Two cyclists died near Napa, California, Tuesday by a lumber truck when its load suddenly shifted of the picturesque roadway.
Authorities say the victims, identified as Christian and Michelle Deaton, were legally riding north on the valley’s winding, two-lane Silverado Trail when they encountered a flatbed truck headed in the opposite direction. Somehow, the lumber it was carrying shifted and fell, hitting the cyclists, Fox 8 reports.
Exactly what caused the load to hit the Deatons when it did is still being investigated, but Christian was declared dead at the scene. Michelle, meanwhile, was taken to a nearby hospital where she later died from her injuries. According to the sheriff’s office, they were visiting the Napa Valley from Portland, Oregon. And to his credit, the truck driver stayed at the scene and reportedly cooperated with authorities who are still investigating what caused the load to shift and hit the cyclists.
read more: https://jalopnik.com/two-cyclists-killed-by-trucks-lumber-load-in-california-1850954500
archive link: https://archive.ph/ZJb0f
Just a sad freak accident here. Put away your {fuck cars, fuck cyclists} pitchforks.
I mean… I get a lot of the arguments from the fuck cars people? But like… Do they really think we shouldn’t be transporting lumber anymore? No more wood?
Exactly, fuck cars isn’t “fuck transportation vehicles”. The things clogging the streets are personal vehicles, not buses and semi trucks (did I do American English correct here?) transporting stuff.
More or less yes you did American English correctly. More often I just refer to them as semis without adding the truck part, some also call them tractor trailers. It was clear what you meant though so only need to change it slightly if you are going for full American English
Which invalidates one of the key arguments of the “fuck cars” crowd. They regularly come with the argument that a road without cars would need way less maintanence and therefor would be cheaper. They ignore (or don’t know) that the damage done to roads by a vehicle depends on the weight and is an x^4 relationship. Guess what, if you banned all personal cars from a city while retaining access for trucks (as no city would survive without them), the road damage would not be reduced in any noticable manner.
Unless the load was improperly secured, or the driver was not driving safely, which we don’t know yet.
Even if so, I’d not argue for a non-“truck centric” approach to moving dead trees.
The busses would have to have huuuge luggage racks.
More training or enforcement might be worthwhile - but some sort of medium scale free ranging bulk transport will likely always be an important part of tree logistics.
Even if so, I’d not argue for a non-“truck centric” approach to moving dead trees.
Me neither, but some folks here probably believe that things like that would not happen if those trees had been carried by bikes.
Final destination 2 did it first
While tragic, I don’t think this is fuckcars material. Truckers are professionals, doing a job that is far more inevitable than the more relevant problem, which is the overaccommodation of the use of personal automobiles by amateurs.
Ok, fuckcars, how do you suppose we get lumber out of the woods?
It’s less about how we move lumber and more highlighting the dangers of having cyclists share the road with giant trucks and cars. You wouldn’t hear stories like this in countries like the Netherlands where they actually provide proper bike infrastructure that’s separated from the road.