A buddy of mine I’ve known since 1987 was biking in Colorado, where he lives, and he was hit by a car, which kept right on a rolling on after dusting him and sending him into the ditch. According to my friend, the list of injuries include:
Well, it finally happened after over thirty years of riding my bikes; got struck by a car while riding home Friday night. Hit and run of course, so I have to rely on karmic justice for satisfaction. Broken teeth, possible broken jaw (find out on Thursday), facial lacerations and contusions, severe concussion, compression fracture of a thoracic vertebrae, and all the medical bills to go with the injuries. Pretty bummed, but I have a great support network of friends and family helping me maintain a more positive attitude. Will probably not be on the computer much in the coming days, but I truly appreciate any good vibes and thoughts you can send my way.
It doesn’t matter how cynical and calloused I get as I age, some things still fucking shock me. How do you hit another human being with your car and just keep driving? I just don’t fucking get it. I brake for squirrels and chipmunks and possums when there is no one behind me, and I have never, ever not stopped when there is a car broken down on the side of the road to ask if they need help or a cell phone. How do people live with themselves after hitting someone with their car and then just driving off. I just do not fucking get it. I hope I never do.
Do these people not have mirrors in their houses? How do they sleep?
Another Halocene Human
Sorry, Cole, for what I must do: FY Hetrosexual Blah Babe Sinkin’ – J for deleting your own post AND my bon mots ALSO TOO FYWP.
/vitriol
DougJ
So they should have stopped to help your friend? And withhold their productivity for half an hour?
DougJ
@Another Halocene Human:
It will be back there tomorrow.
I couldn’t do one of my glib posts on top of a super-emo John post.
Another Halocene Human
Do these people not have mirrors in their houses? How do they sleep?
Do they not have mirrors on their cars? How do they drive?
No, seriously, some people don’t even realize they’ve hit someone. They literally suck at driving that much. Dunning-Kruger’s dark side.
Another Halocene Human
@DougJ: I forgot what I was going to say anyway. :P
I mean, beside to note that Morning Joe sucks. And every time I see Mike Barnacle I want to throw things at the teevee.
Punchy
Lawsuits, and fear of them. Especially if said fuckhead was uninsured and/or shitfaced. Not excusing it, but avoiding time in the pokey and a life-crippling monetary payout will cause peeps to do stupid-ass shit.
d0n camillo
Maybe giving hit and run drivers in Colorado a slap on the wrist doesn’t help, I’m thinking.
http://bicycling.com/blogs/roadrights/2010/11/11/hit-and-run-in-vail-colorado-incites-outrage/
Jimmy Jazz
Two words: no insurance. Or drunk.
MobiusKlein
Hit and run captured on bike-cam:
http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2012/04/27/berkeley-bicyclist-hit-run-video/
Driver hits 4 bicyclists:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7476099
run down kids on bikes
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/06/18/BAI11P421T.DTL
It’s attempted murder folks
BGinCHI
As a serious road cyclist, I’ll tell you: a lot of drivers are major assholes.
The pattern seems to be: rich people honk and do brush-bys much more than regular folks. Dudes who are driving work trucks never mess with us, as they are working and get that we are out working hard (although differently). The entitlement shows.
Every time we get into an altercation it is either redneck or rich dude. Occasional crazy old lady.
As for hit and run, that could be several things. Sucks though and I wish him the best.
lacp
You don’t get it? Easy. It’s a hassle. It’s an inconvenience, and Christ forbid that any of us be inconvenienced by some schlub who has no business out amongst Murkins with Motorcars.
Honestly, no, I don’t understand it. We have about 2 or 3 of these a week here in Philadelphia.
burnspbesq
I stopped riding because of this. It’s just too fucking dangerous out there.
I will bet you a case of your favorite malt beverage that your friend was hit by a F-150. Don’t know what it is about that vehicle, but it seems like every person on earth who drives one is an idiot who thinks he owns the fucking road.
