# Rider hit on Alpine Rd near 280



## jonsd (Jun 20, 2007)

> A cyclist has been struck by a truck and killed on Alpine Road Near I-280. Westbound Alpine Rd. closed.


http://twitter.com/#!/cbs5/status/324546385149952

Can't find anything online yet, prayers to the rider's family.


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## Jeffh (Oct 4, 2006)

This was posted on Alto Velo news group.

http://bayareacyclingnews.blogspot.com/


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## Mtn2RoadConvert (Aug 28, 2006)

Met a friend today for a ride and he got caught at the Alpine/280 exit Northbound just after 4pm. Lots of law enforcement at the scene. Thoughts go out to the family of the cyclist killed.


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## CoLiKe20 (Jan 30, 2006)

so sad


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## tron (Jul 18, 2004)

I saw this on the front page of one of the local newspapers. So sad.

This particular paper went too far with the description and photos. I am looking for an email to send them my thoughts.


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## paloaltorider (Jan 2, 2010)

*some a$$hat made this comment in the SJ mercury article*

Hey everyone,

I just saw this on the san jose mercury news online edition. This guy Alan R Bianchi is director of IT at VMware. He lives in Portola Valley. Anyone work at Vmware so they can let him know what a SH*Thead he is? I see that either he retracted his comment or the editors pulled it. I tried to paste everything but it doesn't seem like the facebook profile went with what I copied. 


Alan R Bianchi12:26 pm
One less biker...
Message - Report

MeMe Dee12:20 pm
RIP you are with G-d now.
Message - Report

Kathy Taylor11:09 am
Poorly written article. Nowhere does it mention that she was on a bicycle. I'm still not sure she was.
Message - Report

Brad McDaniel10:04 am
R.I.P. Lauren......so sad


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## dwgranda (Sep 8, 2009)

I'll be interested to see how this happened. Hitting the left side of the truck? Maybe the rig was stopped on the side of the road and then went into traffic without seeing the cyclist? Google maps street view has a couple of big trucks stopped on the side of the road.


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## Old Hammer (Jan 26, 2005)

tron said:


> I saw this on the front page of one of the local newspapers. So sad.
> 
> This particular paper went too far with the description and photos. I am looking for an email to send them my thoughts.


Lauren Ward worked with my wife, my wife told me that she was always talking about being careful while riding. Every time I saw Lauren she was upbeat and positive. I'm still in shock over this.

O H


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## alex3780 (Nov 7, 2009)

dwgranda said:


> I'll be interested to see how this happened. Hitting the left side of the truck? Maybe the rig was stopped on the side of the road and then went into traffic without seeing the cyclist? Google maps street view has a couple of big trucks stopped on the side of the road.


if she was riding west (on the north side of the road) she would have had to move from the far right bike lane - through an onramp lane - to a bike lane in between the onramp lane and the westbound traffic lane. all of this happens in 20m in the underpass and drivers can't see for a split second when they go from the sunny road to the dark underpass. it's a pretty bad little section of road.

my prayers go out to her family and friends...and the driver of the rig.

ride safe.


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## TJ64 (Nov 8, 2010)

*Bianchi*

I saw that comment by Bianchi too. It really pissed me off too. It was removed pretty quickly though afterward. Hopefully he had second thoughts on what a stupid comment he was making, especially since he was not anonymous. I think he works for BlueCoat now and lives in Portola Valley.


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## izzyfly (Jul 10, 2009)

Very sad, my thoughts and prayers go out to the family.


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## Dinosaur (Jan 29, 2004)

*Truck driver involved in fatal with cyclist in 2007*

Driver of the big rig truck was involved in a fatal collision involving a cyclist in Santa Cruz in 2007.

http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_16625610

Something is not right here.

You might have to click on that link twice to get the article to pop up.


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## mohair_chair (Oct 3, 2002)

He wasn't ruled at fault in the first one, but a guy kills two cyclists with his truck in separate incidents needs to be off the road permanently. Nobody is that unlucky. There's no way he wasn't a contributing factor in both incidents.


