don't protect from broken bones, sprained or dislocated joints. HELMETS OFFER NO PROTECTION FROM SPINAL INJURIES OR INTERNAL INJURIES. Did you see how badly his bike was damaged? What he did was like doing a belly flop on concrete from a second story window. Do you think a helmet really matters in something like that?

And by the way, before anyone says "ZOMG HE WAS RUNNING A LIGHT"...maybe he had a brake or tire failure...

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Since a helmet *could* save you from a lot of potential injuries that lead to permanent damage/death, the lack of one pretty much shows a blatant disregard for your own safety: the kind that leads to hitting the back of cars who have a green light.

That certainly doesn't keep you from dying for other potential reasons, some by your own fault and some by others' fault. But you don't give yourself the best chances using the minimal level of gear when you choose not to use one. It goes towards the self-investment of the person who died into their own safety. Unlike a "bulletproof vest on a playground", there is limited cost or even inconvenience to wearing a helmet for the amount of potential good it can do for you...the same as a seat belt in a car.

The argument that "a helmet wouldn't have saved him here...therefore it's irrelevant" is cognitive bias. It's a fact of the matter that the guy was riding his bike on a pretty busy road, a state highway for that matter, and did not have even the basic modicum of safety concerns for himself. That was really stupid and it *may* (or may not) have played a role in his ultimate demise.

If he had been wearing a helmet, then maybe we wouldn't even be having this discussion because he might not have become news.

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Helmets don't save lives. Nuclear land torpedoes making SUVs scared of my bike save lives. Gimmee some.

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To repeat a recently observed comment.

Frak of Brett.

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By this thinking I shouldn't bother wearing a seat belt in a car, and for that matter they should never have taken the Corvair off the road. Accidents are other people's faults, and if those people would just watch where they're going then I wouldn't have to take any responsibility against them.

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Can we see some enforcement there?

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But you can't pull over cars in MA for not wearing a seatbelt. It is a secondary offense only.

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Now, considering that it is better than even odds that most people whinging here and elsewhere about cyclists "deserving" injuries from cars breaking laws because the cyclist wasn't wearing a helmet blah blah blah do not consistently wear their seatbelts, will we soon start seeing claims that non-belted drivers and passengers deserve their injuries even if drunks hit them?

Not holding my breath ...

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But of course wearing your seatbelt on a weekend night is good idea because of all the drunks on the road right?

I wear my seatbelt 75% of the time and 100% of the time on the highways and roads with larger speed limits. If I go to the store or D&D I often don't wear it.

If I got rearended by a drunk driver one of those times where I didn't wear my seatbelt and smashed my head in my steering wheel....... I think I take some blame for myself for not wearing a seatbelt. I could have prevented some of my injury by putting on a seatbelt right?

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Car doesn't move from the driveway without all passengers having their seat belts securely fastened . Bikes don't leave the garage without helmets on heads. Arguments result in another viewing of The Sacred Broken Helmet of Life Preservation.

That said, I still think that insurance companies should be able to charge higher rates to people who own up to non-belt usage and refuse to insure people who get caught lying about it. Cyclists who don't use helmets are already not so well protected by their folly as are drivers who don't use seatbelts are sheltered by unusually lax laws (compared to other states, where you can get pulled over and have your insurance cancelled).

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Before we go about enacting laws enabling cops to pull over people who don't have their seat belts fastened, how about a law that allows the cops to pull people over for running red lights, or for blocking intersections, or for turning without signaling, or for following to closely, etc.?

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seat belt laws, take a moment to answer these two questions:

1) What real benefit does a driver get by NOT wearing a seatbelt that justifies the risk?

2) What unreasonable burden does the law requiring wearing a seatbelt place on a driver?

The answer in both cases is NONE!

And before you cry "personal choice", remember two things:

1) You are driving on PUBLIC ROADS.

