Lamorinda's Cyclists - Do You Feel Safe On Our Roads?

EastBayDaze sees you guys out there most every day, riding alone or in packs of riotous Spandex, risking your lives on roadways travelled by six-thousand pound Suburbans and on those slick floors at Starbucks, your bike shoes sending you skating like Dorothy Hamill while your pack lines up for an after-ride chai latte.

First, thanks for engaging in a noise-less, pollution-free sport. We've spent many hours chafing our inner thighs on lonely country roads, and it's a great thing. Second, we'd no sooner take our bikes out where you do than carry a stick of dynamite in our bike shorts.

You may ask why. Then again, you may already know. A lot of us our scaredy cats and don't want to die under the wheels of a Denali - which has just happened again, we're sorry to say, down near Dublin.

If you haven't heard, the accident occurred Friday in the 8600 block of Camino Tassajara, prime biking roadway and during a hot-blooded commute, when John Greaves, 44, was headed south on an evening training ride when he was struck from behind by a green Honda Accord driven by a 40-year-old Cupertino woman.

CHP investigators dissecting the fatal accident say the woman lost control of her car, pinning the bicyclist underneath as she swerved into oncoming traffic. She was then herself struck by a northbound gray Range Rover.

Greaves, a dedicated biker and financial services adviser from Walnut Creek, came out on the short end, of course, and was declared dead at the scene. EDITOR'S NOTE: As it happens, another fatal accident was reported in Malibu, California today.

We hesitate a little when we write those words. Dead at the scene. But we've been to more than one of these accidents in our past life to know what that means: the automotive fluid puddling in the road, glass, personal items - a shoe, maybe a wallet - and then the inevitable yellow cover and the shape beneath it.

The Cupertino woman suffered major injuries and was air-evacced to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek. The Range Rover driver, a Danville man in his 30s, was treated for minor injuries and, most probably, shock.

But here's the kicker, and our reason for not sharing our roadways with you folks while riding 20 pounds of bicycle. Although several people saw the accident stopped and dialed it in, appropriately, several others merely took time to nudge the wreckage out of the way before they re-embarked on their daily journey back to home, hearth, and plasma TV.

Greaves' crumpled bicycle was found in the southbound lane when a Contra Costa Times reporter arrived at the scene. Having done this ourselves a couple of hundred times, we can guess what they were thinking - and perhaps they were just a little angry at how some humans can be so unthinking, so uncaring.

We understand, that's why we won't share the roadways, as we said. This accident is under investigation, with the usual toxicological tests underway, but we may never understand the dynamic at work on that particular stretch of road at that particular moment. Perhaps it will all fit neatly into an accident report. Maybe not.

We'll see. Meanwhile, you two-wheeled folks, what are your thoughts about sharing our roads with vehicles that can take your life if their driver is impaired, distracted, or incompetent behind the wheel.

We won't do it any more, why do you?
Posted by J.D. at http://eastbaydaze.blogspot.com 8 comments