Kelowna cyclist 'lucky' after SUV swerves into bike lane
Crash happened at the same intersection where another cyclist was killed a month ago
A Kelowna, B.C. cyclist says she's lucky she wasn't more seriously injured after a vehicle swerved into the bike lane she was in, causing her to crash on Tuesday.
"My first thought was, 'Thank God I had my helmet on.' And then I guess I just sat down, took my backpack off and cried," said Kate Ray.
Ray was riding in a marked bike lane on Baron Road when an SUV cut her off to make a right turn.
"I was crowded to the point where I couldn't go anywhere, so I ended up falling into the back of his vehicle and out into the road," she said.
The collision happened at the same intersection where another cyclist was killed last month when a commercial truck was making a right turn.
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Ray wants to make the intersection safer for cyclists, and the city has said it's planning to make some changes.
"We have decided to apply green conflict zone markers at this intersection. It's to make the area more visible," said Moudud Hasan, transportation and mobility manager with the City of Kelowna.
Hasan said the upgrades will be done by the end of the next month.
The city also floated the idea of using a series of white posts to make a physical barrier between vehicles and bike lanes, but Hasan said that won't work with this particular intersection because large vehicles and trucks need that space for turning.
With files from the CBC's Daybreak South and Brady Strachan.
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