It was a tragic scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Friday morning after a box truck collided with a bicyclist.
Investigators say both the truck and the bicycle were heading in the same direction on Hampshire Street. As the truck turned onto Portland Street, it collided with the bike.
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The 24-year-old bicyclist, a woman from Cambridge, was killed.
“This particular intersection is stressful,” said Chris Cassa of the advocacy group Cambridge Bicycle Safety.
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“There’s more than double the number of cyclists than people driving in personal vehicles in the peak rush hours,” said Cassa about the intersection.
This is the second similar incident just this month.
A 55-year-old woman from Florida was also killed in a collision with a turning box truck at an intersection near Harvard Square.
“Very preventable,” said Elizabeth Petit, who bikes through Cambridge regularly. “This is a public health problem.”
Bicyclists and advocacy groups say a recent vote by the Cambridge City Council to delay expanding protections for bicyclists and pedestrians will only lead to more crashes.
“We need more bike lanes,” said bicyclist Nicolas Fernandez. “And if that comes at the sacrifice of more on-street parking so be it. People’s lives are more important.”
Advocates have been pushing for expanded bike lanes, safer intersections, and they say bollards like these should be made of concrete.
“I’ve definitely had a lot of close calls,” said Petit. “The bike lanes are great but as we’ve seen now in the past few weeks, there is more that we can do.”
As for today’s incident, police haven’t said if the truck driver will face any charges.
Logos on the truck indicate it belongs to Blouin, a company based in Seabrook, New Hampshire.
Messages left with Blouin have not been returned.
The crash is being investigated by Cambridge police and the Middlesex District Attorney's Office.