2) If you crack up and incur avoidable medical expenses because you are too lazy or "self-important" to put your seat belt on, that affects MY insurance rates as well.

That having been said, I support the idea of permitting insurance companies to limit or deny claims to people who contributed to injuries sustained becuase they weren't wearing a seatbelt. Funny though how most of the people I've met who are opposed to primary enforcement are also opposed to allowing the insurance companies to restrict payment of claims.

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most new cars have computers that know exactly when seatbelts were fastened when a car makes an impact and the belts themselves can be checked with impact points to see if someone actually was wearing a seatbelt after reconstruction tests. You need a warrant to get these computer results from most car makers however, and they are hard to get from what I have heard.

I wonder if any civil suits have resulted in settlements regarding seatbelt usage.

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No helmet, bike lane, or law, will ever protect us as well as our own common sense, if we're mindful enough to use it. Though in a report that states the victim was bleeding from the head, I understand why a public official would advocate for helmet use- as much as my own feelings toward them are mixed, I would probably do the same.

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As someone who uses the roads near that intersection in a variety of manners (pedestrian, runner, cyclist, driver), the first thing I want to shout is NO ONE OWNS THE ROAD. I get so tired of pedestrians and runners who ignore traffic laws and dart out then flip you off because you have to slam on your brakes to keep from injuring them. The cyclists in Newton sometimes make me wish I didn't have the little V-Chip in my head that prevents me from playing Death Race 2000 with some of their antics. Seriously, if you're using the Comm Ave carriage lanes, there is a stop sign on every block. The through traffic has right of way but any time I'm near that area, I have to slow down to make sure I'm not about to cream some spandex wearing Lance Armstrong wannabe thinking traffic lights and traffic signs don't apply to them. Oh and the born-again hippie movement riders who feel they can ride on the sidewalk against traffic and you'll magically see them as they dart out in front of you. Don't even start me on bike messengers in Boston - talk about a death wish.

Yet I am a firm and strong believer in bike lanes in helmets. I do believe bike lanes make drivers more aware that they SHARE the road with cyclists which reduces a lot of the "I own the road" behaviors many people inadvertently slip into. I believe in helmets because too many friends are either dead or alive because of helmets. I keep thinking about a friend back in the 80's when practically no one wore helmets who hit his head on the curbing along Mem Drive and died. Three months later, two friends were involved in bike/car collisions at the twin rotaries of death in Fresh Pond circle. Both survived with minor injuries thanks to their Bell V1 Pro according to the EMTs on the scene and follow up doctor's visits.

If you don't want to ride a bike because wearing a helmet makes you look like a dork - well, evolution in action is the term that comes to mind. As far as "I can't make my kid wear a helmet" whines go (familiar in the parenting community), it's simple: no helmet, no bike. One of my kids tells his friends he's scared not to wear the helmet because I will find out and his bike will be gone.

Helmets won't prevent all accidents or injuries the same way seat belts and air bags don't prevent all accidents in cars. But they go a long, long way in reducing a number of preventable injuries and minimizing other ones. If you're that scared of looking like a dork because you're wearing a helmet, think of how much of a dork you look like in a wheel chair or a casket.

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Some old piece of shit was madly honking at me the other day as I rolled past on my bike--I was being sure to act like a car--going crazy and yelling at me b/c I wasn't wearing a helmet. I don't think he really cared whether or not I was taking care of myself by wearing a helmet, but as always it was just an excuse to let off some steam b/c bikes get in the way of his god-given right to plow his car around withour having to see bikes or pedestrians.

It's a conspiracy. Car babies WANT cycling to stay what it is now, a weird middle-class sporting event, an opportunity to put on knee pads and lycra when all it really should be is a way to haul your ass from one place to the next. Not wearing a helmet is my way of normalizing riding a bike. It is not a unique and dangerous event that requires specializd equipment like every other precious endeavor these days from cooking a meal to raising a baby. At least it should not be.