Another Halocene Human
@Punchy: Don’t believe it. Car drivers get off all the time saying the bicyclist did something unexpected/illegal, or the pedestrian ran out in front of them. (Note: does not work if visibly drunk.) Who are you going to believe, the tax-paying citizen, or the bum on a bicycle?
However, leaving the scene of an accident is a felony.
Another Halocene Human
@MobiusKlein: Agreed.
Heck, it’s not entirely uncommon in rural Florida (South Georgia as someone dubbed it the other day… now that burned) for hopped up assholes in a hopped up truck to actually try and run over pedestrians.
I wish there were a virus to kill all the sociopaths.
Comrade Dread
All part of the hyper-individualized culture we’ve glorified where it’s always all about me.
“Sure, that guy I hit with my car might be dead, but I might get in trouble, so I’ll just pretend it didn’t happen.”
We’ve completely lost the sense of community and oneness with our fellow man that we used to have, so you have a bunch of f***ing sociopaths running around thinking it’s all about them.
My sympathies go out to your friend, for what it’s worth. If he needs help, I hope you set up a paypal link we can donate to.
Another Halocene Human
@burnspbesq: Owns the road? I thought that privilege belonged to black beemers.
The jerkoffs are always driving white pickups that say Dekalb County. Never fails.
jharp
So sorry to hear of your friends misfortune.
It is exactly what I am afraid of happening to me on the ridiculously narrow roads in central Indiana and why I don’t bike.
We need more bike paths and less cars.
Another Halocene Human
@BGinCHI:
“Sorry about your penis problem.”
Another Halocene Human
@BGinCHI:
“Sorry about your [ED]* problem.”
*FYWP
Valdivia
I had a family friend die in a hit and run many years ago, so I have no answers for your John. They never found the guy.
Another Halocene Human
@Comrade Dread: “Sure, that guy I hit with my car might be dead, but I might get in trouble, so I’ll just pretend it didn’t happen.”
We’ve completely lost the sense of community and oneness with our fellow man that we used to have, so you have a bunch of f***ing sociopaths running around thinking it’s all about them.
This has been basically true since cars were invented. Apparently sitting between the wheel turns off your humanity and makes you think you’re in a video game (specifically, GTA).
Maybe it’s because you rarely see other driver’s faces and don’t know them?
DougJ
@burnspbesq:
Me too.
burnspbesq
@Another Halocene Human:
I would have bet on it being Cobb County. Several millenia ago, I used to have to spend about five days a year at a client location in Buford. Driving out there from Atlanta was like going to a different country.
cmorenc
@Punchy:
Our house is along a curve on a leafy, pleasant suburban street, and someone driving way too fast on a Saturday night has taken out our mailbox, set on a sturdy deep-set post, as well as on two other occasions that of our next-door neighbor’s similarly sturdy mailbox and post. Each time, they didn’t simply sideswipe the overhanging mailbox, the right front part of their car went through the post, smashing it from the ground and obviously doing substantial damage to their car as well, judging from the field of debris left behind (right headlight, right rearview mirror assembly, pieces of the bumper, etc). There were also on each occasion deep tire tracks across the lawn showing their off-course trajectory before and after the collision.
On NONE of these occasions did the driver stop to inform and apologize for what happened; they obviously high-tailed it out of there the moment afterward they realized their car was still drivable (the tire tracks tell the tale). We’d have been content simply to recover the $500 or so costs to repair damage to the mailbox and yard.
However, it’s a good bet the person was shitfaced and knew it, and feared the probable need to call for police to the scene to make a report for insurance purposes far more than the small risk at that hour that some witness could identify them, their car, their license plate. They probably took the car home and shut it out of sight inside a garage until they could take it to a body shop for repair. In fact, one way police sometimes catch hit-and-run drivers is to put out a notice to local body shops of the paint color and probable damaged items or car type, insofar as that can be judged from the debris field.
Another Halocene Human
@Valdivia: Don’t worry. People like that make “oopsies” over and over again. I’m sure they did find the guy or gal eventually and one can only hope they were DUI and got hard time. If they’re weren’t DUI usually there are no penalties. Mayyyyyybe suspended license.
