A wild biker blew through a red light Monday night, colliding with an SUV near the Atlantic Yards construction site, according to police.
Just after 10 p.m. a delivery guy on a bike sped through the intersection of Dean Street and Sixth Avenue, causing an oncoming SUV to swerve and crash. According to police, the driver had the right of way.
“The cyclist was at fault,” a police source said.
Neither the cyclist nor the driver sustained major injuries or required hospital treatment, but the incident highlights the reasoning behind a on cyclists who fail to follow the rules of the road.
In fact, Deputy Inspector John A. Argenziano of the that most of the cycle summonses issued by the precinct are for the crime of running a red light.
“It looked pretty bad to me, it was a small bike and big SUV,” said Wayne Bailey, a Dean Street resident who stumbled upon the aftermath of the accident just after it occurred.
According to Bailey, the driver of the SUV blamed not only the cyclist, but the Atlantic Yards site construction for the incident.
“He said he didn’t even see the cyclist because of the blue wall where the arena is being built. He said it blocked his view and the bike came out of nowhere,” said Bailey. “The driver was so upset.”
All bicyclists are required to have lights and a bell on their bicycles. Riding on the sidewalk is illegal if you're over the age of 12. NYPD doesn't enforce any of that.
Credit to Patch, they at least covered the story of the drunk cop who totaled his car and a police cruiser in a late-night crash while speeding down 5th avenue. Noone else did. Guess they couldn't figure out a way to tie a bike into the story.
"SUV Driver Sends Brooklyn Delivery Cyclist to the ER". Pro bike zealots are never in the wrong.
Nobody on here has suggested the guy on the bike was not at fault and nobody has said that cyclists of any type obey every traffic rule. That would be absurd. Nobody observes every rule. You seem to be looking for a fight here rather than a discussion.
So if anyone at that point was saying that the accident was because the guy went through a red light it was only the driver of the SUV. With that in mind, "SUV Driver Sends Brooklyn Delivery Cyclist to the ER" doesn't seem so out of line. "SUV Windshield Sends Brooklyn Delivery Cyclist to the ER" might have been more accurate but... I think your characterization of the guy who was hit as a "Pro bike zealot" seems a little over the top. In my experience bicycle delivery guys are a lottery ticket away from being moped delivery guys.
Peter said, "First things first - this sucks. Whether or not the delivery guy was right or wrong, being on a bicycle and nearly getting killed by an SUV is horrible." Who could argue with that? I've never been hit by an SUV, hell, the only moving thing I was ever hit by while I was on a bike was a deer (long mountain biking at dusk story) but you have to imagine getting hit by an SUV does suck. And why is it not ok to wonder if the driver was speeding or on the phone or anything else? This would not change the fact that a cyclist going through a red light has himself to blame, but when we drive, we also have a duty to exercise caution. Finally, according to the other article, nobody spoke with the cyclist and there were no eyewitnesses. So how do we really know what happened?
Unless you have a child under 12 on your bike no adult should be on a bike on the sidewalk. I find the bigger issue with delivery guys is the disregard for one way streets.
Not riding in the street and stopping at the house. Riding all the way down the sidewalk. No bell or warning. If we hadn't seen him who knows what would have happened.
If the cyclist wasn't at fault, and it turns out the SUV driver was, would you get the headline, "Driver of SUV blows stop sign, injures Bicyclist?" Or would you get "SUV blows sign, injures bicyclist?" This sounds minor, but it's an important point. In the former, the fault is assigned to the man or woman behind the wheel. In the latter, it's assigned to an inanimate object. The reason I ask is because of this headline in a sister Patch publication for Carroll Gardens: Woman Killed by Van on Columbia Street http://carrollgardens.patch.com/articles/woman-killed-by-van-on-columbia-street This poor woman wasn't killed by a van. She was killed by the person operating the van. Whether the driver is at fault is a different issue. But headlines like this are commonplace when it's a vehicle involved.
"Cyclist blows stop sign, Hit by driver unable to avoid him. Cyclist discovers laws of physics not in his favor."