Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Bicyclist Killed By Motorist On Route 10 in Succasunna

According to NJ.com a bicyclist was killed on Route 10 west near Main St just before the Route 46 merge in the Succasunna section of Roxbury Township. The article gives few details other than the crash occurred at 11 PM and the motorist was not charged.

We have seen this scenario many times before - a bicyclist killed after dark on a state highway and while there may be many factors the obvious constant is the configuration of Route 10.

  • The speed limit is 50 mph
  • The shoulder ends and becomes a weave lane
  • Commercial driveways galore (poor access management)
  • Sparse street lighting
  • The sidewalk ends abruptly 



Old School Traffic engineers can give you 50 reasons on why this design is a necessity, but not one of them would be to enhance the safety of the non motorized road user. Lets hope that when Route 10 is resurfaced or rehabilitated that DOT employs complete streets solutions.

And here is my final thought - if the victim was killed by a single engine aircraft landing on Route 10 the NTSB would be conducting a year long investigation. Think of the amazing success that NTSB has with airline fatalities and the continuing failure of our highway system to reduce bicycle and pedestrian fatalities.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the victim.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Until all the facts are in its prayers to the victim and the driver. Lets not assume it was the drivers fault.

Unknown said...

I would echo anonymous's comment, although I see so many "cyclists" (and i use that term loosely due to their behavior), where they show complete disregard for basic right of way and direction of travel rules. While driving this week i saw a biker switch lanes so he was biking against the lane of travel, just so he could make a left into a neighborhood a quarter mile away. This was rush hour on a very busy 2 lane road. Many cyclists are so careless and practice poor skills that I wish we could see some public service messages devoted to it. (and kudos for their using their bikes instead of a car to get about town, but they must be safe if they are to be on our roads!)

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