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Friday Morning Musings

Not exactly a good read to start your day...but hopefully justice will prevail (although I'm not optimistic...)

http://bit.ly/1gccXRl

Also feeling very old today because most people I know don't remember this...

http://bit.ly/1gcd6Em

In reply to wpprescott

That video was a walk down memory lane. Any project Little Steven is involved in, you know it's going to be good.

I wonder if the author of that article was on some sort of medication. I had to read it 3 times -- and several sections more -- to figure out just what happened. And still we don't know if the poor cyclist was killed by the guy who hit him initially and left him lying in the street, or the person who somehow didn't see a human being lying in the street and drove over him.

Hopefully witnesses to both parts can be found.

In reply to rxmar23

>And still we don't know if the poor cyclist was killed by the guy who hit him initially and left him lying in the street, or the person who somehow didn't see a >human being lying in the street and drove over him. > > Hopefully witnesses to both parts can be found.

We'll never know which one dealt the fatal blow medically, but we do know who dealt it legally, ethically and morally. The second driver was as much a victim as the cyclist. The first driver's criminal behavior caused the cyclist to be struck by the next car that came along. If he had stopped, the second driver would not have run over him. He bears full responsibility and the second driver bears none.

In reply to Carey_Gregory

No doubt whatsoever who caused it, but I'm not so sure the second driver bears none of the responsibility. It doesn't sound to me like the cyclist got thrown under their car; they stopped, looked both ways, and drove over a body. I'm just picturing myself in that situation and thinking there's no way I wouldn't see him.

That said, I'm not trying to start an argument. We don't know all the details yet, and that article raised more questions for me than it answered. If there is a scenario where the second driver really couldn't see the cyclist, then I agree with you.

It's just tragic that another cyclist is gone, another victim of the left turn crash. That's the thing that strikes me most here, how familiar this sounds. This is the most common car/bicycle (or car/motorcycle) crash scenario. The driver fled the scene, which happens frequently in these crashes. The reporter describes the bicycle as hitting the car, again a frequent description of the left turn crash -- and while technically true, it does not accurately describe what happened, and gives the impression to the casual reader of the cyclist at fault. I don't know what the answer is, but it seems to me that when the same thing keeps happening over and over, there ought to be something that can be done to change it.

In reply to rxmar23

> No doubt whatsoever who caused it, but I'm not so sure the second driver bears none of the responsibility. It doesn't sound to me like the cyclist got thrown under their car; they stopped, looked both ways, and drove over a body. I'm just picturing myself in that situation and thinking there's no way I wouldn't see him. >

Well, neither of us was there so it's all speculation, but actually it's easy to drive over a body in the road. Your eyes are looking up at a level of several feet, not on the road itself. And if the body is lying too close to your vehicle as it might be at an intersection, it can be hidden by the hood your own car. For example, imagine he's lying in the road just a few feet to your right as you come to an intersection and plan on turning right. His body can easily be hidden by your own car's front end. I've personally seen one incident of a person lying in the road that was run over by a second driver who didn't see them (a completely sober professional driver moving at slow speeds), and know of another incident where a paramedic driving an ambulance ran over a person struck by a previous driver lying in the road. And, sadly, there was the case of the airline crash recently where an injured passenger was run over by a responding fire truck.

Anyway, not arguing. I agree with your comments.