Articles Posted in Bicycle Accidents

I read with sadness today in the Finger Lakes Times that a 14-year old Clyde, New York teenager was struck and killed by a motor vehicle while biking to school this morning on Clyde-Marengo Road in Galen. This is sad, sad, sad. As the father of two teenagers, who both like to ride their bikes, and as an avid bicyclist myself, and just as a human being for crying out loud, my heart goes out to the family of the victim.

I have to say that this has been one of the worst years I can remember for bicycle injuries in this part of the Finger Lakes (Ontario County). Several deaths, several brutal injuries, including a guy with an amputated leg, and almost every one of them the cyclist was not at fault. I think about them every time I get on my bike, or one of my kids does.

Keep safe!

I was both surprised and delighted to spot an article in the Syracuse Post Standard titled, “Five Things Drivers and Cyclists Need to Know about Each Other”. As an avid cyclist and a Central and Syracuse New York accident lawyer representing injured cyclists, I applaud the Post Standard for bringing to a wider audience some safety tips I have been blogging about for years:

For cyclists, (1) be predictable, not weirdly spontaneous, so motorists will know what you are about to do. You can be predictable simply by following the same rules of the road a motorist must follow: obey all traffic rules/laws, for example, drive on the right side of the road, stop at red lights and stop signs. (2) Imagine you are invisible (you are!) so that you drive totally defensively; (3) try to make eye contact with drivers at intersections; (4) watch out for those parked car doors opening!; (5) don’t have music plugged into your ears (the law in New York requires you to have one ear un-plugged, but that’s not good enough, keep them both free to help save your life!); (6) always wear a helmet (required by law for those under 14, but required by love-of-life for all); (7) be visible; where bright colors in the day, and use bike lights at night (I recommend flashing lights even in the daytime — you are that much more visible – but remember to PRETEND you are INVISIBLE); (8) no sidewalk riding; (9) you are allowed to ride two-abreast, except when traffic wants to pass you, and then you must go single file.

For motorists: (1) Look out for us cyclists! Hey, we are here!; (2) Reduce speed when encountering cyclists; (3) give us room when you pass us! (4 feet at least); (4) if you can’t pass us safely, wait!

Maybe you can, but I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t get on my road bike without thinking, at least a little bit, about getting injured or killed on it. That’s probably because, as a Central and Syracuse New York bicycle accident lawyer, I see some pretty nasty bike injuries, and worse, all the time.

It’s not easy to forget the danger. Just today my cousin, an avid cyclist, was hit and killed by a pickup truck while biking out in Oregon where he lived and worked. As I heard about him, all I could think was, “but for the grace of God, there go I”.

Death seems to be falling all around me, like killer raindrops. I blogged the other day about my brother’s recent sudden death, and now my cousin, only 60 years old.

The first automobile accident in the United States was in New York City in 1896, when a motor vehicle collided with a bicyclist, causing the cyclist to break a leg. And that was just the beginning. From there, it was downhill for cyclists.

When a motorist and cyclist collide, the cyclist invariably bears the brunt of the damage. But the truth is that’s just the beginning. After the cyclist is injured or killed because of some distracted motorist’s negligence, the police often find some way to ride roughshod over the cyclist in their accident reports. From my experience representing injured bicyclists throughout the Syracuse and Central New York area, I can say that the police often seem to find a way to blame the cyclist and pardon the motorist. Forget about the forensic evidence at the scene — the police are likely to sympathize with, and believe, the motorist’s excuse that the cyclist “just came out of nowhere”.

Like most people who drive cars but don’t ride bikes, police tend to have subconscious biases in favor of motorists and against cyclists. And unless you have a good New York bicycle accident lawyer who knows how to carefully screen juries for anti-cyclist or anti-motorcyclist prejudice, the jury will likely do you in, too.

Fellow New York Bicycle accident attorney Jim Read reports in his blog that a Bill making its way through congress would, if made law, remove bicycling from the federal transportation program. As Jim notes, it would set us bicyclists back many years in our efforts to get government roadway designers and planners to consider bicyclist safety when designing and upgrading roadways.

The Bill is called “the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act“. Among other things, the proposed law would allow states to build bridges without safe access for pedestrians and bicycles and eliminate bicyclists’ status and standing in the planning and design of our transportation system. This heavily auto-biased program would also endanger funding for our safe paths, bike lanes and bikeways.

If you are a bicyclist and want to stand up for your rights, go here to find your local representative and send them an urgent message.

I read an interesting article in the New York Times today titled, “A new Breed of Lawyers Focuses on Bicyclists’ Rights.” The article focuses on a group of NY City Bicycle lawyers who are fighting a perceived NYPD prejudice against City cyclists. Cops have issued tickets to cyclists for not keeping right, which is the law in New York State generally, but not in New York City. Cyclists are also getting a lot of tickets for moving out of the designated bike lanes, even when they need to move out of the lane to avoid obstacles.

None of this really applies much to what I do as a Central and Syracuse New York bike accident lawyer, except for one thing: In a car-on-bicycle collision, I believe police tend to “blame the cyclist” more often than not, up here as well as down there. Many motorists, and police officers, feel deep down that cyclists are merely “in the way” of traffic, and should be able to avoid motorists.

Most people harbor this prejudice against cyclists because they aren’t cyclists, but motorists. As motorists themselves, people generally, and cops particularly, tend to side with motorists to the detriment of cyclists.