Whit

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If you went back in time 12 years and normalized me by removing my helmet, I'd be dead.

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"spandex wearing Lance Armstrong wannabe" - how original

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I am in a wheelchair and I definitely do NOT look like a dork.

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My comment wasn't meant to say that people in chairs look like dorks but, rather, what would they think of themselves other than how they currently see themselves? If they can't handle a helmet on a bike, what would they think if they had to use a chair if they can't handle a helmet?

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It says he stood up after the crash and then collapsed. Maybe the helmet didn't matter in this case?

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...Until you do.

No, we don't know if a helmet would have made a difference here. No, a helmet doesn't help in all, possibly most, accidents. But why take the chance?

A bike helmet saved me serious injury, possibly death, and there was no other vehicle involved. Once second I was just fine, the next was I moving, face nearly-down on the pavement, leaving a really impressive streak of plastic behind me.

Side effect of wearing a helmet? Mussed up hair?

As my mother says; "Is your brain important to you?" Wear a damn helmet!

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Wicked Local Newton has his name now.

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His Facebook profile is pretty open. It's also clear from some of the pics in there that he (and his friends) didn't think much of safety when it came to night riding either.

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"Her Facebook profile is pretty open. It's also clear from some of the pics in there that she (and her friends) don't think much of not dressing provocatively when it came to going out."

Way to tapdance on the guy's grave, asshole.

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Tortured analogy is tortured. Why don't you come out and say what you intend to say?

Trust me, I'm not reveling in this guy's now-public jackassery. It's more of a disappointed tsk-tsk'ing really.

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Maybe you can share your thoughts with some of his friends and see what they have to say? Scooter weirdo.

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Just to remind Kaz what a classless creepball he is.

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You went three months in the past, hundreds of posts into the history of this website, just to add a new harassing and name-calling post directed at me personally that would shove this tragic incident back into the forefront of the website's tracker for your own personal obsession against me?

Congrats. You're pretty much everything you wrongfully claim me to be.

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It doesn't really matter, since he apparently blew through a solid red light. (Per preliminary investigation)

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You aren't keeping up on the laws bicyclists feel entitled to break. Ignoring red lights is right up their next to not wearing helmets. Both are self-evidently immaterial.

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And we have no idea WHY he traveled through the red light. It's a steep hill- did it occur to you that maybe he had brake failure, or a blown tire? Bicycle brakes work by friction on the rim, which heats the rim and tire tube. It's not uncommon for that heat to cause the tube to rupture, and when that happens, controlling the bike is extremely difficult.

Also: a number of the lights in Boston have very short yellows and instant switches between red in one direction and green in the perpendicular direction. In some, a cyclist who LEGALLY ENTERS the intersection could be hit by a car also legally entering the intersection.

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In some, a cyclist who LEGALLY ENTERS the intersection could be hit by a car also legally entering the intersection.

So who would be at fault here Brett, since someone is always at fault at a crash right?

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It's clearly the car's fault at that point, because bicyclists never do anything wrong that might get themselves killed....like ride into a moving vehicle.

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Seems the fault would lie with the traffic engineers who didn't follow state or federal rules on traffic light delays.

I mean really, why are you questioning who would be at fault if a cyclist enters an intersection at reasonable speed and can't clear it before the perpendicular direction gets a green?

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There is no way that anyone legally entering any intersection is going to hit a car that is also legally entering the intersection on a perpendicular street controlled by a traffic signal. If it's yellow, then it means you aren't allowed to enter the intersection if you aren't already in it. If you get a green and there's someone in the intersection, then you have no right to go until the intersection is clear.

In any case, this is completely immaterial. The car had a green light and had already taken the intersection to the point that the bicyclist hit the *rear* of their vehicle. He had no right to the intersection at the time he hit that car.

