16 Seconds

It's been over two years since Dr. Anita Kurmann was killed by a semi truck while riding her bicycle to work in Boston. And just like in virtually all other similar cases, police didn't press any charges and quickly closed the investigation, concluding that it was just another traffic "accident".

But as we know now, traffic accidents rarely happen. They're not caused by some higher power but by someone's distraction, lack of control or other human-dependent factors. As such, it's hard to accept someone's death (especially if that someone is your close relative), merely as collateral that we need to pay in order to keep the system going.

MassBike decided not to let Kurmann's death be forgotten and ran their own investigation. Results were published earlier this week. Usually, it's difficult to know what happened shortly before such a tragic collision, but this time we have a video showing exactly that.

Everyone's take on this may be different but you may notice various little details, such as:

• Truck driver (Matthew Levari) had Kurmann in rear view mirror for 16 seconds - i.e. plenty of time to notice her, before he actually executed the turn.
• The truck moved slightly left before turning right - a maneuver necessary for such large trucks to make tight turns, but also something that might have fooled Kurmann thinking the truck wasn't really about to turn right.
• The truck had turning signal on, which Kurmann should have noticed (and maybe she did).

The video shows that Levari clearly broke Massachusetts law that strictly prohibits turning in front of cyclist who we just passed ("right hooking"). He essentially operated the same way as most truck drivers operate - with general disregard to many other road users. I noticed that myself many time while riding my bike - truck drivers control very large vehicles and as such feel empowered to "own" more of the road, consciously or subconsciously intimidating others with sheer size of their trucks. It's basically a straightforward approach - "you better pay attention to me and give me space if you don't want to be hit, as I may not pay attention to you".

Having said that, I have to also say that Kurmann made a mistake too and it costed her her life. Whoever rides bikes in the city knows well that whatever you do, you stay away from large trucks and never ever get between them and the curb. It's generally much safer to either let them go first and stay far behind or, if they're stopped, get far ahead of them to make sure drivers can see us. The spot where Kurmann ended up - right mid-way of semi's length, was the worst possible place should could've been.

There is also a question whether such giant vehicles should even be allowed in downtown Boston, which reminds me about another incident that happened recently on the other side of the globe, in Australia:

There is clearly a lot of wrong about that trucker's behavior as evidenced by his own video, but let's try to understand why he hates cyclists so much. He said:

"I've driven trucks for 16 years and I have been in situations where I'm trying to slow a 64.5 tonne truck when there's a truck coming the other way, and bike riders are the object I have had to miss. Another truck has ran off the road for that."

All this makes me think that clearly heavily-loaded semi trucks are difficult to stop effectively in a short distance, which raises a question whether they are inherently unsafe to be even allowed on many roads in the first place?

Finally, I want to focus on something else here - our police. Dismissing the case before even reviewing all evidence is unacceptable. Letting driver go without even a citation is unacceptable. Calling it merely an accident is unacceptable. For some reason, our police seems to pay more attention to road collisions involving two motor vehicles than those involving a pedestrian or a cyclist and a car.

This problem is much larger than Kurmann's death. It's a systemic problem that our police treats certain road crashes as more worthy a detailed investigation than others. Just like they seemingly treat some people as less important than others.

Police ranking of importance of road users looks essentially as follows:

1. VIPs in their cars - the most privileged group
2. other white people in their cars
3. white people on bicycles
4. people of color
5. people of color on bicycles - the most "hunted" group, since not only they're not white, but also perform an activity considered to be "not normal" in America - they ride bicycles

 As Angie Schmitt from usa.streetsblog.org noticed:

One thing writing about transportation for 7 years has taught me is that we really don't have much freedom to move around in public space.

Even the most normal activities, like walking, are very tightly controlled. Jacksonville for e.g. has 28 different rules for "jaywalking."

— Angie Schmitt (@schmangee) January 24, 2018

This is one reason I think urban cycling has been considered so white. It takes a lot of chutzpah -- or privilege -- to do something "deviant" in the public space like ride a bike in the road and expect not to get hassled. And moreover get angry when you are.

— Angie Schmitt (@schmangee) January 24, 2018

Obviously, I don't know much about it as I'm white as arctic snow, but I think Angie is right. Riding a bicycle in America is something little kids do. Adults have cars. Adult on a bicycle is still considered abnormal in many parts of the country and if that person happens to be non-white, he/she is quickly targeted by police. By the same standard, if this person gets killed in traffic collision with a car or truck, police favors blaming the cyclist as the one "weirdo" on road who "was asking for trouble". As Angie points out:

So cars and traffic violence keeps people from being active but so does the police state somewhat and the way it reinforces (unequally) social norms against outdoor activity of all kinds.

— Angie Schmitt (@schmangee) January 24, 2018

We learned to accept death by vehicle the same way we accept mass shootings - it's apparently a part of American folklore - something so established that we can't imagine living in a world where such things just don't happen. In America, we call it freedom. Everywhere else, they call it stupidity.