Cars and cyclists

Seventeen-year-old American cyclist Magnus White, who was scheduled to race at the upcoming world championships in Scotland, was killed Saturday when he was struck by a vehicle on a training ride near his home in Boulder.

At 12:33 p.m. Saturday, White was riding his Trek Model Emonda SL 7 bike southbound on Diagonal Highway just south of the 63rd Street intersection when he was hit by a Toyota Matrix that had crossed from the righthand lane into the shoulder, according to Colorado State Patrol spokesman Gabriel Moltrer. White was ejected from his bike and transported to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The Toyota driver — identified by Moltrer as a 23-year-old Westminster woman — was the only person in the car. Neither drugs, alcohol or excessive speed are suspected to have been a factor in the crash, Moltrer said.

The Boulder County Coroner’s Office sent out a release identifying White on Monday, one day after USA Cycling announced White’s death in a statement Sunday.

White was a rising multidisciplinary star, winning a junior national championship in cyclocross in 2021 and earning a place on the U.S. national team. He competed with the team in Europe ahead of last year’s cyclocross world championships, and he was picked to represent the U.S. again at this year’s cyclocross worlds in the Netherlands.

White began to dabble in road cycling and mountain biking this season. He was on one of his final training rides before the junior world mountain bike championships in Glasgow, Scotland, when the accident occurred.

White’s mother Jill worked at the CU Law School from early 2021 to late 2022 in the fundraising office, although I didn’t know her personally.

For people in the area, Highway 119, aka the Diagonal, is the road that runs from Boulder out to Longmont. It’s a divided four-lane highway with no stoplights for about 10 miles, so people regularly go more than 70 mph. I don’t recall the shoulder well, but the problem of course is that a bicyclist who is ten or fifteen feet to the to the right of the traffic lane is completely at the mercy of the cars flowing in that direction.

Since this accident happened in the middle of the day and apparently intoxicants weren’t involved I wonder if the driver might have been texting or otherwise distracted, as so many drivers are given current communication technologies and their use/abuse. (I can’t understand why it’s legal to have your smartphone mounted on a stand on your dashboard, so you can surf Facebook while driving 100 feet per second on a road where bicyclists are a few feet to the right of your car).

This is purely impressionistic, but I seem to have noticed that relations between drivers and cyclists have been getting (more) hostile in the Boulder area lately. Boulder is home to a very active cycling culture, including many world class athletes like Magnus White. Cyclists are understandably anxious and resentful when people operating what can so easily become deadly weapons engage in aggressive and/or negligent driving, while drivers also have some valid complaints, given how common it has become for cyclists to completely ignore traffic rules. Just last week I was startled badly when I was starting to move after having coming to a complete stop at a four-way stop, and a cyclist blew tbrough the stop sign to my left at probably 25 mph, and passed maybe ten feet in front of my car.

Still, given the physics involved, drivers need to be cautious and conservative around cyclists, even or especially around those whose instincts for self-preservation are less than optimal.

And for heaven’s sake don’t look at your phone when you’re driving.