I understand that this was potentially an accident and out of the control of the driver and cyclist, but isn't the city a bit to blame here for such a god-awful intersection and ill-thought out bicycle transportation planning.

It doesn't take a transportation engineer to see that this intersection has been an accident waiting to happen for a long time now.

"It was Nobody's Fault"

The recent deaths of Brett Jarolimek and Tracey Sparling were labeled in the media and by police as "nobody's fault."

This is ludicrous. IT WAS SOMEBODY'S FAULT! As as a bicyclist I have to conclude that it was shared fault. Whenever I am riding in the bike lane with traffic to my left and I see turn sgnals ahead, I assume the vehicle is going to turn. If I don't see turn signals blinking I assume they might turn. Either way I position myself in front of the adjacent vehicle, again making the assumption that they will see me and not intentionally run over me, or place myself behind the vehicle so I have a chance to swerve in case they do make a turn. I know I have more at stake in avoiding a collision than they do. It appears from reports that I've read that neither of the two cyclists took such precautions.

But the drivers of the vehicles are not only morally bound to check for hazards, such as bikers, pedestrians or whatever, but they are legally bound to check in the direction of their turn to ascertain that it is safe to make the turn. And it appears that neither one did. That sounds like negligence at the very least, but nobody has been changed with anything at this point.

All of these large vehicles (cement trucks, garbage trucks)have a mirror system that will allow their operators to see practically anything alongside their vehicles - IF THEY WILL ONLY USE THEM AND LOOK! I had an almost identical experience happen last week when a local garbage truck went down my road and I pulled out at the same time and fell in behind him. He couldn't have missed noticing me (although I found out later he was on his cell phone at the time). He came up to a signal intending to turn right on red when traffic allowed. There was a full bike lane to his right which I could have legally occupied because I was turning right too, but with my mind flashing back to recent events in Portland I opted to just await his next move and remain behind him. That's when I noticed by looking in his side mirror that he was on his cell phone. He never gave this mirror a single glance, was not aware I was there, and then turned right, completely running over the bike lane. And then we wonder why these things keep happening? DUH!

Are we to assume that Gresham Sanitary has not tried to raise the awareness of their drivers to this type of collision? I would guess that they have. Or are some people just too stupid or lazy to care one way or the other? Sure looks like it to me.

We have laws that are presumably passed to protect us from one another. But laws that are not enforced DO NOT EXIST! And until we start enforcing these laws and citing people for violations, we would be equally served if we just struck the laws from the books. We don't enforce seatbelt laws, teenage cell phone use laws, immigration laws, speed limits, or littering - to name a few. Law enforcement counters that they can't cite everyody for everything (that's nothing more than an excuse for doing nothing), but can't they cite anybody who violates a law when they see it happen? Even if they only pulled somebody over and did five minutes of education, this would be an improvement.

But in the meantime those of us who choose to ride our bikes, whether because it's the responsible thing to do, or to reduce our carbon footprint, or to get exercise of just to experience life at a different level, we will have to realize we are at war with the driving public and the people charged with ensuring our safety. And we'd better be prepared to ride that way.

David Cary