Fatal hit-and-run on SE Foster Road

hopefully she bought something at the franz bakery store and used plastic when she did.

Do we know if the cyclist was doing anything illegal? This is tragic…..I hate hearing about stuff like this.

What is the Eastside Ride of Silence?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

“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.

http://www.katu.com/news/7363006.html

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.

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.

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.

This has been a tough discussion to read all the way through. Lots of accusations, hypothesising, and finger-pointing by lots of people. Yes, both parties made mistakes. Yes, someone got killed when he rode the wrong way down the street; and the driver abdicated her responsibility when she sped off after the crash.

But the bigger fact here is that we DON’T live in freaking Amsterdam and never will. And too many people are holding up Amsterdam like it’s some great shining beacon, The One True Way for the whole world, without understanding why it won’t play in Peoria (or even many parts of Portland).

The underlying issue remains this: The historic American psyche, rooted as it is in its own sort of Manifest Destiny of demanding more open space so we can conquer it, is at the heart of our inability to make the changes necessary to acheive Amsterdam-like qualities in our traffic picture. We can’t do it with our traffic because we can’t do it anywhere else — our schools, our housing, our jobs.

Europeans grew up in places where they ran out of room hundreds of years ago and had to learn to get along in smaller spaces because there simply was no other choice. They also grew up in places less racially, ethnically and socially diverse and much more homogenous than most American cities.

Americans demand more elbow room because we’re used to that, generationally and historically, all the way back to our colonial days. We want elbow room. We don’t want to live so close to our neighbors (because they’re not like us — 150 years ago ranchers didn’t like sheepherders and neither of them trusted “city folk”; now whites don’t want to live so near to blacks).

It’s a mindset that has helped to shape our car culture (remember freeways and white flight to the suburbs in the 1950’s) and continues to lie at the root of our approach to city planning, education and sharing of resources. It’s a reality that is so rooted in our land and our national history that I doubt we’ll ever truly get around it on a large scale, at least in a European sort of way.

Yes, there are pockets of respect here and there. But the idea has not caught on in a societal way. And until it does, we won’t see the kinds of changes that need to happen in order for people to be able to move about safely OUT of cars.

There is much bigger stuff, painful stuff, going on here that lies beneath our efforts for safer cities and streets, and I think we need to look at it honestly and openly in order to move ahead in a positive way.

Can we all agree that safety is good, and unsafe behavior is bad, without getting into some discussion of fairness and blame?

And like any violation, the incidence of the illegal behavior is influenced to a large degree by bad planning. Wide streets with no impediments will lead to speeding motorists no matter how many tickets are handed out. Wide streets that are hard to cross will lead to wrong way bicyclists, also. Properly designed roadways encourage safe and legal behavior more than any enforcement or “education” program could. It’s time to start challenging our expectations of those who design our infrastructure, and build the safety right in.

It should be noted that contrary to popular belief, the Dutch are not a super-human race of genetically predisposed cyclists. (I borrow this idea from Roger Geller of PDOT).

The difference is that unlike the U.S., their leaders recognized and then acted upon the fact that cars were beginning to choke their cities.

We recognized it, but because of the powerful cultural and political force of our Big Three Automakers, we did nothing about it.

instead, we made it worse by spending billions on freeways and encouraging people to use them.

now we’re paying the price for that decision with lives and an epidemic of obesity, asthma and oil addiction.

Remember, Amsterdam’s revival of bikes only started in the 1970s. they made the big decisions it takes to re-think transportation in their city.

We can do it too, but it takes bold leadership and a clear message that the current path we are on is not the right one.

fighting and scratching to find $100K to help us find the way is not indicative of the kind leadership we need.

as long as we are seen as a special interest or “activists” every time we ask for something, we will remain marginalized (both politically and on the roads).

We must become not just a “part” of the conversation, but we must lead the conversation and help dictate the direction and decisions that come from it.

“if he had worn a $15 helmet and would have used one of those nifty crosswalk signals (free and easy to use) to get to the other side and ride on the CORRECT side of the street then yes he would have cared about safety. ”

This is simply not true.

What if his destination is in the middle of the block, as well as across the street?

Then would you have him go past his destination to the next intersection with a crosswalk signal, cross the street and then backtrack?

That sounds fine in theory but the reality is that it is not reasonable. Suppose the next intersection is a half mile away? Or farther?

Suppose someone is in just such a situation and is on the sidewalk riding towards traffic. Then imagine someone has parked their car and blocked the sidewalk –forcing them briefly into the street riding towards traffic.

The alternative is to backtrack or cross four lanes of traffic.

I don’t know if that is the case specifically here, but it’s irrelevant.

The point is that there are times when it is actually safer to ride against traffic. You can shake your head and tsk-tsk all you want. It’s true. Given a choice between froggering across four lanes of traffic or briefly entering the street heading the wrong way I think most people would agree which is safer.

“What if his destination is in the middle of the block, as well as across the street?”

If you’re afraid to cross traffic, then you use the crosswalk at the closest intersection and walk or ride the half block on the sidewalk. When riding on the sidewalk, be aware that many people won’t look when pulling out and limit your speed accordingly. And wear a helmet. That’s reasonable. Riding the wrong way in a bike lane is not. (Nor is failing to look both ways when pulling out or leaving the scene.)

Qwendolyn,

You could not be more wrong in your assertions that rider convenience outweighs a pragmatic approach to safety.

A half-mile to the next crosswalk? Any reasonably fit rider can cover that distance in roughly two minutes or less. A $15 helmet? Not an unreasonable cost for the protection it provides against head trauma. By your logic, cars should be able to pull U-turns or cut across people’s lawns / sidewalks if it saves them a few moments of commute time.

