Category: Bicycle Advocacy
Kristy Gough and Matt Peterson will be remembered by friends, family and fellow cyclists during a memorial bike ride through Stevens Creek Canyon in Cupertino on Saturday.
The bike ride has been organized jointly by their two teams, Team Roaring Mouse Cycles (Peterson) and Third Pillar Racing Team (Gough). Riders will meet at Foothill College, 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos, at 2:30 for a 3 p.m. departure. They'll visit the crash site to share memories about the two before returning.
Meanwhile, a memorial service is scheduled for Matt Peterson at 7 p.m. at the Sports Basement, 1590 Bryant Street, San Francisco. As with the bike ride, everyone is invited.
You can check more updates and leave comments at two websites; Remembering Matt and Kristy Gough at Third Pillar Racing.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/12/memorial-bike-ride-set-saturday-for-kristy-gough-and-matt-peterson/
Update: Deputy had a driving record
Friends and teammates of fallen cyclists Matt Peterson and Kristy Gough are planning services and bicycle rides in their memories. A ride for Kristy is being put together for the Napa Valley and a memorial service is in the planning stages for Matt later this week in the San Francisco Bay area.
You can visit a new website, Remembering Matt, to find details on the service and leave a comment about him.
After reading and writing about the senseless tragedy that took Matt and Kristy, I headed out on a ride to remind myself that cycling is supposed to be fun. I had just oiled up the bike and rode harder than I usually do. The exertion helped blow off the anger and frustration that I felt about the situation for cyclists using our roads …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/11/remembrances-planned-for-matt-peterson-and-kristy-gough/
Two cyclists were struck and killed by a Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputy whose vehicle crossed a double-yellow line on Sunday.
Dead are Kristy Gough, 31, of Oakland, and Matt Peterson, 30, of San Francisco. The highly ranked amateur cyclists (Gough was a pro triathlete as well) were in a group of at least four that were riding on Stevens Pass Road, a popular road for cyclists.
Peterson died at the scene and Gough died after being airlifted to Stanford University Hospital. According to news reports, dozens of cyclists gathered there …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/10/cyclists-kristy-gough-and-matt-peterson-struck-down-in-cupertino/
Sometimes the good guys — that would be bicyclists — prevail.
After advocates mounted a bike protest ride and conducted a traffic count, the Seattle transportation department is agreeing to replace sharrows on Stone Way North with bike lanes.
Merchants along the road that heads north from the Burke Gilman Trail insisted last summer that four lanes were needed on Stone Way because of truck traffic. The city installed sharrows on the uphill portion instead of bike lanes, an action which bike advocates said created a dangerous situation …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/08/victory-for-seattle-bike-advocacy-stone-way-to-get-bike-lane/
Bicycles. Cars. Hit-and-runs. Probated sentences. The beat goes on.
A Texas woman convicted of striking a bicyclist and not stopping to help was sentenced to five years probation and a six-month probated jail sentence. The cyclist died five months later.
The Lubbock jurors deliberated two hours before coming up with this ridiculous sentence. It means the hit-and-run driver won't serve any jail time as long as she abides by the terms of her probation for five years.
In his closing arguments, the prosecutor asked for the five-year maximum sentence:
“Why would you consider probation for someone that didn't even give Brett the consideration some people would give a dog.”
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/07/no-jail-time-for-hit-and-run-bike-fatality-in-texas/
Not to belabor the issue of laws that require motorists to give bicycle riders 3 feet when passing, but there's always the question of enforcement once the law is passed.
Here's a story passed along to me from Utah about a cyclist who took matters into his own hands after a passenger in a close-passing pickup swiped him with his hand.
Startled, Jason Bultman still had the presence of mind to copy down the license plate. Police followed up and the Salt Lake City prosecutor's office filed charges in February, making the first prosecution of the 3-foot passing law enacted two years earlier.
If successful, it might empower many other harassed bicyclists to file reports with police. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/06/utah-cyclist-goes-after-3-foot-violator/
Bicycling fatalities accounted for 773 deaths in 2006, a number that's too high despite being 01.6% lower than the previous year.
Accidents leading to bicycling deaths occurred more often in urban areas, at non-intersection locations, between 5 and 9 p.m. during the summer months. Nearly one-fourth of the bike riders had blood-alcohol content of .08%, which would qualify them for DUI if they were behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.
These are just some of the findings in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report for bicycle deaths and injuries for the year 2006, the latest data available.
Bike riders killed on the road are remembered by the annual Ride of Silence, (May 21, 2008), and by the white Ghost Cycles located at the scene of the tragedy. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/03/biking-deaths-showed-slight-decline-in-2006/
Why should motorists drive responsibly when the criminal justice system often shows such a lack of concern for the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists? Take the case of Ephraim Schwartz that was adjudicated on Thursday by Seattle Municipal Court Judge George Holifield.
Schwartz admitted to talking on his cellphone when he struck and killed a pedestrian in a crosswalk in November 2006. There were no skid marks at the scene. He didn't even see Tatsuo Nakata.
This happened 1-1/2 years after Schwartz drove across the centerline, hit bicyclist Ilsa Govan, and received a ticket for driving on the wrong side of the road. There's also a traffic-signal violation in the period. In court on Thursday, Govan said:
“I just wish there was something that could have been done after he hit me.” …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/03/01/maybe-this-seattle-judge-needs-to-commute-by-bike/
A petition that asks Google to add bicycle routes in a “Bike There” application for finding directions at Google Maps is gaining a lot of support already.
The idea was broached by an Austin bicyclist at the Google Maps “Bike There” blog less than two weeks ago, and already a petition at PetitionOnline has more than 3,800 signatures.
Several commenters at blogs promoting the idea suggest that Google already is working on this, and plans to roll it out later in 2008 …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/02/29/bike-there-petition-for-google-maps-gets-support/
Sometimes statistics can be helpful in explaining problems and finding solutions; other times they can only confuse the issues.
The latter is the case in the annual “Measures, Markers and Mileposts” report issued by the Washington state Department of Transportation. The 100-plus page document gives in-depth performance reports for highway maintenance, pavement conditions, environmental control and pedestrian and bicycle safety.
But I found the 2 pages devoted to pedestrian and bicycle safety to be sorely lacking. The two tables of bicycle fatality statistics were drawn from federal and state databases and were offered with little explanation …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2008/02/29/bicycle-fatality-stats-in-washington-highways-report/
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