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Bicyclist taken away in critical condition after being hit by a car in East Boston
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This is usually a quiet and pleasant street to bicycle on
with fairly light, slow traffic (especially compared to parallel Bennington Street)
Bennington
I was just telling someone yesterday that I can't believe people will bike on Bennington when you could take Saratoga or Chelsea. Bennington isn't wide enough for two way traffic most of the time, never mind biking (and I'm not sure why it's not a one-way between Central and Day Square). Sad that someone did take a safer route and still got mowed down by a driver.
More information?
When my family was riding our bikes home around 7:30 last night they had the whole intersection of Brooks and Saratoga taped off. We went up the hill a block over since a police officer told us it was a crime scene.
It is troubling that this could happen at the intersection of two one-way streets, both with stop signs.
BPD needs to start enforcing
BPD needs to start enforcing the traffic laws instead of mazimizing their detail time.
These are not mutually exclusive
I'm a huge critic of the detail racket that the BPD runs, but your comment makes no sense.
When police are on detail, they are able and expected to enforce traffic laws. When they are not on detail but on regular duty, they are also able and expected to enforce traffic laws. The details in no way led to less enforcement of traffic laws.
Most people agree that there should be more traffic enforcement in the greater Boston area. Let's see some politicians who make this happen.
It's always upsetting...
... to reads reports of yet another motor vehicle crash involving a cyclist. But I'm thankful that they are reported nowadays and not ignored.
Tonight?
When I read "tonight" I thought: shit, ninja cyclist at night, no lights. Then I saw that the tweet is before 6pm, so the problem wasn't related to night time poor visibility. I am a cyclist, and side with the UHub vox populi that it is indeed the 3,000 pound vehicles and their operators who are the danger on the roads. I remind my fellow two-wheelers: the law requires a white light in front and a red reflector in back, but you should feel free to wear reflective clothing, light clothing, use a red light in back, and don a helmet. You're not required to, of course, but the world needs more sexy legs like yours, so please be safe.
Minor nit pick Adam: while "tonight" is technically correct, "this evening" or even "late this afternoon" would help indicate that the accident occurred during daylight hours, an important bit of information when it comes to car-bike crashes.
Minor nit pick to officer Greland: Twitter holds you to 140, but if you can use "bike" instead of a graphic and "car" instead of a graphic, it's far easier to search for the tweet later.
Best wishes to all involved.
Give it a rest
I too think people should ride with lights but I'm not under the impression the lack of them is leading to fatalities. The Hubway crash over this weekend (for example) was due to a drunk speeding through stopslights. Most car -> bike fatalities are during daylight hours and more often then not the driver is impaired and not willing to wait for the cops.
Why not remind people not to drive drunk? That's going to save a lot more lives then lecturing people on bike lights.
Got data?
Really? Got data?
Now it's clear you're just making it up on the fly. If the majority of cyclists hit by motorists are by drivers who are not willing to wait for the cops, how could we possibly know that those motorists are impaired?
==
Bike lights are easy. They're cheap. Lights and not riding in the door zone are the two immediate things that cyclists can do to help avoid getting hit. They don't have to use a back light, just as they're legally entitled to ride 6 inches from parked cars. I'm not blaming cyclists in any way -- merely pointing out that, as a cyclist and a bicycling advocate for over a decade, these are the two easy things bicyclists can do to minimize their chances of being hit without in any way asking the cyclist to detour or otherwise make their cycling less difficult or expensive.
And, in fact, many cyclists -- including thoughtful adults -- benefit from this biker-to-biker dialogue... unlike your tripe.
Hi
Where did I say people shouldn't ride with lights? As for fatalities, I'm considering the ones in the Boston area as of late. Go search the UHub and Globe archives if you need proof. Most have been during daylight hours.
My annoyance is that every time someone is hurt on a bike, someone like the above poster "helpfully" comments about something entirely unrelated to the accident at hand. It's victim blaming and it should stop.
Victim blaming, or helpful advice
Those who give bike safety advice after a crash are often silenced by the concept of victim blaming. I am a commuting cyclist. I do my best to stay safe, but it is possible that I might eventually die in a traffic accident of some sort.
IF THERE WAS SOMETHING I COULD HAVE DONE TO SAVE MY LIFE, I WANT PEOPLE SHOUTING IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS, AND SPREADING THAT ADVICE TO BLOGS AND FORUMS FAR AND WIDE.
If someone can learn from my mistakes and avoid the same fate, then that will bring meaning to my death. Should such a thing happen, DON'T YOU DARE TRY TO SHUT THEM UP WITH THE TERM "VICTIM BLAMING".
Sorry for the yelling. I feel very strongly about this.
Oh?
Do you know for a fact how or why this person was struck? If not, anything you speculate is the very definition of victim blaming. It's foolish and insulting.
Go encourage people to use lights on some other story that isn't about someone being hit. UHub runs plenty of bike stories and not all are regarding injuries.
