"A 50-year-old woman was riding her bicycle downhill on the northbound lane on Skyline when she collided with a minivan that was making a turn toward her lane."
Wow. Ok, here's some details on the accident based on news stories linked there.
First, background for people who don't know the area:
So this is in Woodside, the hills just west of Palo Alto. It's a nice area where you get more space and nature than living in Menlo Park/PA/MV, at the cost of having a fairly slow drive to get anywhere.
Skyline, the road she was on, is the main north-south way through that area. It's a one-lane-each-way, narrow-shoulder, trees-on-all-sides (leading to weird lighting at most hours) road that is fairly straight for that area, but still has some curves. I think the speed limit is 40mph.
The stretch of Skyline she was on is a very popular bike route. Some people will bike a lot of Skyline, but that ~one mile stretch is especially popular. Old La Honda Rd is a narrow, windy road that is one of the most famous cycling climbs in the area; it's got good shade and is a very steady 7% grade for the whole 3.5 miles. It's intense. Go out on a weekend and you will run into other cyclists, usually many others.
When you get to the top and want to loop back towards Palo Alto/etc, you basically have two options. One is to just go back down, but descending a road that steep and windy, especially given that there's basically always a cliff on one side, is pretty frightening. So I always take the other option, which is to take Skyline down to highway 84, the same direction and stretch of road she was doing.
That always feels like the safe part of the descent to me--it's mostly straight, people drive slightly slower than on 84, and it's not as steep of a descent as 84. 84 is frightening because there still isn't a shoulder, there's some really steep sections, there's some tight switchbacks, and people drive 50 mph.
But, sure enough, where her accident was on Skyline, there's a big blind curve, and not very far after it there's a tiny road (basically a driveway) off to the right. It sounds like as she came around that curve, a van that was headed the opposite direction on Skyline turned left in front of her into that small road, and she ended up hitting the van.
Damn, I saw this very scenario happen right in front of me yesterday in London rush hour traffic at the bottom of Balham hill on CS7. Middle-aged woman turns right in front of a guy doing about 35mph on his road bike. He fishtails, catapults, and slides on asphalt broadsiding the car at probably 15mph. I was on a mountain bike so I fortunately had greater stopping power. Still, there was only about a 1 second difference between him standing up and walking away (which he did) and full speed T-bone.
And this was on a London Cycle Superhighway during rush hour with dry pavement and perfect visibility. Up on Skyline Blvd it's way worse even when sunny because of the light shining through the redwoods.
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/913789-Fatality-on-...
"A 50-year-old woman was riding her bicycle downhill on the northbound lane on Skyline when she collided with a minivan that was making a turn toward her lane."