Or maybe Darwin intervened and they got in a one-vehicle collision. If you know what I mean.
Mike in NC
I saw it happen in San Diego in ’88 as I left the airport. Insanely weird, but that’s SoCal. Also noted that burning cars by the side of the freeway was really nothing out of the ordinary.
Don’t get me started on fucking Florida.
BGinCHI
@DougJ: I never rode when I lived in Buffalo for that reason. Dangerous roads and even worse drivers. Rochester probably not much better.
Villago Delenda Est
They are sociopaths.
Like the entire Rmoney clan. The entire Bush crime family.
fuckwit
I moved from California– where I biked constantly in the Santa Monica mountains– to Dallas, Texas at the end of 1993. Sometime that next spring, riding on a mostly deserted road at the edge of suburbia in North Dallas (suburbia gave way to farm roads and nothingness very quickly there), two 20-something assholes in a pick-em-up truck drive past me, slow down, roll down their air-conditioned windows, hang their heads out of them, and yell “GET A FUCKEN REAL CAR, DUMBASS!!”. Then drive off laughing.
I wisely decided not to reply to this great witticism with a display of both middle fingers. I got off pretty easy.
A colleague at work, an older Chinese guy with a Ph.D. (who had also lived for a long time in California and liked to bike), had gotten run off the road “by rednecks” not too far from there, and needed hospitalization. He looked like a beating victim for months.
Ailuridae
@BGinCHI:
I knew we’d disagree on something someday. I’m also a Chicagoan and bike exclusively as my means of “too far to walk” and “not too smashed to be in a cab” means of transport. I only drive in exceptional emergencies (drunk friend’s car, need to get someone to the hospital, etc) and havent owned a car in a decade. I consider myself less a bicyclist than a non-driver but I am, by no means, a driver. And, yes, there are a lot of absolute ass holes on the road in cars. But bicyclists at least in our mutual home are, as a group, a menace. The not observing traffic laws and stop lights thing is immensely dangerous to their own safety and that of motorists and, especially, pedestrians. And of course those of us bicyclists who do obey basic traffic laws are doubly harmed. We alternately face the ire of drivers who are angry at other cyclists law-breaking and then our own law-abiding behavior becomes an unpredictable wild card. I can’t think of a clearer example of “entitlement” than a Chicago bike messenger and the rest of their ilk. Fuck. Every. Last. One.
To John: Its amazing how awful some people are faced with the slightest inconvenience. I had an acquaintance of my partner tell me that he elected not to call in a one car accident in his exburban paradise because he was worried about the fine from missing jury duty five years prior.
lacp
I hope your friend will be OK. From the description of his injuries, he’s lucky he wasn’t killed.
Another Halocene Human
@cmorenc: Shitfaced. You said it.
I started a bus route one morning and came up to a bus stop that had cold been Taken. Out. It had to be a pretty big vehicle–concrete bench and trash can all but destroyed, and the sign of course was gone. The front end of that thing must have taken a pounding…
I saw a woman drive out of a circle with a low-hanging steel bus shelter. She had sheared the roof-mounted AC off of her coach bus and was trying to GTHO. I tried to call in on her so my company didn’t get blamed for the damage (to the shelter). She looked freaked and I don’t blame her because the owner of that bus was gonna can her pronto, no doubt.
Valdivia
@Another Halocene Human:
I do. This was in Costa Rica (where I am from) when I was still in my youth. Believe it or not it was only last year that they passed a law that actually punished people for drunk driving.
Another Halocene Human
@Ailuridae: Bike messengers suck. They were last cool in 1991. A bike messenger killed a ped in Boston traveling 30mph. Fuck them.
My main problem right now is with roid-raging lycra-wearing, traffic control device and road rule flouting bike clubs. When I see them race by at 3:30pm I want to yell “GET A JOB.”
I mean, seriously–who gets off work that early (besides blue collar on dawn shifts and blue collar can’t afford no $15000 bike and $300 spandex douchefit)? Fuck them also.
Another Halocene Human
@Valdivia: Social attitudes have changed a lot. There was a “funny” drunk driving sequence in North By Northwest.
