Bicyclist dies after crashing into car on University Way
A man riding his bicycle crashed into a car on University Way on Saturday night, and later died from his injuries.
The incident happened around 6:18 p.m. According to Seattle Police spokesman Mark Jamieson, the bicyclist, who was delivering food from the nearby Jimmy John's, was riding south on University Way when a car started to turn from Campus Parkway north onto University. The man wasn’t able to stop his bike in time, and crashed into the car.
The impact threw the man from the bicycle and onto the pavement. An ambulance crew, which had been taking a patient to the University of Washington Medical Center, was at the scene when the crash happened and started performing CPR on the bicyclist immediately.
The man was then rushed to Harborview Medical Center. Jamieson said the man died shortly after arriving at the hospital.
Jamieson said that the driver of the car was not impaired at the time of the crash.
Editor's note: The motorist failed to yield right of way to an oncoming vehicle. The "sharrow" failed to provide any more protection than any other paint application can.
9 comments:
Actually, as in many cycling propaganda pieces, details were left out such as the rider's behavior on the road. To blame this on a sharrow, no matter how bad, seems tenuous.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DIoSOGjrDbEU%26eurl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fslog.thestranger.com%252Fslog%252Farchives%252F2011%252F09%252F12%252Fthe-cyclist-who-was-killed-in-a-car-collision-on-saturday-evening%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fslog.thestranger.com%2Fslog%2Farchives%2F2011%2F09%2F12%2Fthe-cyclist-who-was-killed-in-a-car-collision-on-saturday-evening&feature=player_embedded&v=IoSOGjrDbEU&gl=US
The cyclist is in the video...
Who blamed it on the sharrow, Steve? The motorist's failure to yield right-of-way killed the cyclist.
The sharrow didn't kill the cyclist. Nor did it prevent his death.
What makes you believe that the motorist failed to yield rather than got hit by a cyclist zooming down "the Ave" as the motorist made her left on the Campus Way green left turn arrow? You can see the signal on Google Streetview. The situation is one reason a serious investigation is underway.
I've ridden through that intersection many times and only a fool would not slow through that intersection, whether on a bike or in a motor vehicle. While I HAVE seen cyclists operating safely and legally in Seattle, none were ever within a mile of my alma mater.
Still, one should not judge the cyclist on the basis of his own claims, and I am confident that SPD will not do so in this case.
Steve, answering my question with a question isn't an answer.
The initial reports I read makes no mention of a protected turn, only that the motorist was turning left when the cyclist hit the car.
Is it a left-turn-only-on-arrow turn? If so, and if the motorist was using the arrow, then the cyclist must have run the light, making the cyclist at fault.
We actually learned how to avoid this, this weekend at our "Cycling Savvy" class.
We don't need engineered solutions. The Mayor of Seattle ignores this. We need EDUCATION and ENFORCEMENT of LAW, not SEGREGATION.
Me bad. I'd heard that the motorist was making a protected left from Campus to northbound University. Now, it appears that the motorist was attempting to make a left from northbound University onto westbound Campus. That suggests the motorist would be at fault unless she'd waited for her light to stop oncoming traffic and was then hit by the cyclist running the red as she began her turn. According to the latest report I heard, she had only initiated the turn when the impact occurred. Regardless, I'd be reluctant to convict that motorist without knowing when she turned relative to the light Chang. After all, you are not supposed to simply sit in an intersection on the chance that oncoming traffic will run a red light. You are supposed to clear that intersection.
Which is, I suppose, why the authorities have made no statements as to fault either way.
Whareagle, I can't say we learned how to avoid this situation last weekend. In my youth, I easily hit 30 going southbound on University. I'm reluctant to place blame on either party absent data that has not been made public. Most likely, either the motorist did a left on green in front of a fast cyclist (bad motorist), or she waited in the intersection and then turned to clear the intersection when the light turned red, at which time she was hit by the cyclist running the red (bad cyclist).
Complicated intersection. http://g.co/maps/buzge
Cyclist was southbound, motorist was northbound turning west. Additional sharrow (SLM) placement visible in collision photo are not present in Google aerial.
Here's one of the reports. As always, the comments are revealing. http://udistrict.komonews.com/news/transportation/667105-bicyclist-dies-after-crashing-car-university-way#idc-cover
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