Bicyclist taken away in ambulance after getting hit by city trash truck

Why don't just move to Europe or NYC since you are quite enamored with the two places, judging by previous posts?

Seriously, I HAVE LIVED ON THE CONTINENT, including in Paris, and Germany; trust me on this, they have their share of crazy drivers, road rage, etc., You make it sound like some kind of paradise, while here in Boston we're like a third world country.

And another thing: Scandinavia, even the Netherlands, Germany [both of which are semi-multicultural] and Switzerland, are not in the same league of being uber diverse and multicultural [or being an extremely large nation state which minus foreign immigrant and 'migrant' influences, is in and of itself very culturally and regionally diverse] as the United States of America. Generally speaking, the more cohesive and dare I say culturally homogeneous a society/nation is, the more stable they are. We in the U.S. are afflicted, at least in large urban areas like Greater Boston, with major and pernicious culture clashes. And by that, I don't just mean foreign based cultures and attitudes, I also mean the attitudes and culture/traditions people from other parts of our country bring with them, here. This of course isn't unique to the Boston area.

The U.S. [North America, Canada included] are a auto-centric nation over-all. Most likely primarily because we're so geographically big and spread out, much more so than western Europe or certainly the UK and Ireland. I was born and raised [and live] in big cities, so I'm used to using public transportation [subways,buses, etc] and walking around; most Americans [who live in vast suburban sprawl] aren't. Many of them will drive a 1/3rd of a mile to a store rather than walk, or bike. It is what it is. And many of these people come into Boston and other cities to work, go to school, a hospital, to clubs, and so-on. And they don't leave their attitude at the door when arrive at the city limits, or when they get off the exit ramp and attempt to use Charles St pass the common like it was the autobahn. I'm only surprised more people are crippled and killed at the intersection of Charles and Beacon.

Oooo, look who read the Boston Globe article recently and now thinks they can tell the cycling community something we didn't already know. Tell me, are you white, and did you read a paper on racial discrimination, and then start going around telling black people about the civil rights movement?

And since everyone has bike safety training, there's much more mutual respect on the roads.

The mutual respect comes from everyone having experience riding in traffic, not "bike safety training." In other words: drivers identify with cyclists, instead of just considering them moving roadblocks. They know what it's like to be nearly sideswiped, or have someone pass them and then cut them off, or have someone oncoming cut them off.

The infrastructure actually came later.

The laws protecting cyclists and making drivers at fault by default in a collision unless they can prove they were not at fault, did not.

Nice try.

MUST drive along the sidewalk along Boylston after they've done their work and are returning to the maintenance "pit" across from the Boylston Place alley. And care to explain why they need to do this work during the morning rush hour, which is one of the times when pedestrian traffic is at its peak?. Plus, nothing excuses the drivers from leaving their pickups stopped (and idling) because they decide to chat with their buddy.

FYI, I used to see smaller Parks and Recreation vehicles that were designed to operate on the pedestrian pathways of the Common at one point - not sure why the abandoned them in favor of the current road behemoths they now use.