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Imagine you are driving down the road at 5 MPH below the speed limit.
You are between interections and it's dark. Your headlights allow you
to see clearly the road ahead of you. Suddenly a form speeds in front
of you from the side - it is a blob of grey the same color as the dark
road ahead of you, there are no lights, no reflective, you don't even have
time to put your foot to the brake. You can't image what you've hit.
Should you be sent away to prison for twenty years? What did you do
that was wrong? Were you at fault? Or was the cyclist who did not follow
traffic law, did not have lights on, did not have light or reflective
clothing, who threw himself right into your path not allowing you any time
to take evasive action, was that cyclist at fault.
This cyclist appears to have attempted to cross a busy street not at
an intersection but in the middle of the block. It does not state but we
may find that dark clothing and no lights were also involved.
The motorist may or may not have been speeding. While the police
report this time may not be as accurate as we deem necessary, after July,
after BikeABQ has sponsored the Bicycle Pedestrian Crash Scene
Investigation class for local police agencies, better and truth capturing
reports should be available.
Now a motorist leaving the scene after the fact is another
matter.
But sadly the truth is most crashes are the fault of the
unsafe cyclist. Chose your battles carefully and go full force to the
defense of the safe cyclist, and try to educate the unsafe cyclist to
practice safe behavior.
Craig Degenhardt
--- On Fri, 3/13/09, bhaskins1 <bhaskins26 at comcast dot net> wrote: From: bhaskins1 <bhaskins26 at comcast dot net> |