BGinCHI
@Ailuridae: Hey! Where the fuck have you been? Stranger!
Anyway, I mean the road cycling community that rides north of the city for big miles. NOT the city cyclist hipster or dumbass dudes. I agree that there is a lot of stupid out there.
I ride around 200 fast miles a week up past Lake Forest and back so that’s what I meant.
I still love you though.
suzanne
@burnspbesq:
YES. I was stopped at a light in a Toyota Corolla when I was hit by a douche driving an F-150 who was looking on the floor of the truck for his cellphone. What would normally have been a fender-bender took out the entire back half of the car.
Found out that a classmate of mine from high school fell down a flight of stairs, broke her neck, and died. 31 years old. Christ.
Another Halocene Human
@fuckwit: They’re bullies. They don’t deserve to be called rednecks. I dunno why there are so many rural bullies in the Eastern mountain ranges and rural South. Maybe northern bullies prefer to fuck people in business transactions? Or they get their aggressions out by paying highly trained professionals large wads of cash every other Saturday?
Doesn’t explain the Midwest, but maybe it’s all that soy dust. Tamps down on the raging male hormones or sumpin’.
Another Halocene Human
@BGinCHI: Mad props. I tap out at 10 miles–round trip.
BGinCHI
@Another Halocene Human: You are an ignorant dumbass, dude.
Cyclists in large groups have no choice but to take over the road for fast rides. Usually early morning but others go late afternoon.
Give them some space. You can still drive and get where you’re going. Until you ride some miles like that you are just talking envious bullshit, because it’s hard and it’s technical and it’s fun.
ETA: Read post 39: sorry for the “dumbass” but I really don’t think people see the beauty of a group ride until they’ve done it. It’s sublime.
Valdivia
@Another Halocene Human:
It was shocking to me that it took this long for that to happen in CR but at least now people are paying attention and there is a public campaign to drill the message home.
burnspbesq
@Another Halocene Human:
Self-employed and business owners. I could do that every day if I chose to, as long as I was prepared to get back to work at 8:00 and go until midnight.
Mike G
It’s the Republican “Be an Asshole to Everybody Not Like You, You’ve Earned it” mentality.
There are some doucehbags on bikes, especially in big cities, but when it comes to cars they are more sinned against than sinners.
Another Halocene Human
@Villago Delenda Est: Romney’s not a sociopath. He just acts like one to everyone not in his inner circle. He’s one of those tribalists whose tribe is very, very small.
The ugly side of tribalism is experienced by the outsider. (This may be a first for some white male heterosexual voters, I’m sure.)
JohnK
Was involved in a cycling fatality in May. Alcohol was a factor. Drunk, drowsy and distracted driving are huge hazards for every one not just cyclists. My little crash in March cost $11,000 mostly dental bills. But your freind is alive and still has the option of finding another healthy pastime. Live to ride, ride to live. Or not.
Another Halocene Human
@Mike G: I could never understand the cyclists with the “one last car” shirts. Seemed like it was asking for some Masshole with an anger management problem to run them over. I mean, why rub it in that you don’t have to spend $76.52 weekly on gas (with which you buy $54.99 spandex racing shirts)?
Another Halocene Human
@Valdivia: That’s a good thing.
I really took heart when Massachusetts made bartenders responsible for holding onto car keys and not letting their patrons stumble out of there drunk.
Another Halocene Human
@burnspbesq: Exactly. The business owners I know work all day and don’t get a day off… unless they have some money coming from some other source. Family, spouse. In which case the business is more of a … hobby. But the ones who needed it to eat certainly would not.
Mnemosyne
Hit and runs are pretty common here in Los Angeles. There was a really nasty one down by USC a few years ago where they did manage to catch the perps and put them on trial because the driver stopped long enough for the passenger to get out and push the body of one of the victims off the hood of the car and into the street before driving away.
They both went to prison for a good, long time.
Jennifer
Do these people not have mirrors in their houses? How do they sleep?
