Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Zoetrope on December 5, 2011 at 4:49pm

Ugh.  Probably not a good idea to react too strongly until more info is in about those lights, or lack thereof.  

Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on December 5, 2011 at 4:59pm

I'm not expecting more info to surface about this one. Hard to really tell if what's in the story is indicative of what really transpired, or to whatever degree writer's bias . . . it's just become sort of a trigger for me as the tendency to want to find a reason to blame the cyclist has been a feature of nearly every such report I've read over the last 6 years or so that I've been following cycling fatalities a little more closely.

A few months ago I spent the better part of an hour poring through this map:

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

and came away with a telling, if not surprising picture:

In about 50% of crashes in which the cyclist survived, the fault was deemed to be the cyclist's.

In pretty near 100% of the crashes in which the cyclist was killed, the fault was deemed to be the cyclist's.

Permalink Reply by mike w. on December 5, 2011 at 6:06pm

Okay, this has bugged me for weeks now, but almost every weekday since mid November i've had occasion to drive inbound Milwaukee avenue at about 6AM. Several times now along the stretch south of Euclid av (Glenview,) i have seen the same guy riding along without lights or reflector in the roadway. He turns west at Central. Last time i saw him i very nearly didn't- he was going up the railway bridge just before Glenview road... he nearly became a hood ornament. i haven't seen him since then and i sincerely hope he's okay, but i don't doubt that when (not if) he gets clobbered, the driver who hits him doesn't get cited. He's a true Ninja Cyclist... at least he isn't a salmon.

The speed limit on Milwaukee along that stretch is 40 to 45, and most drivers at that time of the AM are doing 50+. i doubt that any collision would be survivable.