Cyclists are traffic. We are not immune or exempted from the rules of the road. We do not have special rights or privileges compared to autos. We are not divinely protected when we fail to utilize common sense. Rants like yours only marginalize the important work done by real advocates and just play to the biases of those opposed to cycling in general. Jonathan and Beth H. have summed it up correctly. Exercise your free choice if you wish but stop using your personal rationales and scofflaw attitude to turn this rider into a martyr. This is simply a tragic and very avoidable fatality – nothing more.

I think it’s sick how so many of you automatically believe the car driver(s) should be burned at the stake simply for getting in a collision with the cyclist. Believe it or not, cyclists do have a duty to respect the laws of the road like everybody else and they can contribute to a crash. Wasn’t there a couple accidents this year involving intoxicated cyclists?

And yeah, both of the car occupants should be locked up for a long time simply because they ran. Add more time if it’s proven that they were truly at fault for the death of the rider.

Jonathan: RE post #42. There’s solid statistical evidence that a properly marked bike lane is the lowest risk place for a cyclist to operate. Statistically, sidewalks are at least 16x as hazardous as any street and maybe as much as 40x as hazardous as riding in a bike lane. Paradoxically, another study showed that it may be slightly more hazardous to ride a sidewalk facing traffic than to ride in the street facing traffic. I don’t know why this is, but the numbers are there. If you doubt me, I’d be happy to meet with you and show you the two surveys. For these reasons I disagree with your suggestion to abandon the streets to cars and move to sidewalks & bikepaths. Incedentaly, the first survey showed bikepaths second only to sidewalks as hazardous.

Statistically, sidewalks are at least 16x as hazardous as any street and maybe as much as 40x as hazardous as riding in a bike lane.

Beyond that, look to the immediate reality of things and try examining just how well-maintained the sidewalk is in our beloved Portland alone. Be sure to take note of all the tree roots making the surface an uneven mess of crazy angles and broken concrete, the many non-ramped curbs that are 5 or more inches off the surface of the road at intersections…it’s just not fit for biking in a lot of places.

The victim in this acident was a neighbor of mine for several years.(he moved away) He used a bicycle in the neighborhood often since he could no longer legally drive. He was, like so many other people, a ‘cyclist” by default in that he had no other means of transport. Certainly he made a “bad choice” but he was not a bad person. It makes me sad and a bit angry to see some of the postings above that seem to turn him into some sort of objectlessonfor poor behavior or someone who deserved tobe “thinned out” of the herd. Compassion for all of us is a better goal.

“It seems pretty clear that the person primarily at fault for this collision was the cyclist.”

It doesn’t matter because he’s dead. He paid the ultimate price for his mistakes. May he rest in peace and may we all learn from this. End of story.

On the other hand, the driver of the vehicle is not absolved of her part in it. I think if drivers in general were more aware, this would not have happened. I personally NEVER want to be behind the wheel when another person dies and would feel responsible for that death no matter the circumstances. The fact alone that these 2 women fled the scene is worth being put in jail. To me, that is the lowest of the low.

Allow me to share the story of a friend of mine — let’s call her “E.”

Up until her mid-20s, E had never ridden a bicycle. She grew up with an over-protective mother — in Gresham — and just never got the chance or the encouragement to learn.

Then, after a lot of prodding by me and her other friends (and some experiences riding a bicycle in Black Rock City that proved to her that she could actually do it and it was fun), she started to ride the bike that her friends gave her.

And, after a couple of years, she started riding the bike to work!! Two years previously, remember — she had never ridden a bike at all, was scared of them, and couldn’t conceive of getting over her fears enough to ride in traffic, even on a weekend on a neighborhood street!

Then, one day, E was riding her bike in a bike lane, and this other guy was riding his bike the wrong way up the bike lane towards her. She decided to steer to the right so that he could pass her on the left, even as she screamed at him that he was going the wrong way…

…and from around her left side another bicyclist came flying to pass her, and slammed head-on into the wrong-way bike dude.

Who was not wearing a helmet.

E rode ride into the ensuing catastrophe.

When all was said and done, wrong-way dude went off in a meat-wagon, bleeding profusely from the head.

E required ten-plus stitches in her knee and didn’t ride again for over a month.

What’s the point behind this story?

A bicycle lane should be treated like a one-way street. You don’t ride the wrong way up it unless you’ve got a DAMN good reason… and if you do, then you’d better go OUT OF YOUR WAY to be careful, because it is likely that you WILL cause an accident, and it is likely that YOU will be the one hurt in it.

Right?

cheers,
~Garlynn

Hawthorne, I wasn’t referring specifically to that driver (she deserves no leniency), I was referring to drivers in general. There are many that have no problem using the road together but riding a bike illegally does not help us as a whole.

That real sad part of this is that if she hadn’t tried to run away, she would most likely would have only been given a fine.

The flip side of course, is that the driver’s license exam is ridiculously easy to pass, you actually don’t need to have taken a driver training course in order to pass the exam, there is never any follow up training for older motorists, and it’s virtually impossible to lose your driver’s license once you’ve got it.

Logan5 said:
SKiDmark, cars are allowed in a bike lane when CROSSING it to drive out into traffic (and in a few other circumstances as well from what I’ve read). Give a driver a break , it definitely takes more attention to Share The Road with cyclists(as we all want) and having them disobeying the traffic laws makes it all the more difficult.

Care to exlain to me why a driver can’t see a bicycle coming toward them? Or why it was OK to just drive off after hitting and killing him?

Also, cars disobey traffic laws as well. I wondering if not looking in the direction you are travelling is against the law?

I drive a car, I see cyclists, because I am looking for them. If a ever hit one, I would stop, I wouldn’t run off.