[Thanks to Lieutenant Mark Kruger of the Portland Police Bureau Traffic Division, Anita at KATU-TV and Aaron at KGW-TV for help on this story.]
At 3:51 this afternoon 58-year-old Jerry Alvin Hinatsu (name has not been released) was killed by a hit-and-run driver in outer southeast Portland while riding the wrong-way in the bike lane.
Click for map
According to Lieutenant Mark Kruger of the Portland Police Bureau Traffic Division, the crash occurred just outside of the Franz Bakery Outlet at SE 115th and SE Foster Road (map). A mid-late 90s, maroon Honda Accord pulled away from the driveway and onto SE Foster Road, colliding with the cyclist who was riding eastbound in the westbound bike lane.
The motorist they are trying to track down is allegedly a heavy-set hispanic woman with long, straight hair whose name is possibly Jen. Her license plate might include the numbers 176.
Kruger told me they have two witnesses to the crash. One of them was the passenger in the motor vehicle in question. Immediately after the collision, the passenger got out before the driver sped away. Kruger says the passenger is not cooperating with the investigation.
UPDATE: They have found and arrested two women in this case. The Oregonian Breaking News Blog has the story (thanks to Gabriel for the heads up).
UPDATE: From the Oregonian (article here):
“Portland police have identified a bicyclist killed Friday afternoon as 58-year-old Jerry Alvin Hinatsu. Hinatsu was illegally pedaling the wrong way in the bike lane and did not wear a helmet, police said.”
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That bike looks really straight to have just been involved in a fatal accident. Unsettling somehow…
hopefully she bought something at the franz bakery store and used plastic when she did.
dammit I’m tired of hearing about stuff like this
Do we know if the cyclist was doing anything illegal? This is tragic…..I hate hearing about stuff like this.
The Eastside Ride of Silence just got longer. Join together May 16th.
What is the Eastside Ride of Silence?
Timmy, I believe Darren is referring to this: http://www.rideofsilence.org/locations-domestic.php?s=OR#OR
I’ll be there, in black.
David asked: “Do we know if the cyclist was doing anything illegal?”
According to the story “The cyclist was riding the wrong way in the bike lane”
Yep, that’s illegal.
If there wasn’t a lot of damage to the bike, maybe he died of head injuries. Was he wearing a helmet?
I’m sure there will be lots of questions about this collision in the days to come. Regardless of who did what, it still seems to me to be a needless tragedy.
in david’s defense, he made his comments (about whether or not the cyclist did anything illegal) before I had updated the post with that information.
How do we go about this sort of situation?
It’s sad that a human life has come to an end, but said human being was riding the wrong way. This sort of situation does nothing but confuse the hell out of me every time: if I’m sad, I’m setting up a law-breaker who’s set a bad example as a possibly unfit martyr. If I’m not sad, I’m an insensitive asshole with an overripe penchant for the letter of the law claiming it was the poor fellow’s own damn fault he’s dead.
Really: as a cycling activist, what’s the “right thing” to do? I’m confused.
N.I.K., I’m having that problem too… (Don’t get me wrong, hit and runs are bad, but that is a different problem: Yes, the driver shouldn’t have driven away, but the real issue was that the bike got hit in the first place.)
I see people going the wrong way in bike lanes all the time, (and it is a real pain because it means that I normally go ahead and take the traffic lane cause I’m fairly sure that they aren’t going to.) Is the problem that people don’t know they shouldn’t ride the wrong direction? Or do they know and not think it was a big deal? And the bigger question: How do you convince people that they should ride safely? I have no real problem with police writing those people tickets, (that is how we deal with cars that don’t drive safely,) but most people (bicyclist and car operators alike,) don’t tend to like that method, so… (The only compromise that I can think of is for bike lights like they do in NYC: Issue them a ticket that requires them to get lights within 24 hours or pay a fine.)
