Former Amazon star exec killed in bike accident
postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com
postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com
Here's her ride log from Strava over the same segment a week ago (you'll need to log in to see details on the segment):
http://www.strava.com/activities/81767720#1663862661
And here's a screenshot - you can see her speed jump to 30mph just at the blind corner before Elk Tree road, and she accelerates past Elk Tree to 36mph:
http://i.imgur.com/wd4sOjm.png
If she was going 30+ on a downhill (-6.5% grade), it's possible the car was already turning when she hit the corner and she was unable to decelerate, maybe the pavement was wet. But it is about 300ft, so I would expect her to be able to brake in time.
And yes, this would also mean that turn would be dangerous for other cars as well in this situation, but modern cars actually have a much easier time of safely breaking while curving and going downhill than a person on a bicycle would (way easier to crash the bike or slide it out) and the car would be further out to the left of the lane than a bike would.
Of course, this is all speculation, and this is a horrible tragedy no matter how it happened, but I think some people are calling for the van driver's head way too early on this. And I say that as someone who does quite a lot of biking both mountain biking and on the roads.
Ultimately, I think most people would agree that regardless of where fault lies in this particular accident (which doesn't change the tragedy of it at all) this is a very dangerous intersection to have both bicyclists and drivers travelling at the current speed limit with such blind turns, curves and grade involved.
I ride close to 6000 miles/year, most road cycling, racing criteriums and road races. Going over the bars because I simply grabbed the front too hard isn't even the top-20 things I worry about.
One question though, her IQ was 173? Einstein's was between 160-180.
It's not about how big it is. It's about how you use it.
Or as TBBT mentions, Sheldon has an IQ of ~180 but he didn't know you could call soup delivery (or something like that)
Or to make a simpler analogy: Being 6ft tall helps if you play volleyball (may be even a requirement), makes no difference if you play soccer.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6415373
(posted earlier in this thread) for more about the late Amazon executive's IQ score.
I braked, and went flying hard over the handlebars. I am not sure if I was going over before the manhole or not, but the hill radically changed how the brakes worked for me.
I may have been leaning forward, I may have jammed the wrong brake. The bike may have had any of the problems you list. That combined with the manhole + hill speed was probably what did it.
I now use the public bike system in Montreal, bixi. Very convenient, and they're built like tanks, so I feel confident it won't happen again.
If you're not prepared for it and slam the front brake on your weight will shift forwards and you'll have lift off.
The bigger problem on a road bike are the skinny tires and twitchy handling make it very easy to fishtail and topple over when braking at speed.
The same is true of motorcycyles, which is why you should allow greater following distance behind a motorcycle than a car, if you're in a car.
The thing is, in a car you can basically be unprepared, then mash the brakes when somethings wrong. It's possible that'll cause you to lose control, but in general an emergencey stop whether controlled or not will stop the vehicle very quickly without causing any direct injury.
By contrast, on a (motor)bike if you mash the brakes you'll slip or even tumble head over heels. You're not wearing a seatbelt; and furthermore your vehicle loses control a lot less gracefully.
If you're prepared, it's a different story since you can rearrange your center of mass, and get a good grip beforehand, but in an accident situation... a car stops much more quickly.
The real limiting factor on road bikes is traction.
Disc brakes on road bikes might give a distinctive advantage, even with greater weight. Disc brake rims need not have a braking surface and thus can be lighter having less angular momentum.
The only time my rear wheel has left the ground while braking is when I've tried to do it intentionally. And I've made plenty of hard stops in thousands of miles of riding.
My wife would kill me if I got hit by a car. Two days ago when I was on a bike ride (off road/cross), two somber police officers walked up to our house. My wife was sure it had to do with me getting hit by a car. They were only looking for someone who used to live near us years ago. It gave her a big scare.
Motorbikes would be a different story.
For wet conditions, disc brakes would have an advantage on road bikes for others, I'm not sure.
I'd say that pretty decent evidence she wasn't trying to go fast.
She may well have been going at a high speed when the crash occurred, but to me it looks like her past behaviour shows she was careful.
Edit: OTOH, she only has ~900 km & ~50 hours cycling on Strava this year. Maybe she's not as experienced as the article had me think. But maybe she's just not a Strava junkie.
Edit 2: Ohhh.. this is near Old La Honda? I'm from Australia and even I know the Old La Honda climb (I am a cyclist though). If it is true someone turned in front of her then that person should have certainly known to look for bicycles.