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## Old Hammer (Jan 26, 2005)

Very weird to happen twice in three years. Either the driver has some serious bad luck or he doesn't pay attention while he is driving.


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## zender (Jun 20, 2009)

Old Hammer said:


> Very weird to happen twice in three years. Either the driver has some serious bad luck or he doesn't pay attention while he is driving.


Once is Happenstance. Twice is Coincidence. The third time it's Enemy action

Here's to hoping we never conclude it was enemy action. Dude needs to be off the road. I recommend he consider a second career as a bike messenger.


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## mr_132 (Apr 26, 2009)

zender said:


> Once is Happenstance. Twice is Coincidence. The third time it's Enemy action
> 
> Here's to hoping we never conclude it was enemy action. Dude needs to be off the road. I recommend he consider a second career as a bike messenger.


Even though the Moss Landing one was not his fault, a change of career does seem to be in order: 3 deaths in 7 years....

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_16644259?nclick_check=1



Big-rig driver Gabriel Manzur Vera, who was involved in collisions that killed cyclists in Santa Cruz and Portola Valley, also was driving during a third fatal accident in Moss Landing in 2003.
Police determined Vera was not at fault in the Moss Landing and Santa Cruz accidents and are investigating the Portola Valley collision that killed a woman on Nov. 4. In that crash, Vera and Lauren Perdriau Ward, a 47-year-old Los Altos Hills mother of two, were heading west on Alpine Road in the far right lane when the left side of his truck collided with Ward as the two approached Interstate 280, according to the California Highway Patrol.
On Dec. 31, 2003 on Highway 1 near Moss Landing, Vera was hit head-on by Annette McDaniel, 53, who crossed into the oncoming lane and struck his truck, California Highway Patrol officials said. McDaniel, of Watsonville, died at the scene.
Vera acknowledged the Moss Landing accident in a deposition he gave last year as a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit for a collision with Santa Cruz teacher John Myslin, who was cycling north on Mission Street when he collided with Vera's tractor-trailer.
A two-month investigation followed the 2007 Santa Cruz collision and investigators determined Myslin, a popular Pacific Collegiate School teacher, tried to pass on the right side of Vera's 26-wheeler and was struck as the truck turned right onto Bay Street.


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## dwgranda (Sep 8, 2009)

Meh, the moss landing one. That's a total freak accident. The guy is driving for a living so it's more likely that he'd run into something like that.

This was the first I heard of the details of the SC accident. Are you telling me that someone tried to pass a big rig on the right that was signalling to make a right turn? Like someone over the age of 14? On Mission street? Seems suspect to me. Or can you not signal and just make right turns into cyclists and not be at fault for those accidents? If so, it's open season on us and I gotta think about stopping riding.

Just my hunch but I don't think he gets off on this accident (well, he'll escape punishment but be declared at fault). I'm still trying to figure out how the cyclist can be at fault for hitting a vehicle on the left in this situation unless she totally lost control.


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## Undecided (Apr 2, 2007)

dwgranda said:


> Meh, the moss landing one. That's a total freak accident. The guy is driving for a living so it's more likely that he'd run into something like that.
> 
> This was the first I heard of the details of the SC accident. Are you telling me that someone tried to pass a big rig on the right that was signalling to make a right turn? Like someone over the age of 14? On Mission street? Seems suspect to me. Or can you not signal and just make right turns into cyclists and not be at fault for those accidents? If so, it's open season on us and I gotta think about stopping riding.
> 
> Just my hunch but I don't think he gets off on this accident (well, he'll escape punishment but be declared at fault). I'm still trying to figure out how the cyclist can be at fault for hitting a vehicle on the left in this situation unless she totally lost control.


