San Diego - On Tuesday morning Aug. 22 at 6am a bicycle commuter, a 29-year old U.S. Marine captain and war veteran, was run down from behind and killed on Kearny Villa Rd. by a driver who fled the scene. This happened on my daily commute route. On May 30, 2000 a cyclist was hit from behind and killed by an inattentive driver who drifted into the bike lane a couple of hundred meters to the north of last Tuesday's killing. His roadside shrine is still maintained by his fellow cyclists. Since June 2000, I have been regularly contacting various city and state agencies to try to make this stretch of road safer for cyclists and pedestrians. Nothing has been done; I have been ignored. This road is a 4 lane highway with a center divider. It is the only north-south route open to cyclists along the I-15 corridor; there is no alternate route. It is the old Hwy 395 that was replaced as the major thoroughfare by I-15. The speed limit is 65mph. The speed limit on the section where the latest fatality occurred was lowered to 50mph after the fatality in 2000, but that's academic. Speeds often reach 80-90mph here, according to police. It is as lawless here as it was in the "Old West." The Marine captain was hit while crossing a transition ramp from southbound Kearny Villa Rd. to I-163. I have had numerous close calls here myself and could easily have, and still may, become another victim. By the time one tries to ride across this ramp when no traffic appears to be coming, speeding cars are there before one has a chance to make it across. Bike lanes are striped right next to the traffic lane and gravel dropped from trucks loading at a nearby quarry covers the shoulder and, with other debris (concrete chunks, broken up pieces of lumber, dumped appliances, broken glass), prevents cyclists from riding as close to the pavement edge as possible. Articulated city buses, gravel trucks, and private vehicles often drive in the bike lanes, so cyclists must constantly look back in order to bail off the road at the last moment. At the transition ramp, one sometimes finds oneself between two lanes of speeding traffic passing on both sides. It is like splitting lanes on a freeway: a cyclist traveling at 15-20mph with cars passing on both sides at 50-80mph. The latest fatality was quite high-profile: news media were on hand to report it on TV and in the newspaper. I rode to the scene the next day and was treated to a gruesome scene: skid marks bore the yellow grease pencil marks of the police investigators, bloodstains in the shape of a bicycle wheel, a crushed Power Bar still in its wrapper. Getting back on my bike and starting from a standing stop, I found it unusually difficult and frightening getting across the ramp to return southbound. Finally I have the attention of City Council District 7. The San Diego County Bicycle Coalition and I will meet with Councilman Jim Madaffer and staff on Sept. 26 to decide what action should be taken. Unfortunately for the young Marine captain who survived action in the Middle East only to return home and be killed by a careless and cowardly driver who fled the scene, any action taken will be too late. I don't like saying this, but I must tell the city representatives "I told you so." I didn't just tell them once, but became a thorn in their sides. I must have complained 50 times over 5 years. I feel guilty for not having been able to do more. %^(=(