Obviously, since your friend was on a bike instead of behind the wheel of a Range Rover, he’s one of the poors and so does not matter. He should count his blessings that John Galt isn’t suing him for marring the paint on his little-penis-compensationmobile where he smacked him.
Yes, they have mirrors and they sleep fine. And vote Republican.
Ailuridae
@BGinCHI:
I was going to write something snarky like “I am not familiar with this Lake Forest neighborhood of Chicago of which you write” but decided the better of it. I don’t do long bike rides but used to use the start of that trail (it starts at like Foster and Elston or Milwaukee), right after 9/11 to blow off steam and sweat out cheap beer the next day. Like much of the Forest Preserve it is pretty awesome – the street crossings were pretty harrowing though even back then.
In cycling geekery news – I grew up this close to Serotta bicycles (they are at a new address now but its oddly the same distance from my childhood home)
Mnemosyne
@BGinCHI:
I think it’s kinda hard to see the beauty of a group ride when you have to run for your life because the group decided run a red light when you were in the middle of the crosswalk.
Just sayin’.
Another Halocene Human
@BGinCHI: You are an ignorant dumbass, dude.
I rode a bike to work daily for 6 years. So double dumbass on you.
Cyclists in large groups have no choice but to take over the road for fast rides.
Bullshit. Take your velodrome shit to the velodrome. Or stay on the trails or the state highways. WTF are you doing in the urban CBD with that red-light-running, two-abreast, testosterone shit?
Usually early morning but others go late afternoon.
Rush. Hour.
Give them some space.
I do. Three feet mandated by law. Of course, since I’m driving a bus, that puts me in another lane, but fuck all those other people using the road. My glutes are more important than those 30 people on the bus who are trying to make their connection.
You can still drive and get where you’re going.
Project much? Many of my passengers cannot.
Until you ride some miles like that you are just talking envious bullshit, because it’s hard and it’s technical and it’s fun.
Hahahahahahaha.
Why don’t you ride 5.5 miles to work in a shitty Walmart bike with stuck gears over broken pavement in the fucking rain and then tell me about “hard” and “technical” without your crabon fribe and 500 other douchey expensive addons and doucheons that a shlub like me couldn’t afford? Fuck you.
ETA: Read post 39: sorry for the “dumbass” but I really don’t think people see the beauty of a group ride until they’ve done it. It’s sublime.
Must be nice.
Anne Laurie
Not to excuse the sociopaths, drunks, and idiots who should never have been given a license in the first place — but part of the problem is that we really do have a car-based culture these days. For a lot of people here in The Greatest Country in the World, if they can’t drive, they can’t hold a job, or get to their doctors, or procure the basic necessities of life. Which means that chronic substance abusers and elderly people who know they shouldn’t be behind the wheel hang onto their car keys like Ron Paul hangs on to his goldbuggery. And the authorities are very reluctant to take dangerous drivers off the road, even after multiple DUI arrests or “I thought it was just a pothole/the sun was in my eyes/they must’ve changed the signs at that intersection” incidents. Even here in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, there’s a news story every couple weeks about a 70-year-old driver chauffering her 95-year-old mother taking a wrong turn out of the post office lot and ending up in the sandbox at the daycare next door (it was raining, so the kids were indoors). Or an elderly cancer patient crashing through the front of the strip-mall treatment center — she knew she shouldn’t have been driving, but she didn’t qualify for her town’s medical-transport assistance program. Or the old guy, on his way to vote, who crushed a six-year-old in the school parking lot. Not to mention, the more years your classic high-functioning alcoholic spends on the road, the higher the chance his already untrustworthy reflexes will fail at the wrong time for somebody else’s life.
Another Halocene Human
@burnspbesq: Oops, you are so right. It is Cobb. headdesk
Another Halocene Human
@Anne Laurie: But if we pay for public transportation they’ll take our keys away and send StalinHitler to tear up all the highways and then our balls will shrivel and we’ll DIE!!!!!
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
If you go to any farmer’s market in the Los Angeles area, you will see that they have vans and trucks parked at both ends of the street to block it off. This is thanks to 86-year-old George Weller, who managed to kill 9 people and injure 54 (14 critically) when he mixed up the brake and accelerator pedals in his Buick.