I wouldn't presume to guess at the particulars of either situation, but I will say that in an incident involving two people, when one of the people may genuinely not have seen anything relevant (i.e., the driver) and the other is dead, I'm not totally surprised that the driver isn't found to be at fault. Sure, sometimes the physical evidence or third-party testimony will be so clear that we will get a good understanding of what happened, but absent that, in comes down to punishing someone when we don't really have a good idea what happened. Couple that with a greater ability and willingness on the part of many involved in the investigation and prosecution to relate to a driver, rather than a cyclist, and a conviction among many non-cyclists that we are all engaged in reckless behavior, and it's not hard to understand why we see so many outcomes that are shocking to us as cyclists. Forgive me if I'm crossing into conspiracy-theory terrain. I have ridden through that intersection at least a couple of thousand times, and from that huge sample, I've seen many, many examples of profoundly inattentive driving. At least twice, only some luck and the fact that I treat it as a death zone (sadly, now confirmed), has prevented me from being hit. In other situations, I've had any number of instances in which it was absolutely clear that a truck driver did not see me. Would this greater experience with these situations make me more open than most police and prosecutors to the likelihood that the driver screwed up? Probably.


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## zender (Jun 20, 2009)

Well, that's 3 then.


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## mohair_chair (Oct 3, 2002)

Gee, what a surprise. The CHP ruled the cyclist was at fault. I guess this guy just has the dumb luck to drive next to two separate cyclists who somehow end up under his wheels.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/nat...ng/ci_16910167


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## Dr_John (Oct 11, 2005)

Yeah, seriously... what the? The guy's been in three fatal accidents in seven years?


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## paloaltorider (Jan 2, 2010)

Good news is that I saw in the paper today that CHP is reinvestigating the accident. Obviously the family hiring a private lawyer and their dogged determination is leading to a reexamination of events. Unfortunately, it does take assets to get justice in our legal system.


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## ssulljm (Nov 2, 2008)

*CHP -Los Altos Hills bicyclist not at fault*

[ Los Altos Hills bicyclist not at fault in collision that killed her

By Jason Green

Daily News Staff Writer
Posted: 09/16/2011 05:53:46 AM PDT
Updated: 09/16/2011 06:03:25 AM PDT
http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_18906858

Following an investigation that spanned 10 months, the California Highway Patrol said Thursday it no longer believes bicyclist Lauren Ward, of Los Altos Hills, was at fault for the Alpine Road collision that killed her late last year.

A CHP Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team concluded through additional forensic testing and a reconstruction of the Nov. 4 crash that the left front end of Gabriel Mansur Vera's 26-wheel rig struck the right rear portion of Ward's upright Trek bike, CHP Officer Art Montiel announced.

Investigators initially cleared Vera and blamed Ward, 47, for the crash, saying she "unsafely turned" and fell into the left front wheels of the mammoth truck as it turned right from westbound Alpine Road onto southbound Interstate Highway 280.

But with no eyewitnesses to the crash, the team was unable to establish fault in light of the new findings, Montiel said

"It just ends up being a tragic accident," Montiel told The Daily News.

Meanwhile, a wrongful death suit Ward's family has filed against Vera and his employer, Randazzo Enterprises, is proceeding. A trial date has been set for June 4, 2012.

Defense attorney Daniel Friedenthal said the revised findings likely won't change his argument that Ward was riding so close to the truck that Vera couldn't see her as she moved from right to left to keep going up the road.

"Primarily we think the bicyclist is at fault," Friedenthal said. "That's what we think the fight is about."

The Ward family's attorney, John Feder, did not immediately return a call for comment Thursday afternoon, but the suit filed last December alleges Vera negligently drove into the path of Ward's bike.

San Mateo County and California have also been named as cross defendants and defendants in the suit. The Alpine Road and Highway 280 intersection, which was designed by the state and is maintained by the county, is inherently dangerous to bicyclists, Friedenthal said.

"It somewhat creates a trap for bicyclists. They have to get over to the left, while vehicles turn to the right to get to the freeway," he said.

The San Mateo County Counsel's Office could not be reached for comment.

Vera, who was previously involved in a pair of fatal collisions but not found at fault, is still employed by Randazzo, Friedenthal said.

Lauren Ward- Top Left in Photo


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