Well, like it or not, generally laws are there to protect us. If you’re in a car and you get killed because you run a red light, that’s a clear indicator that the result of breaking a law is an unwise thing to do. That’s why it was really hard for me to sympathize with everyone nabbed in the Ladds Addition sting. Yes, getting ticketed sucks, but being run over sucks even more. Yes, that is unlikely to happen, but it IS possible. I really feel bad for the cylist in this story, but riding the wrong way in the bike path?! Come on! If bikes are to be treated as cars, we must start acting like it. Each day I see dozens of cyclists weaving through cars, running reds, etc. People want to speak of modeling PDX after Amsterdam… I lived in Amsterdam for 8 months while on assignment, and let me tell you that the reason cars and bikes exist in such harmony there is because of the respect. Here in the states there is this whole “us vs them” mentality, even present on this very blog. And these snarky signs I see cyclists tape to their bags and bikes “my vehicle doesn’t take a war in Iraq to run”. That is not the way to get drivers to respect us.
I’ll now step off my soap box. Shame on the driver for not having the dignity to stop. While I don’t know the circumstances, it’s possible (even likely) that she would have faced no criminal charges if she hit a vehicle (car or bike, still a vehicle) breaking the law by riding the opposite direction. Instead, the driver ran. Now she (if it is indeed a she) can count on some serious punishment. Hurts my head just to think about incidents like this.
Are there more hit and runs lately? Whether the victim is a cyclist, driver, or pedestrian they sure are in the news more.
Am I the only one here who learned as a kid always to walk and bike on the left side of the street, facing traffic? This is still a common myth in much of the country. It’s not common-sense, but it’s deeply ingrained. There’s a need for serious education and outreach about wrong-way cycling. People just have no idea, they think they’re doing the right thing. Be a bit kinder, folks.
N.I.K et al –
I don’t think you’re wrong, and I doubt you’re an insensitive #######, but maybe it would be a good idea to just have a waiting period before the critique. The poor fellow just died, and there’s a person out there freaking out (I would be freaking out) about having just killed someone. Maybe a day or two of respect for the dead.
RIP
Elly – in the past I’ve heard that from people. People think it is safer to face traffic because they can see the cars coming and get out of the way if they need to. Definiely deserves myth status imo.
After hearing that a father ran over his toddler son with a motorized mower and this story, my thoughts are that we are far too casual with cars and motors etc…. it feels like we turned a grizzly into a pet!
Driving is something that a lot of people do while making phone calls, listening to music and having conversation (and I am not claiming that the driver did this!)… but in fact they are operating heavy machinery.
Whether the bicyclist was doing anything illegal or not the accident still most likely ensued after some idiot driver failed to adhere to the most basic of all driving imperatives which is to look both left AND right before pulling out into the street.
Elly, I was raised to ride on the wrong side of the road, too. Fortunately, a very nice police officer set me straight when I was about 14. (He even gave me his card to give my dad if I got in trouble for riding opposite to what I was taught.)
I am of the understanding that it is actually safer to face traffic while *walking*.
There are some tort cases that say you are negligent if you walk with traffic. Thus, to avoid having any partial fault for being in a collision with a vehicle, you should walk toward oncoming traffic. But of course this is not true for bikes. And most of the bike lanes in PDX have arrows to indicate the proper direction. But wrong-way riding is still pretty common practice. I find it difficult to believe you would not know or deduce the proper direction after riding a few bike lanes. I always tell people they’re going the wrong way if I see them doing so. That’s probably the only thing we can do to help make this sort of tragedy a little less common.
So sad. And needlessly compounded by the drier, who instantly made herself a felon independent of any fault from the collision.
@true:
See, you help illustrate the problem. Allow me to rephrase.