Another Halocene Human
@Anne Laurie: If I’m going down I’m going to take you bastards with me!
It’s the American way.
GxB
The answer lies in an old Simpson episode: “On top of a pile of money with many beautiful ladies.”
Okay, that isn’t meant to be as callous as it sounds – just that the line instantly fit as I read it. Hope your friend pulls through ok.
Arclite
Probably drunk. One bad decision begets another.
I hope your friend makes a full recovery.
sfinny
Lately, there have been alot of bikers to pass on my commute home and I’m particularly careful because often they can’t hear me (hybrid car). Mostly it is the jerks driving behind me that create problems, just annoyed that I slow down to make sure nothing bad happens.
Violet
I used to bike to work and always took back roads to avoid traffic. I observed all traffic laws and did things like wait in left turn lanes for the signal to change.
I’ll never forget being yelled at by a guy in a truck — yes, a F 150 — to get out of the way…as we both waited in the left turn lane for the light to change. I was in front of him, but I’m not sure where he thought he was going to go if I got out of the way, as the light was red. Idiot.
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne: You think it’s fun dodging the “Greatest Generation” survivors, wait’ll more of us pig-in-the-python Baby Boomers reach the point where our reflexes are no longer adequate to handle a couple tons of rolling metal. Hell, one of the reasons we chose this town to buy a home in was that it had 24-hour taxi service… and these days, some of the commercial drivers have me praying from the back seat.
If we’re very, very lucky, maybe the Peak Oil crisis will encourage more realistic public transport solutions. Or maybe we’ll all get our individual magic ponies first…
The prophet Nostradumbass
And then, there’s stuff like this, which, thankfully, is relatively rare, although I’m surprised it isn’t more common in San Francisco.
Steeplejack
@Another Halocene Human:
Well, Buford is mostly in Gwinnett County (with a bit in Hall County), but, really, take your pick. I have seen redneck pickup assholes from all across the richly varied DeKalb-Gwinnett-Cobb spectrum. Another side effect of urban sprawl.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Anne Laurie: So, who are the “Greatest Generation”, anyway? My parents were born in 1928 and 1936, I guess they qualify for greatness? Tom Brokaw really is an idiot.
Arclite
Another thought: Hopefully this will become much less common when computers start doing all the driving for us. In fact, I see it being the case that very few people will actually own cars once that becomes the case. Massive fleets of self driving taxis make much more sense that having our own cars that sit around 95% of the time.
Steeplejack
@Arclite:
Why do you hate America, you filthy communist swine?
Xenos
Do the pickup drivers still have buddies riding shotgun who open their doors on the hippie cyclists so they can watch them crash into ditches? I remember that being a serious problem back in the 70s and 80s…
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Arclite: I regularly see those Google cars in the area where I live (helps that their HQ is less than five miles away).
Genine
Sending good vibes to your friend.
Xenos
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Your parents are ‘silent generation’, although your father might have been old enough to be in uniform at the tail end of the war.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Xenos: They sure as hell had bombs dropped on their home town by the Germans, after they were born. They had to carry gas masks with them to school for a while.
srv
Hey Doug, hop over to reddit and watch the elementary school kids making fun of the elderly bus monitor and getting her to cry.
Greece, NY. Probably know their parents. Going viral tomorrow.
slag
@Xenos: Every winter I observe how the rugged, elbow-throwing individualists cruise around here in their temperature-controlled SUVs while the limp-wristed, latte-sipping liberals are roughing it through the snow on their bikes. Apparently, all it takes to be a Real American is a heated bucket seat.
srv
ah, looks like mods deleted it, mob was already ID’ing the little shitheads.
The Populist
Sounds like a right winger. See us left leaning/liberal folks care about our fellow man, even after we get flustered by the strange stances some take.
I stop too. I can’t understand the very thought of “collateral damage” and “they can deal with it”.
