Can Marin drivers and bike riders learn to share the road?
Emerging from the fog of a coma last September, Monique Petrov had a number of questions. Where am I? Who put this tube down my throat? Did I get hit during the Ironman? Four days earlier, the 40-year-old Petrov had set out on an all-afternoon bike ride. A well-known fitness coach and trainer in the Bay Area, she was also an elite triathlete preparing for the upcoming Ironman in Hawaii. Five hours and 15 minutes after leaving her San Rafael home, Petrov was pushing 25 miles an hour, nudged along by a slight tailwind as she powered east on Lucas Valley Road. “I remember thinking, ‘I’ve done my work,’” she says. “‘I’m as prepared as I can be.’” She was five miles from home. She was in the bike lane. That made no difference to the driver of the westbound minivan who turned off Lucas Valley onto Canyon Oak Drive. The driver later told police the sun blinded him and he did not see Petrov, who shattered his windshield upon impact, then landed 30 feet away on the shoulder of Canyon Oak, which
