I’m not going to do anything “personal” in my opening paragraph today. In my review of the past year I have found that a huge number that made the media were either DUI or hit-and-run/presumed DUI. As a rough estimate about 45%(+/-) of the reports fell into this category, especially if I include the media reports from the UK which I normally don’t post in my blog. Part of that is the media, wrecks with no known perpetrator are “news”, and DUI wrecks are “news” as well. But part of it is just that there were that many people killed by/while DUI (a large number of wrecks were when the cyclist was above the legal limit for BAC%), and there has been an uptick in hit-and-run wrecks of all kinds, not just against cyclists. This is a documented phenomena, more and more people just don’t give a poop, or are not licensed or insured and don’t want to be caught without those. In many cases where they catch the driver, they left the scene because they just didn’t give a poop about hitting another human being who wasn’t in a car, if they were actual real people they would have been driving a car is the rationale.
First link today is a 5YO killed while riding her new bike. Shreveport child killed while riding bike The unlicensed driver backed out of a driveway into the street and right over the little girl. Normally at this point I would tell you that every driveway is an intersection, but hey. First of all the victim was a 5YO girl, second she was riding within sight of her home. I lay this entirely on the driver who did not have proper lookout when he pulled out of the driveway in a residential area with kids in the street. If you look at the picture you don’t see any sidewalks or other areas for pedestrians or kids riding tiny bikes, so there will be kids in the street there. Driver’s fault, even before considering the lack of a valid license…
A SWCC wreck in OH. Cyclist Hit In Late Night Accident I’m not going to state categorically that this cyclist wasn’t trying to cross the road as I don’t have any access to the physical evidence, and it was at an intersection. I wonder if there was a traffic light that was controlled by a loop sensor in the pavement, most of those will not change for a cyclist unless the cyclist knows where to put the bike for greatest sensitivity from the sensor, and a high percentage of those will not change even then. By law you have to treat those as failed traffic controls and act as if you were at a stop sign and proceed when the traffic on the cross road is clear.
And last links are form Oz as cyclists do not escape the holiday carnage. SA cycist dies after Christmas Day crash and National holiday road toll at 38 Note that the 5YO was hit on private property and won’t be counted as a road death.
And that’s all I have this year. Next year will start out with a Wreck-free Sunday post.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
Witch on a Bicycle 