The prophet Nostradumbass
I’m surprised none of the Front Pagers have jumped on the Julian Assange hides in the Ecuadorian Embassy story. It seems like a perfect story to troll some of the readership.
ruemara
Sorry to hear that. I wish him a speedy recovery and double that karmic justice to the guy who hit him. I also have no idea how you just walk away from that. It’s a person, nothing else is more important.
Caz
It’s a sign of the moral decay of our nation, and it’s all Obama’s fault. Of course, Obama blames Bush for the moral decay, and Ron Paul blames both. Maybe Congress can pass a law pursuant to the constitution’s commerce clause outlawing hit and runs – after all, cars can travel across state lines, so it potentially involves interstate commerce, especially since health care is involved for the injured person.
With a cost/benefit analysis, I guess these people figure the cost of getting charged criminally or being sued outweighs the benefit of good moral character and a “you asshole, you almost killed me, but thanks for stopping” statement by the hitee.
Uncle Cosmo
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Anyone who’s “way too committed to stop” when a light turns yellow is going waaaaay too fast for safety, his or pedestrians’. I hope they threw/are throwing/will throw the book at that arrogant mofo–bastard deserves to do hard time for vehicular manslaughter.
Patricia Kayden
Not excusing the driver, but I wonder if he even noticed that he hit your friend. I remember a local case where a Priest ran over and killed a pedestrian and claimed that he thought he had hit a deer. That was his excuse for why he drove off and didn’t stop. Since I would have stopped for a deer (or other animal), I didn’t buy his story. Can’t remember what happened to him.
Xenos
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
No it is not. That particular reader has been out for a while, and the quiet has been lovely.
debbie
There’s a lot of hit and running in Ohio. I once almost hit a motorcycle cop who came flying out from behind a utility truck. I managed to get out of the way before hitting him, but it was close enough that he had to lay his bike down (or whatever they call it).
I pulled over and waited for him to compose himself and come over and yell at me. I listened to the yelling, took the ticket without protest, and showed up at court. I pled guilty and the judge gave me the minimum fine, commenting that I deserved a lot of credit for not leaving the scene.
This cop didn’t have a great reputation, but still, the thought of colliding with an exposed human being just really haunted me. It took a long time to get past that. I don’t know how people can live with themselves after hitting someone and not stopping.
Omnes Omnibus
Panicked or completely oblivious.
Arclite
@Steeplejack: Hahahahahaha! Classic.
Arclite
@The prophet Nostradumbass: That’s pretty cool. Out here in Hawaii, I never see them. It’s been something I’ve been thinking about since the mid 90s. Back then I thought we’d have them by 2015, but it looks like they’ll still be in their infancy then.
Nemesis
We had a terrible hit and run in our community recently.
A 16 y/o boy was at a party consuming alcohol (nuttin new here). His parents somehow learned of his escapades. They spoke on the phone and the kid agreed to come home immediately. He was walking home, about 5 miles, and was hit by a car, thrown into a wooded area, and died. Took days to find him. So sad. And the driver is still at large.
Hope your friend recovers soon. Biking can be dangerous. Too bad we cant have nice things like bike lanes because republicanTs suck.
Schlemizel
You just don’t get it John. Some bicyclists behave badly & disobey traffic laws, therefor all bicyclists are fair game & get what they have coming to them.
brantl
I live in the country, and found a bicyclist, spread-eagled with his mangled bike in the middle of the my lane (just 100 feet from coming over a blind hill!) and stopped just beyond him, got him in my truck and to the vet’s hospital in Ann Arbor. He said that he had seen the car coming up on him and had gotten over, and they had hit him, anyway. He looked as though he had a broken collar bone. I walked him into the vet’s hospital, and they were there before we could make the emergency desk.
The told me to head on home, after looking him over for a couple of minutes, that he would be fine. He told me the same thing, smiling.
It really is unbeleivable, what shits people can be. How anybody could just leave someone there is beyond me.
MB
Huh. Aside from a couple of jokers, this thread is remarkably humane, considering the subject matter and where it usually goes on the internet.
This cyclist thanks y’all.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Caz:
Did you say something? No? OK.
