Lawmakers hitting cyclists

Another reason to be glad my council member rides a bike. It seems lawmakers have been hitting cyclists with their cars.

The video below may be disturbing. The cyclist is still alive and has been released from the hospital. Also disturbing, the last line of the report is that a witness told police that "the collision appeared to be the cyclists' fault." Nice way to end the report - with a statement by some dude that completely contradicts the visible facts.

From the video, red light running killed about 900 people and injured about 150,000 in 2007 alone. Tip to Ambrose.

And in Ontario a cyclist was killed by that province's former Attorney General. The cyclist and the AG had an altercation that resulted in the cyclist - no longer on his bike - holding on to the side of the car as the driver crossed lanes of traffic and drove up on the curb.

The witnesses said it appeared as though Bryant was attempting to knock Sheppard off the car by brushing against trees and mailboxes on Bloor Street approaching Avenue Road. Burrows said Sheppard was "essentially a pedestrian," having left his bicycle.

Police said Sheppard sustained severe injuries after striking a mailbox and a tree while still hanging on to the car.

Comments

[Eric W.]

Re: the Ontario case... It's been discussed in some forums I am on. In the interest of fairness to all involved in that case, I just wanted to point out http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/689771>
this article with additional details from the Toronto Star.

Not assigning/removing culpabilty from anyone in the case, but there are some important facts/issues to consider as part of the whole story. At the very least, if it's true that the cyclist was inebriated, he probably shouldn't have been riding to begin with... and the possibility that the police FORCED a drunk man to ride his bike home is apalling.

Just my $0.02.

[ohmypolarbear]

My reaction was the same as yours, but the TV station has been doing a lot of follow-up reporting on this. Not surprising because a politician was involved and Madison is a big bike town (I grew up there). I have to say, though, that I think they're stretching things a bit by claiming he ran the red light 2.8 seconds after it changed: he was across to the other side of the intersection by then.

Reactions from area cyclists. Little dig at the end (from the same reporter that gave us the bad witness account) mentioning a police crackdown on cyclists running stops/reds. Madison cyclists are usually good at following the rules on that one.

This report is focused on red light running. They mention that red light cameras reduce the number of violations but can increase rear-end incidents. A fair trade to me if it means people are safer - and the Mayor agrees.

Another witness says it wasn't the cyclist's fault. AG says the driver probably won't be charged with reckless driving, just ticketed for running the red and hitting the cyclist.

[chiggins]

Man, when she said "...the perils of...", I was wincing in anticipation of the story being about how dangerous it is to ride a bike. Awesome that the whole story was about red-light running, nice work!

[Steve]

B-b-b-but I thought only cyclists ran red lights?!

[Eric_W.]

Let's hope the bicyclist survives and recovers fully.

If that is the case, he is really lucky that the bus had a camera since you can see that the cyclist clearly had no fault here. That "eye witness" can quite obviously be discounted.

Terrible. Also, if the bus driver had been a little faster moving off the red light or had been moving while his light changed to green, the car would have slammed into the side of the bus. Would the "eye witness" then say it was the bus driver's fault for going through a green light?

[Eric_W.]

Can someone explain why "eye witnesses" inists on blaming the bicyclist? Is that a kind of profiling? We had this discussion before, I think...

I don't get it. CLEARLY, they guy goes through the red light very much after it turned red and of course after the yellow gave him time to come to a stop). Where is the bicyclist's fault here?

As I said before: How lucky that there was a camera on the bus.

http://portagedailyregister.com/news/local/article_08d68c44-9134-11de-8aa4-001cc4c002e0.html

http://www.wkowtv.com/global/story.asp?s=10981986

[Kristen]

The cyclist had a green light. It was green before either one of them entered the frame, and it was green all the way through when the SUV passed through the intersection. It didn't change until after the whole incident was done with.

How can ANYONE, after watching this video, say this incident was the cyclist's fault?

[JeffB]

I'm someone who believes that when there is an accident there is often some fault that can be spread around. To be sure the lions share rests with any motorist who runs a red light.

But I think any urban cyclist can attest that vehicles running red lights is rampant and should be expected. The question then is how can we alter our riding style to mitigate this danger.

The tape is truly disturbing and I really am shook by the violent collision that was inflicted on the cyclist. But there are some important lessons we all can take from this.

Cycling in an urban environment is not to be confused with time trialing or other "racing" activity. It is okay to go slow. You are not a weenie if you slow down at intersections and check both ways.

The things that stand out to me in this video are:
1) The cyclist hit the intersection at speed as the light was changing. The very time when we know cross vehicles are likely to have sped up to try and "beat the yellow".

2) The cyclist probably didn't have any view of traffic coming from the left because of the bus. From the tape it appears the cyclist was making no effort to check for left or right traffic before entering the intersection.

None of us can stop motorists from running red lights. But we all can ride a bit more defensively and give ourselves every opportunity to avoid them.

[Contrarian]

Can someone explain why "eye witnesses" inists on blaming the bicyclist?

There is a lot of evidence that eye-witnesses are much less reliable than commonly believed.

There is a psychological phenomenon known as "scenario fulfillment," which basically says that if you think something is likely to happen, that's what you think actually did happen.

So, if for instance the witness believes that cyclists tend to run red lights, there is a good chance he will remember the light being red when the cyclist entered the intersection -- even if he actually never saw the light. This is not dishonesty on the part of the witness, it's just the way our brains work.

[Washcycle]

It is odd that a driver runs a red light and hits a cyclist and the police point out that they're cracking down on red light running cyclists. "Let's go burn down the observatory so that something like this never happens again."

[rodney]

JeffB is correct. As Cyclists and operators of motor vehicles, you and I are responsible for our own safety while operating either.

I ride fast, as a result of conditioning, and will not hesitate one moment to slow my roll in the event "I" feel it is not safe.

Sad to see the incident, but from the video the cyclist, IMO, didn't have full situational awareness (the bus was obscuring the cross travel).

Wishing a speedy recovery from the crash and hope he gets back on the bike.

[danceralamode]

Holy crap! This video is seriously scary! I'm glad I ride on a marked bike route that's supposed to have less traffic. Seriously scary!