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Kaz, that's incorrect on two counts:

1. Yellow doesn't mean you aren't allowed to enter the intersection. Quoting the RMV's driver's manual:

A steady yellow light means the traffic signal is changing from green to red. You
must stop if it is safe to do so. If you are already stopped at an intersection or a
stop line, you may not proceed.

So if you haven't yet entered the intersection when the light turns yellow, but you're going fast enough that it's dangerous to stop, you are allowed to proceed through the intersection.

2. Sometimes the yellow phase is very short. In Brighton, going north on Chestnut Hill Ave crossing Comm. Ave (which is very wide there) I frequently enter the intersection when the light is green, and then it goes from green to yellow to red before I am all the way across.

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...but the general rule is that you cannot proceed into an intersection, regardless of "having a green light", if the intersection is not (in fact) clear.

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is the key phrase in your post here. Many courts might decide that you are at fault because you were going faster that you should have been. Since bikes can be cited for the speeding statute (Ch. 90 C. 17; basic speeding, not posted or absolute speeding), vehicles (or bikes) must not operate at a "speed greater than reasonable". In my legal guide it states "The motorist's speed was greater than reasonable and proper considering traffic, proper use of the way, and public safety."

Now the court might decide either way, but if you are going 90mph and the light turns yellow at x feet, you have y distance in which you should be able to stop. It might not be safe to slam on your brakes going 90mph when a light turns yellow at x amount of feet from an intersection.

Actually I think the town has to have their own ordinance in order to cite Chapter 90 (vehicle laws) violations.

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There are some yellow lights that create a catch-22 for bikes, though, especially at very wide intersections. That is, the yellow light is long enough for a car to get through in the time from green (to yellow) to red, but not long enough that a bike can get through in time.

So, I will sometimes speed up when approaching a green light to make sure I'm moving fast enough to clear the intersection before cross-traffic gets the green. Unfortunately, if the light then turns yellow, I'm now at a speed that would make it difficult, possibly unsafe, to stop.

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I'm not saying there aren't lights in this city with poor timing, but the exception is not the rule. If you are going the speed limit (30 mph tops on city surface streets), then you should be able to stop within about 75 feet at the farthest distance...about 3 car lengths. If you are within 3 car lengths of the line when the light goes yellow, you should be able to make it through, at speed, before the red (a 30 foot intersection should take less than a second to clear at 30 mph). Otherwise, you should stop. If you can't stop, then you were doing something else wrong (like speeding, as Pete says). Then you're welcome to 2 tickets if not more.

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You keep bringing up brake failure and blown tires. Chances of this are next to nil. Yes, bike brakes can heat up a rim and blow a tire given the right circumstances, none of which you'll find in Boston. There is no hill long or steep enough to pull that off. Lincoln Gap in VT - possible. Comm Ave in Newton - not a chance.

So, that leaves spontaneous brake failure - again, chances are next to nil. It doesn't just "happen", especially with a mechanical brake. In my more recent cycling history, 20 years and ~70K miles, I've had nothing even close to brake failure. Not only that, I've never even heard of someone's brakes failing - never.

So, instead of pulling stuff like this out of your ass, try to present plausible explanations.

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Ask anyone who cycles in the area about "snake bite" punctures from potholes. Spontaneous tube failure happens, too; maybe the tube was nicked upon installation and was on the verge of failure. Ride enough miles, and you get failure Just Because. People who don't ride don't understand that bike flats aren't a matter of if, but when.

And yes, rim brakes will cause a weak tube to fail. For example, if the tube is getting old, maybe just got pumped up to max pressure, and the cyclist hauls down on the brakes (saaaaay, to STOP FOR A RED LIGHT?), that heats things up fast. Or maybe he braked with the rear wheel, because so many people think that's "the safest"?

As for brake failure, it most certainly does happen. A snapped cable, or a pad that came out of alignment, or cable slippage. Why do you think you have a back brake, dumbass?

Inspection of the bike will show quite a bit. Hopefully the state police reconstruction crew actually look closely at the bike (I would imagine so, given a fatality was involved.)

