More sad news: cyclist killed near De Anza College

i think it's offensive to suggest cyclists need to be 'educated' on how to stay safe when:
a) we have no idea how this cyclist was killed, but
b) we do know he was killed by a car, and
c) we know bikes never kill drivers.

let the dude be buried before we go around lecturing him and his family on how important cyclist road safety is to staying alive.

finally, cyclists should not have to be trained to stay safe -- the problem is cars, not cyclists. that's just a perspective statement, so we never forget it's the car drivers who bear the burden of responsibility, whether it is enshrined in law yet or not.

I hope you're joking about bicyclists not needing lessons in traffic safety...yes, it's true that cars weigh a lot more than bikes with the foreseeable result that cyclists end up with the short end of the stick when a collision between bike and auto occurs.

However, it's also true that the great majority of cyclists do NOT follow the rules of the road....When a cyclist approaches a 4-way intersection, for example, my experience as a driver is that invariably they're gonna roll right through the stop sign/red light with nary a moment's hesitation. Same goes for signalling turns...hardly ever happens...the usual practice is to just dart in and out of traffic like they own the road. I live off of Hwy 9 and I can't begin to recount the times I've seen cyclists ride two and three abreast for mile after mile on this narrow, winding road..do they care that cars are stacking up in a long line behind them? nah..they don't care...bottom line: if you want to be respected as a co-equal with cars on the road then you better start giving some respect back...traffic laws are for everybody, in spite of what you think.

Dude, it's also true that Cities don't think about bikes when they make all their roads, and bike safety is the least of their concern. Agree w/ Peter Smith, we should not need to be specially trained, at least not anymore than a car driver needs to. If that's the case then it is because the roadways are not being made safe enough for bikers.
Below is an excerpt of email exchange I had w/ a MV traffic engineer, just to give a glimpse of their frame of mind: "On a bike route such as Calderon Avenue, the Vehicle Code provides that a bicyclist ride near the right side of a roadway unless traveling the normal speed of traffic, but a bicyclist has the right to ride in the middle of the lane if it is too narrow to share with a car.
There has only been one reported bicycle accident on Calderon Avenue since January 2000. It occurred in 2004 when an eastbound motorist on Dana Street failed to yield to a westbound bicyclist turning left onto Calderon Avenue."

Needless to say, the complaints I made about Calderon Ave. to the Mayor of MV have NEVER been addressed six months later! The Ave is a disaster for bikes, and I sincerely doubt they care about it. In my opinion, suggesting "a bicyclist has the right to ride in the middle of the lane if it is too narrow to share with a car" is suggesting a biker commit suicide, given how car drivers behave on this road.

Peter, if a bicyclist blows through a red light into fast moving traffic, can you really say that it is the car driver's fault? It is fair to say that we don't know the circumstance on how he was killed but safety training is critical.