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Post by Logan on Mar 21, 2016 6:20:38 GMT -6
DES MOINES, Iowa — When Iowa’s largest city joined the boom in urban cycling, work crews painted more bike lanes, erected traffic signals especially for cyclists and installed rental bikes at self-service stands that catered to commuters and tourists alike. In Des Moines and scores of other U.S. cities, the efforts drew bike riders onto busy streets that were once the sole province of cars and trucks. The changes also heightened the risk of serious collisions like the one that threw Ken Sherman from his bicycle with such force that his body tore off the vehicle’s side mirror. Cyclists are frustrated that the growing support for two-wheeled transportation has only rarely led to tougher penalties for drivers who hit bikes, many of whom are never ticketed or receive only minor citations, even in accidents that permanently disable or kill cyclists. The motorist who hit Sherman was deemed to be at fault but was never charged with any wrongdoing. Read more: www.timesargus.com/article/20160321/THISJUSTIN/303219994 |
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Post by nobody on Mar 21, 2016 13:31:28 GMT -6
Unless a driver is an unlicensed illegal alien like the one who struck and permanently maimed a Lubbock Police Dept captain who was riding his bike on a rural road south of town, the driver gets a pass. Fact of life. Forget the law that says that bicycles are vehicles and have a right to use the roads.
Over the space of a year not long ago we had two cyclists killed, both hit by pickup trucks heading east into the sun and in both instances it appeared the victims were on the far right-hand side of the road and the truck veered to hit them. In one instance the lady killed was a Dallas area resident killed while competing in the Buffalo Springs Lake half-Ironman. Far as I know no tickets were issued.
[Supposehdly pickup truck drivers have better visibility but that may not be the case. It may be that sitting higher up makes cyclists hard to see against a cluttered ground background. Also possibly our streets and roads that run east-west (and here streets are built on a grid) may be at fault in that at a certain time of year the sun is straight in the driver's eyes; Streets running at a diagonal to the 4 compass points could be safer; ask cyclists in D.C.]
And it doesn't matter who the victim was. An assistant district attorney was riding his bicycle on an access road when he was struck from behind by a real estate agent who just got out of a Republican meeting at Outback Steakhouse where drinks were imbibed. She stopped and backed up to see what she hit, running over the victim again (don't back up!). To muddy the waters, a local conservative radio show host named Wynn who had gotten out of that same meeting ran over the victim too! (This did not forstall Wynn for running for the county GOP chair afterward.) The victim was still alive despite having been run over three times and lingered in a coma for a month before expiring. As you can see there was a problem with causation because it was not clear what injuries were caused by which driver. Also the victim had no lights on his bike though it happened at night. The police did not think to give Wynn an alcohol test, so we don't know how drunk he was. The lady who hit the cyclist did not get off scot-free because over the course of repeated trials she depleted whatever assets she had, paying her lawyer (do attorney's fees qualify as punishment? Why not?).
That is so not only here in Texas but everywhere from what I've read in Bicycling magazine. A driver has to be an illegal alien or staggering drunk to be prosecuted. Not just cyclists but pedestrians too. The only way a driver is prosecuted for hitting a pedestrian is if the driver was drunk or ran into a kid in a crosswalk. Pedestrian casualties are at an all-time high btw, both in my city and nationwide.
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