My boyfriend witnessed the
My boyfriend witnessed the accident. I'm not familiar with the area but he told me it happened on a one way street. He said the bicyclist was crossing Saratoga street from another one way street, the vehicle stopped at the stop sign and then proceeded to go. The bike was almost out of the intersection, but not clear enough and she hit him, pinning the bike under her car. I guess he hit his face and head off the pavement so hard his nose was gushing blood. He told me there was so much blood the fire dept had to wash the it up with the fire hose. The guy lost consciousness when the emt's arrived and they remained there for a while trying to stabilize him before leaving. My boyfriend gave the guy his shirt to try to use to pinch his nose and try to stop the bleeding and he spoke to the woman that hit him. He was disgusted by her because she was only concerned with whether or not her insurance rate was going to go up because of this....(actually he told me he wanted to punch her in the face so bad he walked away). The bike was pinned under the car with such force it took some sort of tool or something to remove it.
Dear Jon
If that is true, then why aren't you shouting about protected bike lanes and lower speed limits? These are things that actually work, unlike lights and shiny clothes. There is no evidence that anything a cyclist does makes a difference if the driver isn't responsible for their vehicle.
It isn't any different than asking why your daughter or wife or mother was out at that time of day wearing those clothes. Victim blaming is very human but grow up and control yourself.
Do you lock your doors?
Let me try to explain my point with a less controversial example. If Joe's house were robbed, it would be victim-blaming for me to say that the robbery was completely (or even partly) Joe's fault because his doors weren't locked. On the other hand, it would not be victim-blaming for me to warn other people to lock their doors to make it less likely to have their houses robbed.
In an ideal world nobody should need to lock their doors. But we don't live in an ideal world. It's definitely not Joe's fault that his house was robbed. The robber would bear full responsibility for her actions, and if caught, should bear full responsibility for her crimes. Nevertheless, because there are in fact robbers out there, in the short term people should lock their doors, even as they take longer-term actions to improve society to make burglary more rare.
completely judgemental and insensitive.
You have a report that Joe was robbed. This report does not say whether Joe locked his doors. You decide that this is a good time to warn people to lock their doors. I think that I should post a screenshot of your posts on the Wikipedia page for victim blaming as an example.
This person was injured so seriously that the homicide unit was brought in. Why are you concern trolling your helpful advice for crash victims to help the poor drivers look at them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming
nope, fatalities spread equally between night and day
https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812382
there is some differences if you look at time of day, but it points more to rush hour than whether it was dark. I am not against riding with lights and I turn them on at dusk. I wear a reflective vest too.
However it is unfeeling for concern trolls to make these helpful suggestions when the bicyclist is seriously hurt or killed. Stop blaming the victim. Have the courage to promote driving lights in your daily life instead after the report of daytime collision with no detail about fault.
Sorry, no.
"In motor vehicles, the effectiveness of daytime running lights has been demonstrated repeatedly, with the U.S. Department of Transportation showing that their use reduced opposite-direction, daytime collisions among cars by 7.9 percent. The decrease in motorcycle-car collisions was even more startling: 26 percent lower when motorcycles used lights. “If you take a look at motorcycles, they’ve got lights on all day long. Bicycles should be no different. People should be able to see you all the time,” says John Burke, president of Trek Bicycles."
https://www.outsideonline.com/2064501/you-have-no-...
Having a bike headlight at night is THE LAW in Mass
I typically see half of cyclists in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville breaking the law and NO cops enforcing it. No headlight is an excellent way to be left-crossed or doored.
MGL Chapter 85, Section 11B (8): During the period from one-half hour after sunset to one-half hour before sunrise, the operator shall display to the front of his bicycle a lamp emitting a white light visible from a distance of at least five hundred feet, and to the rear of said bicycle either a lamp emitting a red light, or a red reflector visible for not less than six hundred feet when directly in front of lawful lower beams of headlamps on a motor vehicle. A generator powered lamp which emits light only when the bicycle is moving shall meet the requirements of this clause.
The law is flawed for not specifying the beam spread. It predates LED lights and very narrow beams which can't easily be seen from the side as in a left-cross crash. So, for your own safety, in the city use a headlight that has spread light for you to be seen rather than a tight beam to illuminate the road. In dark areas, have a narrow beam light too.
Biking, driving, hell, moving in Eastie...
...can be a real PITA. Within the last 48 hours in Eastie I witnessed:
/1./ bicyclist bike up on to the sidewalk on Bennington Street and have a couple of hipsters yell at him ("side-WALK!!!")
/2./ driving down Bennington Street I had a helmetless biker coming at me going the wrong way and in the middle of the lane (I think he was getting ready to cut across to the other side but traffic going in that direction prevented him so, natch, you continue on the wrong side of the street in the middle of it)
/3./ and as per usual every day of the week, pedestrians meandering into the street anywhere they feel like, cars blowing through stop signs and speeding on residential streets and assholes simply stopping in the middle of the road (when there is space to pull over) to chat with friends, stare into the palms of their hands at a glowing little panel, or fling their door open into traffic.
Which is to say regardless of mode of transport, people tend to be complete fuck-heads.
(caveat: the result of being a fuckhead while conducting a few tons of steel around at velocity is frequently far worse and should be better policed.)