March 26, 2008
Motorcycle Accident Shuts Down Golden Gate Bridge
All Southbound lanes are closed, and most northbound lanes are "moving very slowly" due to a motorcycle accident involving multiple cars on the Golden Gate Bridge this afternoon. Traffic is backed up to 19th Avenue according to CBS 5 (where Allen Martin had the unmitigated gall to interrupt The People's Court to tell us!)
CHP advises motorists to expect big, long delays. Use alternate routes tonight, folks.
Update: Six people are injured, one of those an infant. Sad news.
Update 2: According to NBC 3, the crash was "first reported at 2:45 p.m." The claim that the entire bridge will be shutdown until 4 p.m. Yikes.
Update 3: The bridge has reopened; crash site cleared. Overall, nine people were injured, two of them with life-threatening injuries, including the infant.
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omg my people's court was also interrupted! we are so calibrated! lol
This must explain the horde of fucking annoying helicopters.
As usual, the original report on CBS 5 of "a multi-car and motorcycle accident" is upgraded to "a motorcycle accident" by a dues paying member of Reverend Fred Phelp's "God Hates Motorcycles" Church on biased opinion.
The motorcycle was probably cut off by an overturning SUV - and thus "Collided with an SUV"
And I will, of course, be relating this story the next time someone says "Those Damn cyclists and their critical mass really screw up traffic!"
i seriously doubt the motorcyclist survived:
http://cbs5.com/local/golden.gate.bridge.2.685541.html
so sad!
murphstahoe, this tragic story has zero to do with cyclists or critical mass. zero.
Brock, It has to infinity to do with cars. Infinity.
yes, when i said that it involved "multiple cars," i got that hint. but this is a city. there will always be--thank god--automobiles.
we don't even know who or what to blame, and already we're attacking SUV drivers. at the most it's the fault of ONE SUV driver.
yes, when i said that it involved "multiple cars," i got that hint. but this is a city. there will always be--thank god--automobiles.
we don't even know who or what to blame, and already we're attacking SUV drivers. at the most it's the fault of ONE SUV driver.
Okay, now we know:
15:45 PDT SAN FRANCISCO (via sfgate.com)
The crash happened at 2:43 p.m. when the driver of an older model Volvo station wagon heading north crossed into the southbound lanes and hit another car.
Yes, the dread older model Volvo station wagon.
I don't think there is a relation between a regularly scheduled attempt to disrupt traffic and a multi-vehicle accident.
My commentary is to the standard bias in reporting. This incident, sad as it is, is immediately referred to as an "accident". If the power steering went out on the volvo causing it to go into the opposing lane, it is an accident. If the driver was eating lunch or on the cellphone it is vehicular assault, and hopefully not manslaughter. Time will tell, and I won't presume. Breaking news can't really use terms like vehicular assault - but compare the story in the Chron tomorrow about this incident vs the day after story on the Cupertino crash.
The motorcyclist is not being deemed at fault. Will the story indicate that "Riding a motorcycle on the GG Bridge is a dangerous activity?" Will the infant be blamed for being there?
WTF is your problem?
And I will, of course, be relating this story the next time someone says "Those Damn cyclists and their critical mass really screw up traffic!""
I don't see a commentary regarding a bias in reporting. More like complaining about car drivers complaining about cyclists and this being possible (yet inappropriate) ammunition.
I'd just like to reiterate Brock's point. This incident has nothing to do with cyclists or criticial mass.
Thank god for protective gear on the motorcyclist. Phew. Clearly, it wasn't a Harley rider, then.
... Dreaded olvlov
ok - I will admit to being extremely pissed today from being intentionally run off the road yesterday - while riding in the middle of the bike lane.
I will stop there and hope all survive.
Now, per my original post at 3:34, will someone please edit the misleading title of this post so it is not about a "Motorcycle Accident" please? Just because a one vehicle out of 10 or so in a chain reaction pileup caused by a Volvo is a motorcycle doesn't make it right to cal the whole incident that closed the bridge a "Motorcycle Accident"
Someone may have had a bicycle in their car's trunk, or even on a roof rack, but this wasn't a "Bicycle Accident" either.
[gasp!] An infant???? Hope he/she feels better...
Instead of a barrier, why not speed bumps? It's the most beautiful bridge in the world, you're paying six friggin' dollars to cross it (or whatever the toll is), so f-you if you need to drive more than 15 mph across it.
Are you kidding? I fly into a road rage if I'm traveling less than three times that speed, especially in the suicide (middle) lane.
Just reading about the need for a barrier on SFGate. I have nearly been a part of an equally horrifying accident more than a couple times.
The lack of a divider is a hazard, especially when people drive like they do out here.
Murphs, I'm glad this message board can provide you at least one outlet for your bitter anti-car fury. Better it's SFist than anywhere that could make a difference, right? And it's a good thing you didn't know anyone involved in that crash - otherwise you'd feel like more of an a$$ than you already do!! Cheers!
Mr Plow reopened the door.
1) My first comment was absolutely related to media bias, lampooning the "Cyclist collided with Police Cruiser" - because I agree with redseca. Brock has not "corrected" the article title.
2) Brock - if you are going to hold me to a standard about not joking about the drivers being worse holding up traffic than Critical Mass, perhaps you should not be whining about People's Court being interrupted when 9 people are going to the hospital. I admit this is a minor point and when you wrote it you may not have known there were injuries.
3) Mr Plow - We tried to make a difference "somewhere" and had a bike plan in place. Someone sued the city to stop the bike plan based on not doing a complete Environmental Impact Report. So the facilities for cyclists still lag where they should be. As such, we still get situations like Octavia and Market - something that could be fixed by a can do bunch of people like we have in SF.
Yesterday, there was a 9 car pileup on the GG Bridge. Nobody can believe there is not a suicide barrier in place. There is money. But it can't start. Why not? Environmental review! There will be a clamor that this Environmental review needs to happen quicker. We need the barrier now because people are dying, right? In fact, 36 people have died since 1970. This is unacceptable, but it is nonetheless less than 1 person per year. It is $30 Million for the barrier (per the chron - 5 for the EIR and 25 for building it). $30 million towards the bike plan would probably prevent more fatalities than a barrier would! If we dedicated $30 Million just to Market/Octavia we would probably save more people a year.
Should this incident spur all sorts of hand-wringing that we need to speed the EIR for the bridge barrier while the Bike Plan EIR languishes, I consider it proof that this was a very appropriate time to discuss this issue. I want BOTH a barrier and bike improvements, but when you add the numbers up, the barrier on the bridge actually has a pretty low return on investment given the number of actual fatalities.
The lack of a barrier is sort of like Avian Flu. When someone dies there it's very sensational, but in reality the fatality rate is pretty low.
*hug*
To follow up... more numbers. This claims one fatality per 7 years, not 1 per year, I assume this is because the numbers in Wikipedia are since the bridge was opened, and the Chron is since 1970.
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Wikipedia also discusses the head-on collision danger:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Bridge
It claims 120k vehicles per day. If the bridge is 1.6 mile long, and there's a fatal incident every 7 years, then that's 1 per 490M driver miles.
In comparison, there's ~ 42k fatalities per year on the road. The "average" driver goes around 12k/year, figure 200M drivers, that's 1 per 57M passenger miles.
So it seems the Golden Gate bridge is actually above-average safety, from the standpoint of fatalities per mile.
Sometimes when things are riskier, people are more careful, and there's less actual risk. This is why traffic calming works.
back atcha brock - well played. On to our regular schedule.
Or - since this is the internet after all - do we want to delve into the checkered past of the Volvo driver? (who was not the primary at fault driver).