Here’s the problem: a cyclist is dead because of a combination of their own law-breaking and the negligent behavior of a motorist who couldn’t be bothered to look both ways before merging into traffic. If I claim so much as “what a horrible tragedy, another cyclist run down by a motorist”, it’s going to seem as though I’m politicizing the issue and ignoring the fact that the cyclist was riding the wrong way. However, to even voice this concern, I’m considered cold, or maybe even a bit anti-bike, because I’m ignoring the fact that the motorist likely just darted into traffic without looking, putting anyone who may have been coming along, whether on bike or in car or on foot, in considerable danger, and the fact that the careless person behind the wheel couldn’t be bothered to stop and see if they could help or take responsibility for their actions.
And then, to think about how the cyclist’s family and friends must feel… I’m torn up about this and my only connection are the cycling and fellow-human-being angles. How do you deal with the pain of losing someone you care about when you know they were partially in the wrong? Does your mind go back and forth between where to lay the blame while simultaneously grieving for the loss of this person? How intense and horrific a feeling it must be.
So, true, no critique. Just sorrow and confusion, like I said. All I can really do at this in terms of making a contribution to dealing with this specific tragedy is be on the look out for this car we’ve got a description of and be ready to phone the police and hope this woman is brought to justice. Hit-and-run drivers need to be taken off the road for everyone’s safety. This, however, does not change the ultimate thrust of the situation: no matter through whose actions, a person is gone before their time. Nothing can change it.
I don’t see that it matters which way he was facing or whether he was wearing protective head gear NOT required by law. Perhaps he should be given a ticket posthumously.
The car crossed into the bike lane, KILLED HIM, and then took off. Felony Hit and Run, I believe. The passenger has been charged with Impeding an Investigation, according to Kruger. The woman driving needs to be in jail.
My point is that he was in a bike lane.
i agree with the 18th comment. I’d think that the driver failed to look both Left and Right, and to the left again. The fact that the driver fled the accident, makes me believe that the driver wasn’t doing anything good at the time.
they found her:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2007/05/two_arrested_in_bicyclists_dea.html
This was a low-speed crash where the motorist was just pulling out from a parking lot. Since the bike wasn’t badly damaged, there probably wasn’t a huge impact. I hope we can learn the specific cause of death. I would not be surprised if it turns out to be brain injury. I know that wearing a helmet is not required by law, but I suspect this may have been a survivable crash if a helmet was worn.
thanks gabe. I’ve updated the post.
There really is no way to test whether a helmet can be the deciding factor in surviving a crash, as the same person can’t have a fatal crash without a helmet, and then have the identical crash while wearing a helmet. Can we please put this speculative idea to rest?
He died because he was hit by a car.
If anyone finds out what happened, let us all know. Did the cyclist hit the car? Or did the car hit the cyclist?
What color was the cyclist wearing? Was he wearing a helmet?
Just to let you know in advance, I wear yellow and have at least two functioning bright flashing lights facing the rear. And at least one in the front. Yellow is a color that can be seen for A LONG way before a car gets to me. So, if I’m hit from behind by a motor vehicle, let there be no doubt: they did it on purpose. No questions asked.
Typically I ride rural roads where there is less congestion so I’m visible, typically, for a long way before they get to me. Being visible can be more difficult in an urban area such as this most recent accident. I’d still make every attempt to be sure they have no excuse like: “I just didn’t see him/her.” Use flashing lights and YELLOW or BRIGHT ORANGE clothes (not red, not blue, not green).
Don’t give drivers an opportunity not to see you.
Flashing lights front and rear please. Day and night. Invest in Eveready and Duracell stock!
You know, many of the responses here make me sad.
Take a look at where he was biking. Is that a bike and ped friendly environment? Do you know why people often go the wrong way in bike lanes? Because it is so freakin dangerous to get to the other side.
Why don’t we focus our energy on making Portland a safe place to be a cyclist and pedestrian in town?
As for helmets, blinking lights, yellow…fine, I guess. But if our minds were not so warped by living in a car centric culture these would not be needed. Really, look to Denmark and the Netherlands. Do they tart up in neon and helmets then and blame accidents on the victims if something goes wrong?
