Incrementally the old boys at the Trib just might be getting the message 

It's called the right-hook crash. A motorist on a busy street approaches an intersection and wheels into a right-hand turn, perhaps never glancing into the side mirror to see a bicyclist coming up on the right side. In an instant, lives are changed forever. A helmeted cyclist crumpled on the pavement, a mangled bicycle nearby, yellow police tape cordoning off another traffic death.

That was the scene Monday, when bicyclist Anastasia Kondrasheva, 23, died after being struck by a flatbed truck on the North Side during rush hour. She was the sixth bicyclist killed in a traffic death this year; five of those deaths involved motorists driving a truck, bus or van.

Vigil planned for bicyclist killed in Roscoe Village: 'She was the light of any company'

Some bike crash names borrow from boxing, maybe because of the pain they inflict. There's also the "left cross," when a driver turning left strikes a bicyclist approaching an intersection from the opposite direction. A bicyclist is "doored" when he or she strikes an open door from a parked car. We're using these phrases a lot these days, and that can't be good for a city that was just named the best bike city in the U.S.

Bicycling magazine bestowed that distinction on Chicago earlier this month, a reflection of the city's commitment to dramatically ramping up its bike lane infrastructure. About 148 miles of bike lanes have been established on city streets since 2011. That includes 108 miles of barrier- or buffer-protected lanes. Barrier-protected lanes separate cars from bicycles with some kind of physical demarcation — a curb, for example. Buffered lanes use a strip of pavement painted with stripes to separate motorists from the lanes bicyclists use.

The six bicycling deaths this year equal the city's yearly average — with more than three months left in 2016. They've cast a pall on the magazine's designation, but they should do something else — they should motivate a wholesale change in the way Chicago motorists and bicyclists co-exist.

Chicago motorists need to amp up their awareness of bicyclists in front, alongside and behind them. They need to make an effort to see cyclists, and we worry that, as it stands now, many drivers don't — and don't try.

Full Article:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-bicycles-cars-safety-chicago-perspec-0930-jm-20160928-story.html