On Saturday, March 17, a little after noon, I was riding east on
Pleasant Grove. I had just crossed Foothills (heading toward
Washington St.) and was riding in the bike lane maybe 10 or 20 yards
past the intersection, when I was struck from behind by a car. I was
thrown in the air and broke the car's windshield, dented the hood and
landed in the street in front of the car. I quickly realized that I
didn't seem to have sustained any major injuries, so I got up, moved
to the side of the road and sat down on the grass. Paramedics showed
up quickly, took me to Sutter Roseville where I was x-rayed, observed
for about an hour, and then released because I was OK except for a
few scrapes and bruises. I'm still recovering from stiffness and
soreness, but bottom line is that I was very lucky.

As I've thought about this experience, I've come to question the
marking of bicycle lanes, and I'd like to know what the group thinks
about this issue. At the point where it intersects Foothills,
Pleasant Grove has 3 lanes going east, plus a bike lane and a merge
lane. As we all know, the bike lane runs between the #1 traffic lane
and the merge lane. The lady who hit me had made a right from
Foothills onto Pleasant Grove, and was thinking about merging into
traffic and looking over her left shoulder when she hit me (I was
squarely in the bike lane).

Although she was elderly, and although her movements and reactions
may have been slower than the average person's, it seems to me that
this was an inherently dangerous situation: the bike lane is right
in the middle of two lanes that drivers are going to move between,
and they have to look behind them to be sure it's safe to do so. To
me, this implies that they'll spend at least some time looking away
from where the bicyclist is supposed to be. Wouldn't it be much
better if the bike lane were against the curb, so that the bicyclist
would be out of the way of this merging activity?

I know that a bicyclist who catches a green light and is racing
through an intersection may prefer the straight path, and it all
looks so aesthetic as it is, but after my experience, it just doesn't
seem right any more. I was in the right, I was exactly where I was
supposed to be, but I'm still hurting right now. If I had done as I
sometimes do, and moved into the merge lane, out of the way of the
cars, I suppose I would have been in the wrong, if I had been hit --
though I now believe I would have reduced my chances of being hit by
making that switch to the merge lane.

At a minimum, I feel that all who ride the roads (especially kids and
other inexperienced cyclists) should be aware of this danger. I took
Bjorn's road safety class last November, and I'm just about sure this
issue wasn't addressed. But I'm thinking that it would be a good
thing if bike lane markings were changed. What do you folks think?

Dick Frantzreb