BTW, I find it ironic that Strava gives cyclists better post-crash analysis than it is possible to get from a car.
One possibility I don't think I've seen mentioned yet is that the driver saw her but misjudged her speed. Based on the pictures people have linked to, it looks like the curve was far enough away that someone not familiar with the speed of bikes in that area might think that he's got plenty of time to make his turn and clear her lane long before she gets to him. It takes a lot longer than most people realize to judge the speed of an object that is heading almost straight toward you.
https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=elk+tree+road%2C+Port...
If you're going to get hit from behind, it's probably because you swerved or a driver (going much faster than you) didn't see you and extra speed is not going to save you. Surviving the initial hit because you were riding fast doesn't mean much when your body slams into a guardrail or some other stationary object at 45 miles per hour.
But still, although you can see cars at intersections, whether you see them in time to react is the important question and speed is a critical factor there.
So there's a couple of scenarios:
1) driver sees cyclist and tries to turn left in front of her at too close of a distance, causing cyclist to collide with driver, or swerve into other traffic, or fall down
2) driver starts turn just as cyclist comes around corner, but for whatever reason, driver is taking too long (e.g. car that made left turn in front of it suddenly stops), cyclist does not have sufficient stopping distance, or may be exceeding speed limit. Cyclist evasive action leads to crash.
In many of these freak accidents, the knee jerk reaction is to blame the person who is more in power (the person with the car), but I wouldn't jump to conclusions. It might be a bad intersection that is just waiting for this kinds of accidents of bad timing.
All signs point to the driver not seeing her and turning into her path when she was well past the corner.
I would recommend all bicyclists to look into motorcycle safety tips before riding on the road with cars.
I almost got broadsided last week while doing 42mph. I was able to slow down to a reasonable speed on a steeper road than the one pictured.
EDIT: at those speeds and on such a curve, she probably was riding in the hoods with her hands on the brakes. If she saw the van after the curve, she could have slowed down to a far slower speed. Then again, people die from just walking if you hit your head just right.
Is there any kind of big-data-gathering programme looking at accident data to see where the accident black spots are?
PDF warning
http://www.cityofboston.gov/images_documents/Crash Report 2013 FINAL reduced 2_tcm3-38304.pdf
Appendix B contains a review of other cities' collision reports.
edit: HN fails with spaces in the URL. The link to the PDF can be found on http://www.cityofboston.gov/bikes/bikesafety/ .
http://blog.accursedware.com/nypd-crash-data-band-aid/
In fact, it's not a given that it's being methodically collected in the first place.
Might not need it every day, but you could have it when traveling into new areas.
Thus, my personal philosophy when I'm out is this: Assume all the cars are out to kill you and act accordingly. It has served me well so far, though they are called "accidents" for a reason. Stay safe and have fun everyone!
As fitness becomes more socially connected and leaderboards get more attention for popular routes, I wonder if we'll expect to see more aggressive riding and more accidents like these?
I also know there are a few other areas people tell me to be careful, mostly the Berkeley Hills around Tilden (a cyclist died there in 2010 trying to beat a personal best on Strava) and on Hwy 1 on the way up to Mt Tam due to the large number of cars headed to Stinson Beach and Muir Woods.
Be careful out there.
How does the fact that she previously traveled that stretch at a reasonable 36mph contribute to the discussion? If the point is to determine her guilt, it misses the mark. It does, however, come off as insensitive to the deceased.
In any case, I've seen a lot of analysis on braking times/distance vs speed. To this I will just add that I have a number of friends who have been taken out by vehicles suddenly turning in front of them -- it is one of the great dangers of riding. As to why that happens, it's typically either: the driver failed to account for the cyclist's speed, or failed to notice the cyclist.
And as for Skyline, there are a number of factors that make it a dangerous road to be on. One is the large number of car and motorcycle enthusiasts who drive its length at reckless speeds (doesn't seem a factor here, but motorist deaths are extremely common on Skyline). Another is the high contrast lighting conditions the trees paint on the road -- something I always worry about when I ride that road for any sizeable stretch.
To be honest, speed is your friend up there. The closer your speed matches the passing traffic, the safer you are. At least until someone turns into you, and then the only safe speed would be no speed at all.
"It's a very blind curve and bicycles come flying around that corner, and right before the corner there's a turn on Elk Tree Road and sometimes things happen too fast," Lazarus said. "People are driving 45 miles per hour on the road and there's no place for a bicycle to go."
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news%2Flocal%2Fpeni...
