Somerville bicyclist, 72, dies in ‘dooring’ incident
A stretch of Broadway in Somerville near where a bicyclist was fatally injured Friday. (Photo: Arah Schuur/Somerville Bicycle Safety)
A Somerville bicyclist was killed Friday after the driver of an SUV opened a car door and hit him, according to the City of Somerville and Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.
Stephen Conley, 72, was riding west at 1055 Broadway near Somerville’s Teele Square at approximately 11:20 a.m. Friday when the driver of a Land Rover opened the driver-side door into him, the DA’s Office said – a form of injuring cyclists call “dooring.” Conley was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he died from his injuries the next day.
The driver stayed on the scene and is cooperating with the investigation, police said. No charges have been filed.
Conley was riding in the bike lane, which is unprotected from car traffic on this stretch of Broadway. Somerville’s Bicycle Network Plan would remove the existing unprotected bike lanes on Broadway and add a protected lane in only one direction, according to the Bicycle Network Plan Draft. In a Monday press release, Somerville Bike Safety called on the city to add protected bike lanes in both directions on Broadway between Alewife Brook Parkway and Powder House Circle.
“We are angry that we have to mourn another unacceptable, preventable loss of life on our streets,” Somerville Bike Safety leaders said in an email. “Somerville is a city that has been committed to Vision Zero for the last five years, but we continue to see people walking, rolling, and biking struck, injured, and killed by drivers.”
“Paint isn’t protection,” said Arah Schuur, one of the founders of Somerville Bicycle Safety. “I live about three blocks from where this happened. I ride my bicycle on Broadway all the time. There is no safe way for people in West Somerville to get to and from places in the city safely by bicycle, and that needs to be remedied immediately.”
It’s a city goal to give cyclists of all ages a way to ride a bike anywhere in the city, Mayor Katjana Ballantyne has said.
Conley was the sixth person over the age of 60 killed in the past decade while biking in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville, according to data from MassBike and other safety advocates. He was killed only a month after Cambridge cyclist George Clemmer, 71, was hit by a truck.
“No words can ease the pain of the victim’s family, friends and loved ones,” Ballantyne said in a press release Monday. “And now is a time to grieve, but we must also commit to action. Our full community must commit to saving lives by challenging the status quo.”
Here is Stephen Conley’s obituary: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/stephen-conley-obituary?pid=202583348
It is really important for drivers to get into the habit of ALWAYS looking before they open their car doors! Bikes are here to stay and as in Holland it should become second nature to NEVER open the car door without checking to make sure there is not cyclist approaching. Maybe it can become part of driver’s ed.
Drivers should get into the habit of opening their driver side door with their right hand. This forces you to turn your midsection and you will see an oncoming bike or car.
Too many bike casualties. It is an awful shame that lives are cut short.
While it’s true that drivers should be careful and open doors with their right hand, and that teaching this is a good idea, relying on drivers to do this is not a solution. Adding it to driver’s ed means it’ll be known to majority of drivers in 20 years? 30 years? More?
And you need to teach people not just in the city, but anyone who ever visits, including people in other states: my wife was doored by visitors from Vermont.
But there is a solution to dooring: design streets so people on bikes don’t have to ride right next to parked cars. That’s what Cambridge is doing across much of the city’s major roads, and that’s what Somerville should be doing.