With the recent news updates (KOIN 11PM tonight) on this sad incident – there may be more to this other than a driver hitting a wrong way bicyclist…as each occupant of the car is saying the other was the driver and that neither occupant gave aid to the victim. So both are in jail tonight.
The other sad thing is that whomever was the driver at the time likely would not have had a ticket issued if they had just stayed and given aid.
In more bike [and pedestrian] friendly communities (Netherlands, etc.) traffic law would have placed more responsibility on the driver as operator of a more powereful and regulated vehicle thus enforcement would have issued a ticket, the driver would have had greater operator’s training (to look right and expect unexpected traffic), the bicyclist would have had bike ed in grade school, and the bicyclists would be using more convenient and logically designed facilities that would minimize the benefit of wrong way riding. Wrong way bicycling is both rarer and less risky in the Netherlands and Demark – for all the previous items – plus being reinforced by the majority of riders not doing it.
Portland (as a community) for all its bike struggles seems to be minimizing wrong way riding behavior as a portion of all bike traffic…compared to 10 to 20 years ago.
With the recent news updates (KOIN 11PM tonight) on this sad incident – there may be more to this other than a driver hitting a wrong way bicyclist…as each occupant of the car is saying the other was the driver and that neither occupant gave aid to the victim. So both are in jail tonight.
The other sad thing is that whomever was the driver at the time likely would not have had a ticket issued if they had just stayed and given aid.
In more bike [and pedestrian] friendly communities (Netherlands, etc.) traffic law would have placed more responsibility on the driver as operator of a more powereful and regulated vehicle thus enforcement would have issued a ticket, the driver would have had greater operator’s training (to look right and expect unexpected traffic), the bicyclist would have had bike ed in grade school, and the bicyclists would be using more convenient and logically designed facilities that would minimize the benefit of wrong way riding. Wrong way bicycling is both rarer and less risky in the Netherlands and Denmark – for all the previous items – plus being reinforced by the majority of riders not doing it.
Portland (as a community) for all its bike struggles seems to be minimizing wrong way riding behavior as a portion of all bike traffic…compared to 10 to 20 years ago.
This kind of accident just pisses me off in a couple different ways.
Primarily, it looks like the driver(s) totally shucked any responsibility for the accident for unknown reasons. Secondly, this may have been a case where a helmet saved a life (it is not clear if the victim was wearing one or not)- it is *not* speculation that a helmet will absorb energy during cranial impact, and I think it is ridiculous to state that helmets have no measure in cycling fatalities – every bit of energy absorbed externally is energy the body does not have to absorb – basic physics. Remember that the head has the furthest to travel before hitting the ground on a conventional bike.
This is not Europe and yes, we actually do live in a car-centric culture, and that is the psychological challenge of cycling in the US. I assume I am unseen until eye contact with drivers OR my 1 watt LEDs burn spots in the eyes of drivers behind or in front of me.
Sorry for the rant. It is a tragedy that another cyclist has died, whether it was preventable or not. As one of the most vulnerable thing on wheels sharing the road, I feel we have the responsibility of doing everything we can to protect ourselves.
We all can sit here and rant and rave about how horrible this is, but do we really know what the root issue is here? If you have read the past posts carefully you can pick it out. The issue here is two fold, a lack of education of both riders and drivers, and this on going battle between riders and drivers.
We currently are living through a cultural change which is bringing the conflict of riders versus drivers, to the fore front. I personally believe that we have done this to ourselves (society as a whole not just riders or drivers) over the years by teaching and accepting that bikes are not vehicles and do not require the same amount of access as autos. We as cyclists are relegated to the right side of the road kicked to the curb, as if we do not have the right to be on the road. Until we as cyclist begin to act consistently in our approach to riding we will never be accepted. We need to begin educating not only our own families but our friends who are drivers (if you do not have any then you need to make some so you can spread the news about our condition). We need to advocate laws that do not single out cyclist but bring us onto common ground with motor vehicles so we have access to the same laws and remediation. (Do you know it is almost impossible for a motorist to be charged with anything other than reckless driving for hitting a cyclist?)
