Is It O.K. to Kill Cyclists? | NYT
âSAN FRANCISCO â EVERYBODY who knows me knows that I love cycling and that Iâm also completely freaked out by it. I got into the sport for middle-aged reasons: fat; creaky knees; the delusional vanity of tight shorts. Registering for a triathlon, I took my first ride in decades. Wind in my hair, smile on my face, I decided instantly that I would bike everywhere like all those beautiful hipster kids on fixies. Within minutes, however, I watched an S.U.V. hit another cyclist, and then I got my own front wheel stuck in a streetcar track, sending me to the pavement.
I made it home alive and bought a stationary bike trainer and workout DVDs with the ex-pro Robbie Ventura guiding virtual rides on Wisconsin farm roads, so that I could sweat safely in my California basement. Then I called my buddy Russ, one of 13,500 daily bike commuters in Washington, D.C. Russ swore cycling was harmless but confessed to awakening recently in a Level 4 trauma center, having been hit by a car he could not remember. Still, Russ insisted I could avoid harm by assuming that every driver was âa mouth-breathing drug addict with a murderous hatred for cyclists.â
The anecdotes mounted: my wifeâs childhood friend was cycling with Mom and Dad when a city truck killed her; two of my fatherâs law partners, maimed. I began noticing âcyclist killedâ news articles, like one about Amelie Le Moullac, 24, pedaling inside a bike lane in San Franciscoâs SOMA district when a truck turned right and killed her. In these articles, I found a recurring phrase: to quote from The San Francisco Chronicle story about Ms. Le Moullac, âThe truck driver stayed at the scene and was not cited.â
In stories where the driver had been cited, the penaltyâs meagerness defied belief, like the teenager in 2011 who drove into the 49-year-old cyclist John Przychodzen from behind on a road just outside Seattle, running over and killing him. The police issued only a $42 ticket for an âunsafe lane changeâ because the kid hadnât been drunk and, as they saw it, had not been driving recklessly. âŚ
The American Medical Association endorses National Bike to Work Day, and more than 850,000 people commute on a bicycle, according to the League of American Bicyclists. Nationwide, cycling is the second most popular outdoor activity after running, supporting a $6.1 billion industry that sold 18.7 million bikes last year.
But the social and legal culture of the American road, not to mention the road itself, hasnât caught up. Laws in most states do give bicycles full access to the road, but very few roads are designed to accommodate bicycles, and the speed and mass differentials â bikes sometimes slow traffic, only cyclists have much to fear from a crash â make sharing the road difficult to absorb at an emotional level. Nor does it help that many cyclists do ignore traffic laws. Every time I drive my car through San Francisco, I see cyclists running stop signs like immortal, entitled fools. So I understand the impulse to see cyclists as recreational risk takers who deserve their fate.Â
But studies performed in Arizona, Minnesota and Hawaii suggest that drivers are at fault in more than half of cycling fatalities. And there is something undeniably screwy about a justice system that makes it de facto legal to kill people, even when it is clearly your fault, as long youâre driving a car and the victim is on a bike and youâre not obviously drunk and donât flee the scene. âŚ
âWe do not know of a single case of a cyclist fatality in which the driver was prosecuted, except for D.U.I. or hit-and-run,â Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, told me.â
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