Also: why are we relying on one witness as an absolute authority here?

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That would tend to stop him, not make him keep going (through a red light and into the side of a car).

The reason you have a back brake is that if you were going at a pretty good clip and jammed on just a front brake, you might flip. LIke this. It's not in case your front brake suddenly fails. Which, as merlin points out, is pretty darn rare. Usually brakes just get weaker as the shoes wear down, and you shorten your cables until it's time to buy new shoes. If you've had problems with cable slippage, or shoes suddenly flipping, or the like, you need to get a new mechanic. Those things don't happen if things are tightened properly.

Do you actually ride a bike?

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Do you actually ride a bike?
Yep, and unlike you, I know how to ride one properly. YOU DO NOT USE THE REAR BRAKE UNLESS YOUR FRONT BRAKE MALFUNCTIONS. http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html

OR maybe you'll believe Wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_brake_systems...

Or this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycl...

If he blew the tire that would tend to stop him

WRONG. Go into any bike shop and ask "what happens if your front tire blows out and you're braking hard?" They'll tell you the same thing that Wikipedia does:

Braking a wheel with a flat tire can cause the tire to come off the rim which greatly reduces friction and, in the case of a front wheel, result in a loss of balance.

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You're not much better at reading than you are at arguing, Brett.

From your source:

"There are several techniques for efficient braking on a standard, two-brake bicycle. The one most commonly taught is the 25-75 technique. This method entails supplying 75% of the stopping power to the front brake, and about 25% of the power to the rear."

And:

"If too much power is applied to the front brake, then the momentum of the rider propels him/her over the handlebars, thereby flipping the bicycle."

Really, you do make me laugh. Thanks!

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Read more than just the one fucking sentence you think justifies your view. Like Sheldon Brown's page, which you completely ignored.

"If too much power is applied to the front brake, then the momentum of the rider propels him/her over the handlebars"

Note the "TOO MUCH"? That's why we don't just grab the front brake as hard as possible. The reason people go over the handlebars is because they aren't used to braking with the front brake (because idiots like you tell them never to touch their front brake), and they don't know to brace themselves against the handlebars, again, because they were not taught to ride properly. If you read the article about motorcycle and bicycle dynamics, they specifically mention how the cyclist can move their weight backwards to get more effective braking:

For an upright bicycle on dry asphalt with excellent brakes, pitching will probably be the limiting factor. The combined center of mass of a typical upright bicycle and rider will be about 60 cm (24 in) back from the front wheel contact patch and 120 cm (47 in) above, allowing a maximum deceleration of 0.5 g (5 m/s² or 16 ft/s²).[11] If the rider modulates the brakes properly, however, pitching can be avoided. If the rider moves his weight back and down, even larger decelerations are possible.

And note that the only difference between Sheldon's advice and Wikipedia's: Sheldon says only brake with your front brake, wikipedia says to also brake with your rear.

Fun fact: I've had this argument with people who have nearly crashed into the back of me, and the crash was precipitated by the sound of their rear wheel scraping, locked up. Even when presented with direct evidence that they're doing it wrong, they still refuse to believe.

Are we done here?

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I was probably riding centuries before you were born, as I take it from the way you regularly throw tantrums that you're a teenager or, at the most, in your early twenties. Sheldon Brown is a great resource. I bought one of my current bikes from his shop. But you don't understand what he's written very well either.

You shout: "YOU DO NOT USE THE REAR BRAKE UNLESS YOUR FRONT BRAKE MALFUNCTIONS."

This is not what he says.

Keep reading - you'll get it eventually!

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that if I replaced my front brake pads 2-3x as often as my rear pads, I was probably doing it right.

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I was driving along Centre St. in JP near the rotary at the Arboretum. And what do I see? A woman riding in traffic (in the middle of two lanes) with no helmet in rush hour traffic. Un-freaking-believable.