Okay I am finished here, since I more than likely lost half of you already but I am not done working to educate those around me about cycling and the issues we face. If you see a poorly behaved cyclist you owe it to all of us to say something, and if you see a poorly behaved motorist you owe it to all of us to say something. Silence can be just as harmful as being abusive so be tactful…
In case anyone is interested, the Washington Court of Appeals, Division One recently (as in last week) affirmed a judgment that a driver was not negligent when she pulled out of a driveway and struck a cyclist who was traveling the wrong direction in the bike lane – the jury was allowed to consider the cyclist’s behavior in traveling the wrong way when it considered whether the driver acted reasonably when she did not look in the cyclist’s direction when pulling out of the parking lot – the cyclist had asked for a jury instruction to the effect that a bike lane was not part of the road and, therefore, the rules of the road regarding direction of travel did not apply to him. The court did not think much of that argument.
Hawthorne in post #30 is spot on.
If you ever leave inner SE, then you realize that there are areas of town where it is extremely dangerous to ride a bicycle.
Any debate about helmets, or educating cyclists is nothing more than thinly veiled classism.
The crux of the matter is that the car culture will go on killing until our society is honest with the consequences of an auto-centric policy and realizes that there ought to be fundamental changes.
Thanks Hawethorne and Qwendolyn –
I have the pleasure of commuting across 82nd and Foster and beyond and back everyday, and it’s horrible. Everytime I bike the kid to the doctor’s office at Eastport Plaza I seriously question my decision not to have a car, or even better, an armed tank. It’s just nasty out here, and that’s one of the reasons that I’m having a hard time criticizing the individual’s behavior in this case. Keep focusing on education and infrastructure, not the deceased. That’s how we get more safeways like the I-205 bike path…
This makes me so sad. What kind of person hits someone and then runs away? I don’t care WHAT the bicyclist was doing, it was nothing he deserved to die for.
Charlie, In this situation, it is stupid to ask what color the rider was wearing, if a helmet was on his head, or if he had lights, etc. He was going the wrong way in a bike lane on busy Foster Blvd. where there is the potential to be smashed into by a driver exiting a parking lot several times per block. That is first and formost the problem here, as far as rider behavior goes. Choose a more appropriate post and get back up on your soapbox there.
The cyclist has been identified on the evening news. He was a 58-year old who worked at a nearby auto shop & commuted back & forth to work. Sorry, I didn’t catch his name. I’ll watch the 11:00 news to see if it’s mentioned there.
This story just keeps getting gets sadder and sadder.
“Am I the only one here who learned as a kid always to walk and bike on the left side of the street, facing traffic? This is still a common myth in much of the country.”
In primary school they taught us to bike with traffic and walk against it. Perhaps the message varied in locations with time. Still, bicycles should not be on the same roadways as cars. The existing streets are for cars and cars only. Give the bikes a designated space on the sidewalk or their own pathways. Let’s stop this nonsense. Too many have died as it is already.
Jonathon,
You are pointing to the wrong “nonsense.” The per capita fatality rate (all fatalities, not just bikes) for the US in more than double (and in cases almost triple) that of Japan and many Western European countries.
Perhaps our mentality that “streets are for cars and cars only” is part of the problem. You can get bikes off all the streets you want but the fact remains that our approach to roadway design is literally killing people. Let’s start designing them for all modes and to save lives. As you note Jonathon, too many have died as it is. So let’s really deal with it and solve the problem- and that doesn’t include reinforcing a car centric approach.
http://www.katu.com/news/7363006.html
Sad, so sad. I hope the two women get convicted of vehiculer Manslaughter.
If your anyway familiar that stretch of Foster, then you know that the speed limit is posted at 45 MPH (at least it was about six weeks ago when I drove it last). There are times that vehicles will be going faster trying get to the top of the hill at SE 122 where Faster merges into one lane. There have been a few traffic stings here for speeding where the speeds have been clocked at 50-55 MPH. So in defense of a driver trying to merge into on going traffic can be imposing.