If a driver had turned in front of a car going 45, causing a collision, no one would talk about the speeding car "flying around the corner." It would be a failure to yield to oncoming traffic, period.
FYI, the speed limit on that stretch of road is 35 mph:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Elk+Tree+Rd,+Woodside,+CA&hl=...
https://www.google.com/search?q=18140+Skyline+Boulevard%2C+W...
In other words, for no reason other than hubris/machismo, you're choosing to significantly increase your likelihood of wrecking your car (and/or others' vehicles) and possibly killing or maiming yourself (and/or others).
It just takes a bit of black ice, loose gravel, spilled oil, confusing shadows, distractions in the car (like spilled coffee) or outside of the car (like a bird or rock hitting your windshield, or a deer leaping into the side of your car -- to use examples that have happened to me personally), another distracted driver who has veered into your lane, and boom, you're done. They're done. Maybe the 12-year-old riding a bike on the side is done.
Sorry, this is an overreaction to a throwaway comment, but bad drivers who think they're good drivers are friggin' everywhere, and the resultant loss of life and limb is staggering.
Limits are based on ideal conditions. This includes the vehicles stopping ability. If a bike is incapable of braking as quickly as a car then the rider should not be travelling at the posted limit.
[0]https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Elk+Tree+Rd,+Woodside,+CA&hl=...
Here is the intersection in question, from the perspective of the van that was in the accident: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Elk+Tree+Rd,+Woodside,+CA&hl=...
The van could have begun to make the left hand turn before the bicyclist even came around the corner.
Definitely not. However, the woman in the audio clip points out that there is both a blindspot and the sun makes it doubly difficult to see people around that corner.
We have no context of the situation on which to assign blame. I trust the police and witnesses involved will help sort things out. Whether or not we assign blame on Hacker News seems somewhat irrelevant.
This just looks like a dangerous intersection to drive on, let alone bike on.
I am so tired of the snobby biker community/high tech overlap in the venn diagram of the startup world.
There is no value in this discussion and nothing but troll bait.
This is apparently not an isolated incident, as other cyclists and motorcycles have had accidents on this street, due to its winding path and poor visibility.
https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=Elk+Tree+Road%2C+Wood...
Bicyclists can do ~35mph on that stretch, which is about 50 feet per second. She was around the bend for at least 3 seconds before she impacted the van, plenty of time for the van to see her and for her to slow down or turn off if the van had turned before she came around the bend.
More likely than not, she was already around the bend, nearly to the intersection when the driver turned. It's quite shady in that section, so it's possible the driver lost her in the shadows, or just wasn't paying close enough attention.
Apparently there have been accidents there before.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/peninsul...
http://allthingsd.com/20130919/tragedy-amazons-first-cfo-and...
Another very sad day.
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/913789-Fatality-on-...
"A 50-year-old woman was riding her bicycle downhill on the northbound lane on Skyline when she collided with a minivan that was making a turn toward her lane."
First, background for people who don't know the area:
So this is in Woodside, the hills just west of Palo Alto. It's a nice area where you get more space and nature than living in Menlo Park/PA/MV, at the cost of having a fairly slow drive to get anywhere.
Skyline, the road she was on, is the main north-south way through that area. It's a one-lane-each-way, narrow-shoulder, trees-on-all-sides (leading to weird lighting at most hours) road that is fairly straight for that area, but still has some curves. I think the speed limit is 40mph.
The stretch of Skyline she was on is a very popular bike route. Some people will bike a lot of Skyline, but that ~one mile stretch is especially popular. Old La Honda Rd is a narrow, windy road that is one of the most famous cycling climbs in the area; it's got good shade and is a very steady 7% grade for the whole 3.5 miles. It's intense. Go out on a weekend and you will run into other cyclists, usually many others.
When you get to the top and want to loop back towards Palo Alto/etc, you basically have two options. One is to just go back down, but descending a road that steep and windy, especially given that there's basically always a cliff on one side, is pretty frightening. So I always take the other option, which is to take Skyline down to highway 84, the same direction and stretch of road she was doing.
That always feels like the safe part of the descent to me--it's mostly straight, people drive slightly slower than on 84, and it's not as steep of a descent as 84. 84 is frightening because there still isn't a shoulder, there's some really steep sections, there's some tight switchbacks, and people drive 50 mph.
But, sure enough, where her accident was on Skyline, there's a big blind curve, and not very far after it there's a tiny road (basically a driveway) off to the right. It sounds like as she came around that curve, a van that was headed the opposite direction on Skyline turned left in front of her into that small road, and she ended up hitting the van.
