Showing posts with label cyclist killed by driver. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cyclist killed by driver. Show all posts

08 September 2022

A Bike Lane To His Death

In earlier posts, I have lamented "bike lanes to nowhere."  They start or end without warning or don't provide safe or convenient routes to any place a cyclist--whether he or she is pedaling for transportation, recreation or training--might actually want or need to go.  Such lanes, I have argued, will do nothing to encourage people to trade four wheels and one pedal for two wheels and two pedals, even for short trips.

The worst such "lanes to nowhere" are not mere inconveniences; they are veritable deathtraps.  Such ribbons of illusory safety end by merging into traffic. The most perilous paths of all lead cyclists onto multiple lanes of cars, SUVs, trucks and other motorized vehicles traveling at high speed.  In the most dire of scenarios, there is no way for cyclists to avoid such a merge and no other way to anywhere else but the road onto which the path merges.

Although I have never seen it, I feel confident that my description fits the Longview Lake loop in Kansas City.  Longtime cyclist Athol Barnes' delight at the Loop's construction was muted because he noticed exactly the flaw I've described. As cyclists approach the intersection of SW Longview Road from the north, along View High Drive, the bike lane runs out past the intersection of East 109th Street, forcing cyclists to merge onto the road with drivers.


Charles Criniere (in cap) with his wife Megan and nine of his ten children.


He became especially worried about that merge after he encouraged his friend, Charles Criniere to start riding.  The middle-school teacher and father of 10 started by accompanying Barnes on early-morning rides during which they talked about the things that mattered to them:  family, faith, youth and eighth-grade math students. 

Criniere quickly gained cycling savvy, but Barnes' worst fears came true the Saturday before last.  Around 6:15 am, police were called to the intersection I mentioned earlier in this post.  A vehicle, which police believe to be a white Acura MDX, fled the scene.

Criniere was declared dead.  Police are looking for the driver.

In this photo, the photographer, Jeremy Van Deventer rides past a memorial for Charles Criniere.


Although he is glad the city is creating more bike lanes, Barnes also knows--and this incident confirms--what I've long known:  All else being equal, cyclists are safer on the road, and the real hazards are drivers, who aren't cognizant of, or are hostile to, cyclists and are driving bigger vehicles faster and distractedly.

04 May 2022

Intoxicated Driver Runs Her Down, She's Blamed

An old civil-rights activist, now gone, once told me a joke she'd heard about the state in which she grew up:  A couple of sherriff's deputies find the body of a Black man on a river bank.  His hands and feet are tied, and there's a noose around his neck.

"Dang!," one exclaimed. "They've sure got some strange ways of commitin' suicide."

That joke is, of course, a commentary on race relations.  But it also points to something that I've come to believe.  Call me a cynic, but I think too many police officers' first impulse in any situation is to blame the victim.  

Such a reaction, I think, has several sources. An obvious one is that constables tend to be suspicious of everyone.  For some, it might be innate, but for others, I'm sure it comes from dealing with the worst people and worst moments.  Another, I think, is police training:  They are taught to be ready for anything and everything and, because of policing culture, they can't or don't understand why other people aren't prepared for something they couldn't have foreseen. So, they come to believe, if they didn't before they became officers, that if something happens to you, you must have done something wrong.

There is something else that, in some situations, can cause law enforcement officers to blame the victim:  their ignorance of the law.  Such was the case of Obianuju Osuegbo.  In August 2020, when she was 17 years old, she was riding her bicycle home in Barrow County, just east of Atlanta.  A driver struck and killed her.


Obianuju Osuegbo


The Georgia State Patrol's Collision Reconstruction Team blamed Osuegbo for her death.  Their reasons?  Her bike didn't have a light on the rear.  And she wasn't wearing reflective clothing or riding on the right side of the road.

On their face, those reasons could help to establish fault with the teenager, but wouldn't be enough, by themselves, to affix blame. (At least, that's my guess. I'm not a lawyer.)  However, Bruce Hagen, the family's attorney, pointed out that state statutes say only that a bicycle must have a light only if it doesn't have reflectors--which Osuegbo's bike had.  

About riding on the right side of the road: She was turning left, so she couldn't have been on either side of the road. Also, the law states, "vehicles which approach from the rear, any other vehicle or vehicles stopped or slowed to make a lawful turn shall be deemed to be following the purposes of this code section."

Hagen, who conducts bike law training for police officers,  said that the responding officer and GSP team investigated the crash, but were unfamiliar with the Georgia laws. The officer and team, however, surely must have been familiar with another law because, well, pretty much every place in the Western world has it, in one form or another:  the prohibition against Driving Under The Influence.  The motor vehicle operator, Chrissy Rawlins (Is that a Georgia name, or what?) was high on multiple drugs, including methamphetamine and Valium when she ran into Osuegbo.   

She was indeed charged with DUI and for endangering the welfare of her children, who were with her in the car.  Hagen is seeking to have her charged with vehicular manslaughter.  

He and Obanuju's mother, Pauline Osuegbo, say they will not stop until they get justice.

27 May 2021

To Continue His Work—And Passions

At schools and universities, celebrated alumni are memorialized with libraries, collections, laboratories, galleries and other facilities named for them.

Not many, though, have bicycle repair shops or programs that bear their names.

I must say, however, that few people would want to take the route to fame, if you will, of Sam Ozer.

Last year, days after his graduation from the AIM Academy in Philadelphia—where he was the co-captain of the mountain biking team—was riding along Henry Street when he was struck by a vehicle.

The fatal crash was accompanied by some terrible ironies:  It was Fathers’ Day and he was going to spend time with his Dad, Sidney—who, along with Sam’s grandfather Morris, were founding members of the Bicycle Club of Philadelphia.

Even if he hadn’t been working at the Trek Manayunk Bicycle Shop on Main Street, Anne Rock, his cycling coach, would not have been exaggerating when she said bicycling was “in his blood.” His passion for cycling was accompanied by his love of the outdoors, which may have been inculcated by his mother, Mindy Maslin, the founder and program manager of Tree Tenders for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

Thanks to her, her husband’s, Ms. Rock’s and other people’s efforts, Sam’s school will have a bicycle repair shop and program.  Aside from commemorating the “grit” Ms. Maslin recalled in her only son, the shop and program are appropriate in another way:  The AIM Academy is a school for intelligent and gifted kids with dyslexia, and bicycling and bike repair helped to put Sam Ozer on a road to becoming a confident adult.  Before he graduated, he took two college courses and had been accepted in all six colleges to which he’d applied.