It’s Tuesday. I shouldn’t be here, taking this photo. But a cyclist was killed yesterday afternoon, around 5pm, on Canada Road. A road with incredibly-long sight lines so there really shouldn’t be surprises.

After climbing Kings we immediately headed back down, so we’d have time to get to “where it happened” and try to make sense of it. That’s one of those things I do, try to make sense of things. Over the years, that’s brought me to a number of spots where a cyclist had recently died in a collison with a car or truck. How did it happen. And, from experience over many decades, what is it the CHP might miss, or believe not relevant.

The guy was heading north on Canada. That red circle towards the bottom, just left of center,  is the first of many markings placed on the pavement by the CHP investigators. They didn’t do a very good job of cleaning up; sure, they only had 2.5 hours of daylight left, but why didn’t they come out the next morning? Kevin and I (and, later, Becky) found a lot of bike parts in the field to the right of the roadway. Heavier parts closer, lighter parts further, as you’d expect when something is hit violently from behind.

There is nothing to be learned from those bits and pieces? What about the smashed up remains of the cyclist’s wahoo heart monitor? Did that not mean something to anybody? The force and location of the impact.

The blood on the roadway. Some of it located within circled areas, most of it just spread across the tarmac. That seems wrong. We have greater respect for the fear of a car burning so we hose down whatever is left when a car strikes a car, and less respect for the remains of someone’s last moments (Becky and I went back again late in the day; it appears someone did come in and clean things up).

We had to leave with more questions than answers, and after looking at the photos later, found a few things that had to be checked out some more. Becky volunteered to head out and check it out herself; she became pretty distressed, figuring out what the circles were about. As Becky was looking for clues, many cyclists were riding through, unaware they were riding through the remains of another cyclist.

Canada Road. Why is it designed like a speedway? When 280 gets backed up, many use it as a way to speed around the blockage. That’s not a legit reason to maintain it as a high-speed throughfare, and the only “local” traffic is for the Filoli estate and the Pulgas Water Temple. It’s speed should be 25-30mph and the design changed to make it impossible to do 100+mph high school drag races. Why not install traffic calming curves and obstacles like Junipero Serra has near the Stanford campus?

It’s time for something to be done. I’ve visited enough places where cyclists have been killed by motorists.