<story><title>Former Amazon star exec killed in bike accident</title><url>http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2013/09/19/joy-covey-amazon/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>enoch_r</author><text>The problem with this theory is that the speed limit on that road is 40. If she was traveling well under the speed limit but did not have time to stop for a turning car, then it seems to me that either a) the intersection is designed such that a vehicle traveling the speed limit will be unable to stop before colliding with a turning vehicle, or b) the driver turned after the bicyclist had turned the corner. Or, of course, a combination of the two--it may well be that the intersection is fairly dangerous for drivers as well (and some commenters have talked about previous accidents at the same intersection).</text></item><item><author>klochner</author><text>Disclaimer:  I&amp;#x27;m not trying to find fault either way, I was just curious.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s her ride log from Strava over the same segment a week ago (you&amp;#x27;ll need to log in to see details on the segment):&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.strava.com/activities/81767720#1663862661&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.strava.com&amp;#x2F;activities&amp;#x2F;81767720#1663862661&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;And here&amp;#x27;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:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://i.imgur.com/wd4sOjm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;wd4sOjm.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;If she was going 30+ on a downhill (-6.5% grade), it&amp;#x27;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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>georgemcbay</author><text>It seems entirely possible to me that the van driver was actually taking the corner &amp;quot;too slow&amp;quot; (though I&amp;#x27;d be taking it slow too based on blindness of the turn if I wasn&amp;#x27;t used to that area) resulting in a situation where there was an obstacle in the bicyclist&amp;#x27;s path that was difficult to avoid at the speed that she was travelling.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;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.</text></comment>
<story><title>Former Amazon star exec killed in bike accident</title><url>http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2013/09/19/joy-covey-amazon/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>enoch_r</author><text>The problem with this theory is that the speed limit on that road is 40. If she was traveling well under the speed limit but did not have time to stop for a turning car, then it seems to me that either a) the intersection is designed such that a vehicle traveling the speed limit will be unable to stop before colliding with a turning vehicle, or b) the driver turned after the bicyclist had turned the corner. Or, of course, a combination of the two--it may well be that the intersection is fairly dangerous for drivers as well (and some commenters have talked about previous accidents at the same intersection).</text></item><item><author>klochner</author><text>Disclaimer:  I&amp;#x27;m not trying to find fault either way, I was just curious.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s her ride log from Strava over the same segment a week ago (you&amp;#x27;ll need to log in to see details on the segment):&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.strava.com/activities/81767720#1663862661&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.strava.com&amp;#x2F;activities&amp;#x2F;81767720#1663862661&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;And here&amp;#x27;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:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://i.imgur.com/wd4sOjm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;wd4sOjm.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;If she was going 30+ on a downhill (-6.5% grade), it&amp;#x27;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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>klochner</author><text>I kind of agree with you (see my edits), but it is harder to decelerate on a bike than in a car, especially going downhill - you run the risk of going over the handlebars.</text></comment>