Cyclist Pays Price For Dollar Van

Some of my most harrowing encounters have been with "dollar vans."

For those of you who don't live here in New York City, dollar vans typically operate in "transportation deserts" that are far from subway and bus routes.  While they follow more or less set routes, their itineraries or schedules are not published; rather, people usually learn of them by word of mouth.

Dollar vans are said to have begun during the 1980 transit strike.  At that time, the New York City transit fare was 50 cents; after the strike, it climbed to 60 cents (and to 75 cents a year later, now it's $2.75). The vans operated all over the city, as they would during the 2005 transit workers' walkout. Between those labor actions, and since then, the  vans have served mainly the aforementioned "deserts".  

This might sound good, even though the ride now costs $2.00, but the problem is that these vans are not as regulated as taxis or even Uber-type car services are in New York.  So, if you take a dollar van, you run a greater risk of riding in an unsafe (not to mention unsanitary) vehicle.  Also, because there is so little regulation, drivers tend to be more aggressive and sometimes get into fights with each other over passengers and routes.  Plus, more than one accident investigation has revealed that the driver of a dollar van had a suspended drivers' license--or no drivers' license at all.  And no insurance.

Finally, at least in my experience, dollar van drivers' aggression toward each other is, too often, transferred to anyone and anything else they encounter on the road.  It's not uncommon for them to cut off other drivers, or to drive at pedestrians or cyclists who have the right of way.  I think the only reason dollar van drivers don't hit more cyclists than they do is that, well, there aren't as many cyclists in the neighborhoods where they operate as, ironically, in the more transportation-rich areas.

I was reminded of what I've just described yesterday, when I heard about a woman on a bicycle who was struck by a dollar van at Flatbush Avenue and Avenue U, in a decidedly un-hipster neighborhood of Brooklyn.   



The driver thought he was going to get away with it when he leapt from his car and began to run.  Fortunately, though, a bunch of people who just happened to be there tackled the guy.  


I hope the woman recovers.  Last I heard, she was in "serious but stable" condition and faces losing a leg.

Does The Driver Hate Cops--Or Cyclists?

Someone wasn't feeling the love in the City of Brotherly Love.

Around 2:30 yesterday morning, three Philadelphia police officers on bicycle arrived at the intersection of I Street and Erie Avenue to help with the arrest of a carjacker.

Suddenly, a black sedan--possibly a Nissan Altima--with tinted windows bore down, at high speed, a group of Philadelphia police officers on bicycle patrol.

Fortunately for the men in blue, they hopped off their bikes before the sedan tangled them into a mess of twisted spokes and sped off.

According to a Philly.com report, "Police said the driver's actions appeared to have been deliberate."  No! Really?  What I'd like to know is whether the driver of the sedan knew the carjacker, or simply had a grudge against cops--or cyclists.

They Weren't Planning To Have A Funeral For Him

When you raise a kid, you don't plan on having a funeral for him when he's 20.

I remember hearing that when I was about ten years old.   The person who uttered it was a relative of a classmate--who was the younger sister of the 20-year-old in question.

That relative was, of course, trying to deal with the grief he and his family were feeling just after a memorial mass.  Even though he, and others, knew the dangers the 20-year-old faced as a soldier in Vietnam, they were shocked to learn of his death.

I hadn't thought about that episode in a long, long time.  What brought it back for me today was a news story that came my way.  In it, Stephanie Groh Doersam says, "People don't plan to have to do a funeral for a 20-year-old."

She is a friend of Aaron Michael Laciny and his family.  Yes, Laciny is the 20-year-old to whom she is referring.  But what struck him down wasn't mortar fire.  Rather, it was automotive bumpers.  Yes, bumpers in the plural.

Around 10:30 Monday night, he was riding south on Charles Street, near the intersection with Charlesbrooke Road, in Balitmore.   There, a car struck him and drove away from the scene.  

Then a second vehicle struck him.  The driver of that one, at least, stopped and called the police.  But it was too late for Laciny:  He was taken to nearby Greater Baltimore Medical Center, where he died.

According to police, he was wearing a helmet but his bike didn't have lights or reflectors.  They are looking for the first vehicle that struck him, which "may have front-end damage to its bumper."  They are also reviewing private security video footage from the area.

Aaron Michael Laciny

Aaron Michael Laciny had just recently graduated from Baltimore City Community College and was interning at the Johns Hopkins Nano Energy Laboratory, where he was working to design and build new materials for inexpensive solar cells.  Questdrion Threat, a friend and classmate, said that Laciny--who friends jokingly referred to as "Bill Nye", in reference to the television science personality--wanted to "do research that would make the world a better place."

Neither Threat nor Groh Doersam--nor, for that matter, any of Laciny's other friends or family--expected to plan on having a funeral for him.  Or for any other 20-year-old doing nothing more perilous than riding a bike on a Baltimore street at night.

A Crash By Any Other Name

This happened at a bicycle race in Matamoros, Mexico on 1 June 2008. One cyclist was killed.  Ironically, "Matamoros" means "Kill Moors" in Spanish.  (From VeloWorld)

A few years ago, a man used his SUV to run over five people on Long Island after getting into a fight with one of them.  He fled the scene of the accident.

Tell me:  What's wrong with the above passage?

It's in the last word:  accident.  The last time I checked my Oxford English Dictionary, none of the definitions of the word "accident" included intention, volition or causality.  Perhaps I should look again, just in case my memory is getting fuzzy.

Yet no less than the New York Times--and, presumably, the Nassau County Police Department-- used that word to characterize the incident.

Now, you might say that my perceptions are colored (clouded?) by being a writer and English instructor. Still, I contend that words are powerful, and the ones that are chosen shape the way people perceive whatever is being described.  And people's responses, or lack of them, are a result of their perceptions.

The Long Island man's use of his SUV as a weapon of mass destruction certainly wasn't the first--and probably won't be the last--time such an incident is referred to as an "accident."  It's also not the only kind of non-random collision that has been, or will be, so misnamed.

About two years before the Long Island incident, rapper Foxy Brown is said to have hit two cyclists on West Houston Street in Manhattan.  She originally claimed that her former friend, Ayesha Quattara, was at the wheel, but the testimony of the cyclists who were hit--and Quattara--indicated that the rapper (who is said to be losing her hearing) was the real culprit.  Quattara and the cyclists also said that Brown yelled, "Get out of my way, you dumb white faggots!"

That incident was also listed as an accident (and her friends claimed that she is neither a racist nor a homophobe).  Now, she probably didn't intend to run them down.  However, Brown herself admitted she was agitated as she was racing from one Louis Vuitton store to another before it closed.  So the incident can't be called an "accident" that "happened."

Calling such incidents "accidents", by implication, lessens the culpability of the drivers involved.  It also, I think, causes detectives and others charged with investigating such incidents to think that they are simply terrible fates that could not have been avoided.  I can't help but to believe that anyone who thinks that way will take their investigations less seriously and, perhaps, to be less diligent in them.  

On the other hand, if such incidents were classified as (attempted) homicides or negligence, the cops would be right on them.  Even classifying what Foxy Brown or her friend did as a hate crime would have gotten it more attention than it got as an "accident".