The Chainlink

An infuriating article in TribLocal, that implies a child was severely injured this morning by bicycling into a moving car.  No suggestion that the car driver failed to stop or yield to two children attempting to cross the street.  The injured girl's brother just made it to safety before the car plowed into the little girl, so the driver knew they were there, and should have stopped for them.  Grrrrrrrrrr......

http://triblocal.com/crystal-lake/2011/06/08/crystal-lake-girl-in-c...

 

Crystal Lake girl in critical condition after bicycle accident

An 8-year-old Crystal Lake girl remains in critical condition this afternoon after she apparently struck a moving car on her bicycle Wednesday morning.

The girl was transported to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge for serious head injuries after she was found breathing, but unconscious near North and Millard avenues at around 7:35 a.m., Deputy Chief Eugene Lowery said.

She is currently undergoing surgery, and in critical condition, he said.

A 2004 Acura was traveling eastbound on North Avenue when the girl and her 12-year-old brother attempted to cross the street onto Millard Avenue, according to police. The boy safely made it across the street, but time the girl struck the left front quarter panel of the vehicle, throwing her onto the windshield of the car.

She was later transported to West Elementary School, 100 Briarwood Drive, before being flown by helicopter to Lutheran General.

She was not wearing a helmet, Lowery said. No citations have been issued.

“This appears to be a tragic accident,” he said. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the girl, her friends and family.”

The investigation is ongoing.

www.twitter.com/lsynett

 

 

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This has been a trend with every such article lately.

I guess you have to be struck by the exact nose of a vehicle to not to be considered to have "struck the car."

I've noted my displeasure with the so-called reporting in this article on the TribLocal site:

 

N. Valhalla wrote 0 seconds ago

Mr. Synett:
“The boy safely made it across the street, but time the girl struck the left front quarter panel of the vehicle…”  Ummm, that “sentence” isn’t even in English.  But even if your copy editor was struck blind and dumb all afternoon by a tainted lunchtime martini, this article lacks, for want of a better word: journalism.
You seem to blame an eight year old child for running into a moving car.  I suppose similar logic could accuse a gunshot victim for running headlong into a bullet, but I don’t think that would be either fair or accurate.  You took down the statement from the nice policeman very well–good job!–but failed to ask why the motorist was still moving at speed towards two young children attempting to cross the road. That the impact threw the child up onto the windshield is a reasonable suggestion that the car was still moving much too fast and failed to yield to two children in the road.  The fact that the boy survived, having crossed the car’s path, suggests the driver was not surprised by children darting unseen from between parked cars.  If I was driving and saw young children crossing in my path, I would be standing up on the brakes, likely pushing the pedal through the floorboard.  Blaming an eight year old for running into a moving vehicle, a car that should not have been moving at all towards the children, is a low blow. I think TribLocal readers deserve better than this half-reported article."

This is a huge issue. I see it all the time. My least favorite word: "darted."

 

 

I agree. 

Gin said:

This is a huge issue. I see it all the time. My least favorite word: "darted."

 

 

We gotta hold the media's feet to the fire when we encounter such nonsense.  And "well done!" to those on this list who are slapping around the idiot ESPN radio jerks who advocate dooring as sport.
At the excruciating/thoroughly depressing trial for Mandy Annis' killers the defense attorney spent a good part of the day trying to subtly present her proceeding across Kedzie on a green light as a "dart-out."  It really didn't make much sense in the context of how her death occurred but he kept bringing up the term and asking witnesses if they knew what it meant repeatedly, and then ploddingly defining it.

Gin said:

This is a huge issue. I see it all the time. My least favorite word: "darted."

 

 

Someobody posted this to one of the lists one night recently:

http://www.baycitizen.org/data/bike-accidents/

And I got sucked in for about 1/2 an hour playing with the filters.

What I learned:

In crashes where the cyclist lived to tell about it, a little over half were deemed the cyclist's fault.

In crashes where the cyclist did not live to tell about it, almost 100% were deemed the cyclist's fault.

That's an interesting map of the Bay Area.  It would be interesting to see something similar that shows the accidents around Chicago.  Just out of curiosity, I looked at the raw data for the Bay map and sorted it by "hit-and-run=TRUE".  The data shows at least as many bicyclists "hit-and-ran" as car drivers, which I find somewhat hard to believe.

Steven Vance has been working on a Chicago portal:

http://www.stevevance.net/crashportal/?page=bikecrash

I can't bear to look at it-- too close to home, so to speak.

Thanks, H3N3.  Now I can try to plan my routes bypassing the areas that seem prone to collisions.  Good stuff, this.

H3N3 said:

Steven Vance has been working on a Chicago portal:

http://www.stevevance.net/crashportal/?page=bikecrash

I can't bear to look at it-- too close to home, so to speak.

Those percentages just sicken me. What is the matter with the relevant authorities? Why do they just take the motorist's word for it - especially when the said motorist is hardly likely to self-incriminate? If there are no third party eye witnesses why can't they leave a verdict open?

H3N3 said:

Someobody posted this to one of the lists one night recently:

http://www.baycitizen.org/data/bike-accidents/

And I got sucked in for about 1/2 an hour playing with the filters.

What I learned:

In crashes where the cyclist lived to tell about it, a little over half were deemed the cyclist's fault.

In crashes where the cyclist did not live to tell about it, almost 100% were deemed the cyclist's fault.

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