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She's allowed to take the ENTIRE LANE if she wants to.

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It sounds as if she was splitting the lanes and riding between cars. That's not legal. If she wants to pass the traffic, she has to do it on the right side of the entire right-of-way.

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allowed to be there. However, she was riding in the right lane, then moved into the middle of two lanes of traffic then over to the left again. It's not safe cycling. And she's not wearing a helmet so she is putting herself at risk. Sigh.

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You mean.....preparing to make a left turn?

Do you propose she teleport across?

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I wonder when we will be reading about Brett in the local news: Unhelmeted cyclist injured while running a red light.

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For those who are interested, I'm going to be participating in the Ride of Silence on Wednesday evening to commemorate cyclists who have been killed on our streets. It starts at 7pm near the Davis Sq. T stop and goes about six miles to Boston Common.

Rain cancels. Here are the details.

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First, my sympathy goes to the family.

Got this quote from boston.com:

Allan Roberts, Newton resident, complained about the safety of biking in Newton.

"I think it's really unfortunate, but it really shows that biking in Newton is still not safe. They are always talking about making this a more bike friendly town, and how they are going to improve biking, but it still hasn't happened,'' Roberts said in an interview.

Hey Allan, this isn't a "bike friendly town" issue. No matter how bike friendly you make Newton, it's never going to be safe enough to blow thru red lights.

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And I otherwise operate my bicycle in full accordance with the law when I ride it to and from work every day. Hand signals, front and back lights, the whole shebang. I also wear a helmet. I wish that other cyclists would ride the way I do, but we don't compose a hive mind so there's very little that I can do to change their behavior. I'm just one person.

Most drivers are just fine. They don't cut me off, they pass me with plenty of clearance, or they wait if there's not enough room to pass. Same goes for most pedestrians, skaters, scooterists, mopederasts and everyone else. Most of you are a pleasure to commute with.

But every once in a while – maybe once every two weeks or so – some driver does something that makes me genuinely feel as though I am going to be seriously injured, or worse. MBTA buses are the worst, but there's plenty of blame to go around.

To those of you who commute by car and always follow the law, how often do you feel like you're going to be seriously injured, or worse, during your commute? I'm guessing that it's not very often, and that when it does happen it leaves you shaken for the rest of the day. What would you do if these close calls happened with unsettling frequency, no matter what route you took? Would you become angry? Outraged? Violent? Would you get organized? What would you do?

I don't think cyclists should break traffic laws while demanding that those in other types of vehicles obey them. But even for those of us who follow all the laws, bicycling in this town carries an intolerably high risk of injury or death. This needs to change, even if changing it is inconvenient for some people.

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Wicked Local Newton talks to co-workers.

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A posting on von Guerard’s Facebook page from May 14 testified to his enthusiasm [about good taste in beer].

I expect you to send them a strongly worded letter, The Beer Guy. Goddamn Facebook stalkers, amirite?

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and another to use info you dug up to shit all over a dead kid.

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"He didn’t have a lot of fear in his life.”

Sounds like he could have used a little bit more.

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Hey Sock-Puppet,

From what I have heard about this very cool dude who happens to have been killed in a biking accident, he sounds like he might have needed a little less dare-devilry in his life, but he also sounds like a much better person than you will ever be so maybe it isn't your place to give this guy any advice other than, I don't know, avoid having fucking accidents and dying. Is that the kind of advice you would like to give to people? Maybe, I dunno, "don't get sick because you could die" is good advice also. People die you sanctimonious prick and he doesn't need you pissing on his grave. Everybody dies from something. Unless you die of old age in your sleep I guess there are a lot of ways to go that are just a little bit one's own fault more or less.

Whit

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I hear from your Facebook page that you don't know a darn thing about me. And my plan is, I guarantee you, to die from old age in my sleep. I'll do everything I can to accomplish that goal.

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...what a wonderfully mature discussion on this topic.

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