Lauren Ward found guilty of biking into big rig

The Palo Alto Daily News (hosted by Mercury News) is covering last night's CHP report detailing Lauren Ward's fatal accident with a big rig on November 4.

According to a redacted CHP report released Monday night, Vera was driving his truck west on Alpine Road in the right lane between 10 and 15 mph at about 3:40 p.m. and Ward was to the immediate left of the vehicle sharing the lane. Ward, who was riding at an unknown speed, "unsafely turned" her Trek bicycle and fell to her right side, the report states.
...
The trucker told the CHP the collision happened as he was moving from the right westbound lane into a lane that turned right onto southbound Interstate Highway 280. Vera told the CHP he had his right blinker on and was looking at his right rear view mirror, but when he looked forward he heard a "bump."


It strikes me that short of swerving across the entire lane, even an "unsafe turn" causing a crash means that the driver was *way* too close to the cyclist. Big rig drivers need to be especially careful because their mass prevents them from braking or moving quickly, and any collision with a cyclist is easily fatal.

Maybe we need to draft legislation alongside the three-foot rule that increases the required distance to a cyclist in proportion to the weight of the vehicle.

Read the full story on the Mercury News website.

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