A reader (thanks Andrea) brought a sad story from Los Angeles to my attention.
Here’s the snip from a report in the LA Times:
“A woman in her 60s died this morning after being hit by a teenage bicyclist in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles police said.
The woman was crossing the street in the 600 block of Palisades Drive just north of Sunset Boulevard shortly before 7 a.m. when she was hit by the 16-year-old boy riding his bicycle…
“He’s just devastated,” Thomas said of the boy, who sustained cuts and bruises.
It was not immediately known how fast the boy was traveling, but it was still dark outside when the accident occurred. Authorities also did not know if the woman suffered fatal injuries when she was struck or when she fell to the ground.”
It doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen.
Full story at LATimes.com.
Thanks for reading.
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Condolences to the family of the victim.
I know this isn’t an everyday occurrence, but this should permanently do away with the concept that bikes are too small to hurt people and therefor shouldn’t be held to the same standards of cars when it comes to traffic enforcement. Please be safe out there and don’t take your small size for granted.
Hope the families recover from this.
Fortunately, these incidents are rare, though they may become more common as more bikes take to the streets. All the cases I can recall hearing of involved elderly pedestrians (“elderly” meaning 60+), with one exception here in Portland in the last year where one cyclist struck and killed another cyclist. Bike accidents tend to not be lethal, but the 55+ crowd is more vulnerable to being hit, tends to suffer more lasting effects after an injuries, and heals slower and less completely.
Lets all be careful out there, especially when biking around those even more vulnerable than ourselves.
Interesting that this doesn’t make the front page…
“”Interesting that this doesn’t make the front page…”
peggy,
thanks for the feedback. this isn’t on the front page because 1) I don’t always put a high editorial priority on crashes and 2) it happened in L.A.
If this happened anywhere in the Portland region I would have put it on the Front Page.
Understood, Thank you.