I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more frequently.
I’m not talking about the crash that resulted when someone drove a Tesla SUV across a Seattle bike lane to access a parking lot. Unfortunately, I’m also not referring to the life-altering brain injury Aviv Litov suffered when his bike hit the car.
What I am about to mention is the lawsuit that’s followed. Not surprisingly, the Tesla driver is a defendant, as the suit cites her negligence. But the other defendant is one not often named in such cases: the city itself.
The lawsuit, filed by the Strittmatter firm in Seattle, alleges that the lane’s faulty design was a factor in the crash that landed Litov in a hospital for two months and has led to a long, arduous road to heal.
The lane on Green Lake Drive appears to be like many here in New York (including the one along Astoria’s Crescent Street, where I lived until last March) and other American cities: It’s separated from the traffic lane by a line of parked cars.
Those cars certainly are an effective barrier. But in some spots—particularly driveways and intersections that cross those lanes—those parked vehicles also obstruct visibility for both cyclists and drivers. Too often, frustrated motorists make risky maneuvers to turn—or cyclists simply can’t see them until it’s too late.
I hope Litov has a full—or as full as possible—recovery. And it will be interesting, to say the least, to see whether more municipalities or their contractors are held to account for poor bike lane conception, design, construction or maintenance—of which I’ve seen plenty or, should I say, too much.
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