From the 1/2/00 edition of the Marin Independent Journal:

Call for bike safety follows fatal accident 

By Donna Domino

San Anselmo cyclist Kirk Ross’ death Friday marked the second bike fatality on  Nicasio Valley Road in four months, and local bicyclists say the threat from cars is getting worse, with motorists throughout Marin going too fast and not paying attention. 

“It’s part of a basic trend,” complained Chris Lang, president of the Marin County  Bike Coalition and a Fairfax resident who’s been riding in Marin 29 years. “There’s rampant carelessness, lack of concentration and focus. Motorists have gotten sloppy in their habits, everywhere you go people are speeding, and bike riders are just a little thing on the side of the road.”

Ross, a 42-year-old accounting manager, loved pedaling in the area’s green, rolling hills, said his wife, Sophie, 35, who teaches at Old Mill School in Mill Valley. Since Friday was another sunny winter day, Ross decided to go for a ride near the Nicasio Reservoir before getting ready for a New Year’s Eve gathering at a friend’s home.

“He rode there on a regular basis — most weekends,” she recalled. “It was one of his favorite places.”

Ross was killed Friday afternoon about 2 p.m. as he rode on Nicasio Valley Road  near Petaluma-Point Reyes Road when he was hit from behind by a Honda driven by Barbara Williams, 71, of Inverness. Although he was wearing a bike helmet, he suffered massive head injuries when he was thrown off his bike.

On Sept. 4, Cecelia “Cecy” Krone, 42, of San Anselmo, was struck and killed by Jeep driven by Michele M. Young of Lagunitas on Nicasio Valley Road. 

Friday’s accident is under investigation but Williams was not arrested, and alcohol did not appear to be a factor in the accident, the California Highway Patrol said.

Following the Krone accident, Young, 49, of Lagunitas was ordered to stand trial  for vehicular manslaughter in that fatal crash. She had a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit and failed sobriety tests at the scene, officials said.

Shaken by a recent string of injury accidents among friends, Lang has given up  road riding for a while.

“I’m just riding my mountain bike because I’m spooked,” he admitted. “I was one  of the bravest of the brave. Now I’m just hunkered down in Fairfax; I just ride around the hills.”

Kirk and Sophie Ross had just moved to their Berkeley Avenue home from San Francisco in August.

“We were looking forward to fixing up the house and garden together; he was very  much a handyman and good with woodworking,” said Sophie, Kirk’s wife of five  years. “We had lots of plans. Kirk was going to set up a darkroom to develop his own photos. We were going to go to Yosemite and camping in Mendocino.”

Between 1994 and 1998, there were four bicycle fatalities in Marin. Corte Madera cyclist Kathy Crimm was killed in late 1998, but the collision occurred just outside the county, near Petaluma. 

OTHER INFORMATION:
(From Oren Noah)

Kirk Ross was killed on a portion of Nicasio Valley Road that it is as close to a perfect cycling road (safety wise) as can be. He was riding north-bound, out of Nicasio, with the Nicasio Reservoir on his left. The road has two wide motor-traffic lanes and wide, well marked shoulders. From the reports I have received, Kirk was riding on the shoulder, to the right of the white line. There can be no excuse for a motorist hitting him from the rear.