One other note is that anyone traveling westbound on Foster on that stretch road on a bike can build up quite a good clip of speed since it is a steep hill. So I can see where some smart attorney will argue that with the bicyclist going the wrong way, could have been speeding down the hill and he could have been hidden from parked cars, then it was the bicyclist who was at fault. With this scenario the driver might have gotten away with hitting the bicyclist if it wasn’t for fact of leaving the scene of the accident. Any sane drive looks both ways for cars/bike and slow walking pedestrians on the sidewalks (and long boarders and rollers bladders these days), but it is hard to also look for speeding bicyclist, long boarders, and rollers bladders going the wrong way too! Lets be honest with our selves, we are small targets when viewed from a distance. Usually we are not know for our blazing speeds… so we can do pretty good job on faking out a vehicle driver, pedestrian and fellow bicyclist (well not for some) when we are going to pass in front of them when were going at a good clip!
Please don’t flame me for this, but this will be the argument for the driver… you watch! I am just stating the facts, as they will happen. Right or wrong, their attorneys will use this in their defense.
Last thing, this stretch of SE Foster was never designed for this much vehicle traffic… even with the addition of bike lanes they are going to have to widen the road further down where it enters Happy Valley and that is going to take dollars… lots of em. When they do though, we will have to be willing to argue with the planners to have them put in a concrete barriers between the vehicle traffic and the bike lane where it rounds the hills further east.
Hinatsu’s son said his dad was planning on giving him the bicycle he was riding when he was killed. The son said he had just talked to his dad the night before the accident. Hinatsu had just gotten a PlayStation and wanted his son to teach him how to use it.
That last sentence made me tear up. Both women involved in this, regardless of who was driving, deserve many years in prison.
The existing streets are for cars and cars only. Give the bikes a designated space on the sidewalk or their own pathways. Let’s stop this nonsense. Too many have died as it is already.
You’re saying put dedicated bike paths in some locations that benefit the handful of people who live close enough to them to make use of them, and let all others ride on the sidewalk? What infrastructure exists for the flow of bicycle traffic on sidewalks in densely-populated areas, particularly in regards to crossing at intersections? And what about more sparsely-populated areas that lack sidewalks? I don’t want to go off the subject too much, but this sort of thinking only *reduces* the bicycle’s role as a serious means of general-purpose transportation. No offense to those of you only interested in recreation and short mile-or-less errands, but quite a lot of us have longer distances to travel for legitimate purposes and a limited number of hours in the day. You might as well ask me to go ahead and spend my hard-earned dollars on a car, automotive insurance, gasoline, and all the other expenses incurred while you’re at it.
In relevance to the discussion, even if this man had been riding on the sidewalk, likelihood is that whichever of these two women was really behind the wheel wouldn’t have seen him crossing the area in front of the driveway as the car pulled out. Fact is that sometimes, some motorists are irresponsible and that’s why this guy’s dead.
#36- “Any debate about helmets, or educating cyclists is nothing more than thinly veiled classism.”
The comment above is thinly veiled classism.
As we move towards bicycle nirvana, we should expect and encourage cyclists to care about safety. Otherwise we won’t all get there.
From the O: “According to witness reports, the car was pulling out of a bakery outlet shortly before 4 p.m. Friday in the 11500 block of Southeast Foster Road. Police said Hinatsu was illegally pedaling the wrong way in the bike lane and not wearing a helmet.”
Whenever I see something like this, whether I am riding or driving, I say something to the person. It seems almost inevitable that such behavior will result in a serious problem, and I’m not sure what else I can do to prevent it. Nobody ever seems to listen to me — probably they think I’m somewhere between classist and insane — but I’m just trying to help. Based on the witness accounts, I will be extremely surprised if the cause of death is not brain injury.