CALIFORNIA BICYCLE NEWS AND CYCLING SAFETY TIPS BLOG

Sally Meyerhoff, a world -class marathon runner, tragically died in a bicycle accident south of Phoenix on March 8, according to CBSNews.com. She was riding in Maricopa, Arizona when she collided with a truck.   Investigators have not indicated whether Meyerhoff was wearing a bicycle helmet. Meyerhoff, 27, was a title-winning marathon runner at Duke University.  She won the P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n Roll Marathon in 2011, becoming the first female to win the marathon. She had qualified for the 2012 Olympic Marathon Trial.  Meyerhoff was currently training for the Olympics as well as the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. Meyerhoff died instantly from the collision. Preliminary investigations show that Meyerhoff failed to yield at an intersection. There were no indications that the truck driver was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

On May 18, the Mesilla Valley Bike Coalition will be hosting a Ride of Silence at the Mesilla Plaza in New Mexico, according to the Las Cruces Sun-News. The Ride of Silence is commemoration people who have been injured or killed in automobile-bicycle accidents. Trina Witter, co-founder and president of the Mesilla Valley Bike Coalition, encourages all cyclists to come out and join the 10-12 mile ride. The coalition tries to find the cause of bicycle accidents and prevent them in the future.  Witter believes that the vast majority of the accidents are preventable. “We don’t call them accidents,” she says. Since its founding in 1999, the Mesilla Valley Bike Coalition has been lobbying for bicycle safety legislation.  They have asked the New Mexico state government to ban the practice of partial paving, which is a cost-saving effort in which the government builds or repaves roads and leaves a thin…
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The League of American Bicyclists has awarded Stanford University with their prestigious Platinum Award for promoting a bicycle-friendly campus. According to BikeRadar.com, Stanford has promoted a commuter friendly campus with an emphasis on bicycle safety. “We encourage, reward and incent everyone to ride a bike and offer multiple programs and promotions to promote bike safety for all campus users,” says Ariadne Scott, Stanford’s Bicycle Program Coordinator. Stanford’s campus is home to 13,000 daily cyclists. The campus has bike paths, discounted helmets for sale and bike lockers; it also offers bicycle safety classes twice a month and a diversion program for cyclists who receive citations. “The results prove to be successful. Stanford University’s employee drive-alone rate dropped from 72 percent in 2002 to 48 percent in 2010,” says Scott. “Our bike commuter rate for university commuters is 21.7 percent.” The rankings for the League of American Bicyclists are based on campus…
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