Not to bring you down...

That's a horrible, horrible accident. Sympathies to the families, friends and victims involved. Awful.

It's all too common in our sport, because what we do is dangerous. Extremely dangerous.

I'll argue that riding a bicycle on the road is more dangerous than SCUBA diving, skydiving, back country skiing and high altitude mountaineering. I've participated in each of those sports, had mishaps in each, and had my worst injuries (with the exception of a parachuting accident) from bike accidents. I also lost my best best friend of over two decades, Michael R. Rabe, to a drunk driver who killed him on his bike while riding home from my store.

It's important to acknowledge the risks we take, and to not minimize them or regard them casually. When we acknowledge them we can take whatever precautions are available to try to moderate- but never eliminate- those risks.

Very sad.  Prayers to all involved. 

We do what we do because we love and enjoy it.  To not do the things we enjoy for the sake of fear is to not live.  We can always be cautious and alert but sometimes it's simply not within your control...like this post indicates.  Sometimes it's someone else's fault.

As a father of 2, a husband, and the primary provider for my family, it is crucial for me to know that should something happen, god forbid, that my family will be take care of.  NOTE: I'm not in the insurance biz, but I would urge all of you who might leave behind a loved one(s) that you take the proper precautions and insure yourself.  Life insurance (especially term) is cheap and it might just make just make your family's survival possible should something happen to you.  

I know...I know...MORBID!  But cmon, we live in the real world, we do dangerous stuff, make sure your family is protected.  Suffering the loss of a loved one is horrible, nothing can compare.  But the added suffering of realizing that you have to sell your house, sell the cars, rent an apartment (imagine that with small kids) and be a full time single parent/full time employee is a long hard road. 

Sad...hope everything works out for her.

On the other hand, Darwin took care of the driver.  China...probably didn't even have a legit license.

I can't believe you stated that last sentence.  Seriously??!!

Its really sad when something like this happens, and unfortunately it happens all to often. Why is it when people get into a metal container with a engine bolted to it that their IQ drops by 50%? Add some alcohol into the mix and its just an accident waiting for a place to happen. Another thing that really gets my goat is often the law takes the side of the driver, it just seems at times that car drivers (SUV in particlar) just does not give a damn about a cyclist. "hey,  so what if I hit him/her, It dont hurt me nutting"

That is just me ranting about driver in general not giving 2 hoots about us

Thoughts and prayers are with Ilene, as well as the family of the driver.

Thanks all for your kind thoughts, I will pass them along.

Vegas has great weather and is very nice for riding and running, (not so much for swimming though), but drunk driving and hit and runs are a daily occurrence.  Tons of tourists are here from all over the world, all the time, and drive around with their head and eyes on the beautiful neon instead of the road.  Oh well, that's what I get for living here I guess.