It’s also emphatically not the case that it’s “only a matter of time” before you get hurt riding your bike in a city. Cyclists, like all human beings, exercise agency in the decisions they make and can learn to adjust their behavior and habits to make themselves much, much safer. Knowing that you don’t have to ride near parked cars is one way of doing this. It’s true that doorings are an epidemic in NYC, and it’s true that our streets are still unacceptably dangerous if you’re on two wheels. But we shouldn’t give further impetus to the idea that getting injured or killed on your bike is “just a matter of time, period.” It’s a matter of many things, including the imperative of drivers to understand the potential hazards they can cause, the imperative of cyclists to understand those hazards and not create new ones, and of the larger way in which urban space is conceived and treated by those with the means to shape our cities. There are vast numbers of people in this city and in many others whose lives could be changed for the better and who could contribute to re-shaping their cities in a sustainable, sensible, healthy, efficiently-moving way by riding their bikes–but many of those people will look at something like Jasmine’s death and conclude that it’s just not worth it, unless they understand the potential for their own dynamic role in changing the situation where this keeps happening.

”

— excerpted from comment by Scott on Streetsblog notice about Saturday’s vigil for cyclist Jasmine Herron. According to witnesses, Jasmine was doored by the careless driver of a Dodge parked on the right hand side of the street, and knocked into traffic, where she was accidentally killed by the city bus. The driver of the Dodge tried to deny any involvement, claiming another car struck Jasmine, but witnesses riding the bus say she’s lying.