Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on August 17, 2011 at 4:19pm

anyone else have more information? And any update on the cyclist?

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Permalink Reply by Adam "Cezar" Jenkins on August 17, 2011 at 5:24pm

Don't forget the report recently about how bad taxi drivers are pedestrians. My assumption is that someone up high said, "Crack down on the cabbies". Of course, there are some CPD officers who don't do a lot of that thinking thing.

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Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on August 18, 2011 at 2:31am

My friend sent me this article as well about it.  Video link is there.

 

It was an early June morning, and Bogdan Vintilescu was driving his cab eastbound on Wilson Ave. Parked cars dotted the right side of the street adjacent to his vehicle, with a bike lane tucked snugly the lines of cars. As Vintilescu continued east of Broadway Ave., a cyclist–a woman in her late 20s–rode down the bike lane.

And then a door swung open. The driver’s side door of a parked SUV popped open, and suddenly the cyclist was on the ground.

And then a door swung open. The driver’s side door of a parked SUV popped open, and suddenly the cyclist was on the ground. 

Vintilescu said the woman in the parked SUV told police that she had only opened the door of her car a little bit, then saw the bicyclist and shut it immediately. There was damage on the front bumper of Vintilescu’s taxi from where the bicycle hit it. 

A police report was filed and lists Vintilescu and the bicyclist as the only two involved parties. There is no mention of the woman in the parked SUV. Vintilescu currently has a court date set for Aug. 23. He is charged with failing to adjust speed to avoid an accident.

And that’s where the security camera comes in.

After it happened, Vintilescu was on the phone with Larry Ionescu, the owner of the cab.

“I called Larry the owner and I said, ‘What do I do? What do I tell these guys to believe me?’” he said. He began looking around for a camera, noticing the TCF bank on the street and thinking it might have caught the incident. Then it hit him.

“Larry remember,” Vintilescu said, “we have a camera.”

In the front window of Vintilescu’s cab is a security camera that films out the front windshield in addition to the cab’s interior. It has a purpose beyond cab driver safety, explained Comey Dilanjian, an owner/partner of Erickson Communications, the company that distributes the cameras.

“That is a great tool for having a historical record of an accident,” Dilanjian said. “You can download that video of an accident whereby you have a clearer understanding as to what happened.”

The video clearly shows the biker moving forward, a few feet ahead of the cab. As the biker approaches a parked SUV, the driver’s side door swings open and the biker falls sideways in front of the braking cab.

And all of it is caught on camera.

According to Efrat Stein, spokesperson for the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, there were 826 video cameras installed in cabs in 2010. In the last few months since the front- and rear-facing camera have been approved, Dilanjian estimates that between 400 and 500 of those cameras are now on the streets.

“We’re at the infancy of those cameras in this city,” he said. “Other cities have used this longer than we have, and I’ve seen videos where these cameras are used in Canada or other parts of the county in the U.S., so they’re ahead of us in that aspect. We’re just sort of getting started here.”

Ionescu said that he had been trying to contact the woman who opened the car door for well over a week because damage was done to his cab and he needed her information for insurance purposes.

Then, Ionescu said, on July 14 she answered one of his phone calls.

“I told her, ‘I just want your insurance information,’” he said.

But she declined his request, saying that since her name was not included on the police report, she had no responsibility to give out any information.

A Chicago ordinance was passed in 2008 that said drivers could be charged a $50 fine for dooring.

Dooring was then put in the spotlight earlier this year when in April, Gov. Pat Quinn announced that for the first time, dooring incidents would be counted as traffic crashes. That data will then be compiled and used in the annual traffic accident summaries released by the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The legal definition of dooring, found in section 11-1407 of the Motor Vehicle Code, says: “No person shall open the door of a vehicle on the side available to moving traffic unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so, and can be done without interfering with the movement of other traffic, nor shall any person leave a door open on the side of a vehicle available to moving traffic for a period of time longer than necessary to load or unload passengers.”

Was that the case with Vintilescu, the bicyclist and the woman in the parked SUV? That is for the courts to decide. But according to Dilanjian, having that camera in the vehicle gave Vintilescu a big benefit: Clarity.

“To utilize more than just a [rear-facing camera] safety feature, that’s another aspect…we do utilize it for accident purposes,” he said. “It eliminates he-said-she-said, and the recollections and this and that.”

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Permalink Reply by Chris B on August 18, 2011 at 4:47am

You know, after commuting with my camera for awhile, I'm considering putting a mount on my car as well for this reason, mainly to protect me from anything that happens. Otherwise it's one person's word against the other.

 

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Permalink Reply by Rich S on August 18, 2011 at 5:22am

I believe that ALL commercial and municipal vehicles should have recording devices installed and done so in a way that the driver of the vehicle cannot tamper with it. That includes taxis, trucks, and police cars.

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Permalink Reply by Liz on August 18, 2011 at 5:28am

Its amazing to me that officers will often side with one party over the other when it is simply a case of one persons word vs. another.  The report should simply document all the involved parties stories and leave the opinion of the officer out of it.

Chris B said:

You know, after commuting with my camera for awhile, I'm considering putting a mount on my car as well for this reason, mainly to protect me from anything that happens. Otherwise it's one person's word against the other.

 

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Permalink Reply by Davo on August 18, 2011 at 7:13am

why didn't the cyclist say anything to the police?

 

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Permalink Reply by Tim S on August 18, 2011 at 7:58am

it would be something if the court threw out the ticket against the cabbie and reissued a summons to the twit in the SUV.

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Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on August 18, 2011 at 11:05am

If anyone hears an update, please let us know.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on August 18, 2011 at 11:39am

It would be nice if it works out that way.

Tim S said:

it would be something if the court threw out the ticket against the cabbie and reissued a summons to the twit in the SUV.

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Permalink Reply by Christopher on August 19, 2011 at 4:06am

Sadly, Illinois Vehicle code states that unless your vehicle was actually involved, you are not involved. I once swerved to avoid a car and flipped the SUV I was driving, the driver who caused the accident stayed on scene, told the police what happened, and was not cited. Fortunately, neither was I. Chicago needs to train it's law enforcement to properly enforce the "dooring" ordinance. IF The SUV Driver did make contact with the cyclist, even with the door, perhaps someone should file a "leaving the scene of an accident" report on the driver, since she declined to volunteert information?

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Permalink Reply by A. Badger on August 19, 2011 at 4:21am

I apologize to the like, 5 good cops in chicago, but by and far CPD are lazy bastards.  I  called 911 a few years ago about 3 underage drunks trying to load this passed out girl into their car.  She was at that stomach-pump point, the dudes (plus driver) were *Hammered*.  the 911 circus went to the wrong side of the street just as the dudes were successful in getting the girl loaded up so I told the cop parked at starbucks across the street these guys were about to leave the scene. he yelled at me for interrupting him. wtf.   I can totally visualize an idiot cop not ticketing the person who doored the biker

Cameron Puetz said:

I'm really confused about what happened here. Did the cabdriver cause another crash by swerving to avoid the first crash? Tickets for failure to reduce speed are pretty much only ever issued to drivers involved in a crash. Some piece of the story is missing here.
On another note why is CPD so terrible at responding to bike crashes. The citation for dooring is pretty straight forward. The cop would have to be pretty lazy or incompetent not to issue it. 

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