[Editor’s note: I am experimenting with sharing interesting/strange/noteworthy stories from across the web and posting them here on Page Two.]
Just to refute the myth that bikes can do no harm in collisions, here’s a story from Akron, Indiana (reported by the Associated Press) where a girl was struck and killed by a bike-riding classmate during gym class:
AKRON, Ind. — A 17-year-old girl died a day after officials say she was struck by a bicycle another student was riding on the track of a northern Indiana high school.
Evelyn E. Bolen was attending a physical education class Tuesday at Tippecanoe Valley High School when she was struck and knocked over by a male student who was riding the gym teacher’s bicycle, Superintendent Brett Boggs said.
Bolen was walking across the track with a small group of students when she was hit, he said.
“For some unexplained reason the kid got on the bike and ended up running into this young lady,” Boggs said. “He didn’t mean to hit her. It was an accident.”
He said the male student was upset by the accident at the school about 45 miles south of South Bend.
School employees administered CPR until an ambulance arrived to take Bolen to Kosciusko Community Hospital in Warsaw. She was taken by helicopter to Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, where she died Wednesday night.
Dick Alfeld, chief investigators for the Allen County coroner’s office, said Friday he could not immediately release the cause of death.
Boggs informed students of Bolen’s death Thursday morning and said she was a popular student.”
Full story here (links to MSNBC.com).
Thanks for reading.
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My sympathy to the family and friends of the pedestrian victim: Evelyn E. Bolen and the cyclist who hit her by accident on the school track. These are rare and horrific. Also of concern is when pedestrians disobey no walk signals and cause injury to a cyclist. It happened to me working as a courier. But the real true horror is the math and data prove that almost all vehicle deaths come when car drivers break the law or get lazy. It seems that car drivers who hate cyclists seem to get so much volume that you would think cyclists frequently are to blame for deaths of people in cars.
Update on the math:
Question. How long would it take if you spent one minute to read about each of the 40,000 deaths caused by motor vehicles?
Answer: 42 days. ( eight hours off for sleep ea day)
How long for all the cyclists who died each year by any cause? 15 hours ( 900 cyclists )
It is also interesting to note that some researchers say one third of cycling deaths are related to the cyclist having consumed alcohol.
Cyclists who have caused the death of someone in a car?
http://www.jhu.edu/gazette/janmar97/jan2797/briefs.html
http://www.ur.umich.edu/0708/Aug11_08/21.php
I like the idea of BikePortland doing a \”interesting/strange/noteworthy stories\” section… maybe it could be \”Page Three\” and have Page Two stay \’lighter\’ Portland (and Oregon) stories?!
You better hire another reporter soon Jonathan.