Scary.
https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=elk+tree+road%2C+Port...
And this was on a London Cycle Superhighway during rush hour with dry pavement and perfect visibility. Up on Skyline Blvd it's way worse even when sunny because of the light shining through the redwoods.
"Then she used her 173 IQ to pass California's high school-equivalency exam. At 19, she graduated from California State University at Fresno and took the CPA exam (scoring second best in the country that year). "
While it would be possible to verify that someone graduated from CSU at 19 (you call them) in general I would imagine that there is no easy way to verify someone's IQ or that they were 2nd best in the country at the CPA exam. I would imagine that journalists repeat things like this blindly and they become the truth about people when stated as if fact.
Of course journalists are generally going to repeat things that they are told but certain things are much harder to verify by any third party reading (as opposed to "graduated from Harvard" which could be disproved by anyone).
http://www.aicpa.org/BecomeACPA/CPAExam/ExamOverview/Downloa...
If you look at the winners from 1982 (exactly 31 years ago) someone named Joy Dianne Catalano from California had the second best score in the country. So looks like that claim is legitimate.
source: I ran a CPA Exam startup and know wayyy more than anyone ever should about the CPA exam
Same thing with a CPA exam - presumably, the professional organization keeps records of scores for some years and it would probably be possible to pull their file. (Similar to how you can contact a university registrar's office to verify a person's claim to a degree.)
Keep in mind, I'm not saying that the journalist actually did their fact-checking to this level of persistence - just that they could.
[1] e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Modern_t...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification
(a Wikipedia article with more current and more authoritative references than the other Wikipedia article already kindly shared here) for more details.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Watt_Sells#Award
I think people should really give it a second thought when riding bikes along side automobiles. It doesn't seem like the best decision one could make. It's really scary.
The driver sounds like they were fairly young and inexperienced. I drive slowly around that area because there are so many cyclists and I take my time passing them. Their safety and peace of mind is worthy of a few moments of my time.
While I've been lucky enough not to see a full-on crash, I've seen a few situations where bikers were almost in very serious accidents here in San Diego where I felt the biker would have totally been at fault if the collision wasn't luckily averted.
On the other hand, when it comes to cultural and (to some extent) legal ideas about "responsibility," I do think that the idea that "with great power comes great responsibility" (thanks, Spiderman) is a pretty decent heuristic. Lots of people have no concept of their own vulnerability, and lots of people have no sense of their own power to do harm, but one will hurt me and the other hurts others. Plus, and maybe for that reason, I think it's a lot more difficult to forget vulnerability (it's obvious every time a car flies past 3 feet away) than it is to forget power--passing a bicyclist with a couple feet of room just doesn't feel scary to lots of drivers.
When I hear people here saying that they can go right up to the speed limit on a bike in poor visibility without any concerns, it makes me think cyclists should go through the same process.
I'm a cyclist, and I rode that same stretch, and my bike computer told me I never went above 25 mph. Because I value my life.
It doesnt mean much that skyline is dangerous as fuck. On a motorcycle or in a car there is a luxury of being able to slow down for blind curves. On a bike, the choices are being one with a car, breaking a collar bone on a redwood or plummeting hundreds of feet. Wiping out or considering leaping over might be options.
For anyone not familiar with Skyline, it's a ridge country road that hugs the mountain range btw the pacific and the valley. It also gets hairier towards Los Gatos IIRC. Random fog and clouds can turn visibility to near zero in an instant. For most of it south of San Mateo county is gentle road with more/less some visibility apart from over-the-horizon hills. In San Mateo, it starts to become twistier and more/less switchbacks up to 92 (crosses skyline). Elk Tree and Skyline decline would be easy to get going faster than that maneuverability would allow.
A guy I used to work with at Stanford bikes San Mateo to campus and back on Skyline. It's the options leading to/from 192 that are most concerning.
Damn important: Quick turn maneuver for cyclists, wouldn't have helped here but it might save your ass one day:
And I believe they're mostly on high end cars, and are primarily directed against avoiding hitting other motorized vehicles.
Air bags are a lot more expensive. It should be possible to make it fairly hard to hit a human with a car in the very near future. Drivers suck at keeping away from bikes. Cars should do this for them.
Furthermore, a bike is a lot more agile than a big hunk of steel plodding in a straight line. You can shoot through a tiny gap that a computer would not be able to detect you were aiming for. There is no way to have the necessary safety margin without being totally unusable in practice.