Terry
@Ailuridae: Hear, hear. And I ride my bike to work, too. Full stop at stop signs; waiting the entire length of traffic lights. It’s not hard to do it right.
lee
Late to the thread but one bit of advice. Swerve to HIT squirrels. Since one got in my dads attic I have waged a all out war on the little vermin
bystander
Clearly we haven’t done enough, but the cycling community in Colorado has been trying to reduce the incentive to hit and run. A new bill addressing the problem was signed into law on June 6th. Not sure when it goes into effect, but that driver could be looking at a class 4 felony. Sigh. Probably enough to charge him for what s/he already was; drunk. May the driver be found and charged, and your friend have a totally unremarkable recovery without lingering effects.
Another Halocene Human
@Anne Laurie:
But we must raise the retirement age because we cannot afford herp derp.
Another Halocene Human
@Arclite:
I think you missed the whole point of conspicuous consumption.
crosspalms
Hope your friend recovers. I don’t get it either. I commute by bike, obey traffic laws, and I see people do incredibly careless things every single day. Doesn’t matter if they’re driving, walking or cycling. It’s amazing our streets aren’t littered with bodies.
Chasseur
wtf, every time this topic comes up its drivers who hate entitled cyclists vs holier than thou commuters vs lycratards vs rednecks vs rich people. if i was someone bike curious i’d be scared away. don’t be.
i ride about 4k miles a year commuting from suburban metro into downtown denver at rush hour on some narrow, busy-ass streets. for about 10 years. year round unless its actually precipitating or below 20 degrees. business casual. i’m sorta resigned to the idea that i’ll get hit or doored eventually, i’m really dreading it.
but you know what? the number of altercations that i have with motorists is vanishingly small. the number of dangerous discourtesies? similarly small. riding to and from work is sometimes the best part of my day. if your experiences are like the fucking WARRIORS tryna get back to coney island, i can only conclude–you are DOING IT WRONG.
i also ride my road bike lycra style in the canyons outside of town on top of the commuting, and yes, then i get some shit from cars. be safe. be polite.
Jebediah
@BGinCHI:As a use-to-be serious road cyclist, I can concur with this. One of our club members was the victim of an attempted vehicular homicide and it was in an exclusive, wealthy neighborhood. Driver was enraged by having to share the road. "His" road.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
This highlights the two main issues with our society.
1. Money is the overriding measure of someones value.
2. We have really crappy health care.
#1 exacerbates #2 but the reverberations of our crappy health care affect us all, insurance or not.
Jebediah
@Another Halocene Human:
I understand the budget issue and riding whatever you can afford, but you get zero noble victim points for “stuck gears.” Learn to maintain your bike. They are fairly simple machines and even with half-assed adjustment, cleaning and greasing/oiling cheapo bikes function quite well.
Joel
Thank god your friend survived. I had a friend who was struck by a delivery van making an illegal U-turn from a parking spot. He slid under the wheel base. Died not long after. The driver was distraught, but didn’t stop her from fleeing the country to avoid prosecution. The insurance company for the van owner had their lawyers make the case that my friend was a bad father (he was nothing of the sort) and on that premise they should be able to welsh on payments (they didn’t succeed). So there’s a handful of people, right there, whose value to humanity is questionable at best.
KXB
I hope your friend has a speedy recovery. I was the victim of a hit and run back in December. I was at a red light behind one other car, when I got hit behind. I was far enough from the car in front of me that I did not hit her. As I was fumbling around getting my bearings, I looked in my rear-view mirror. There were 2 passengers in the front, and the passenger was looking at a map. In less than one minute, the car that hit me switched to the right-turn lane, and took off! I could not get a plate, or model. Since my car insurance did not have collision, it cost me almost $700 to fix my rear bumper. That was almost a quarter of my monthly take-home right there.
Ruckus
@Jebediah:
even with half-assed adjustment, cleaning and greasing/oiling cheapo bikes function quite well.
No kidding. I just closed my bike shop and many would be amazed at how well a well maintained 20-30yr old $200 bike will hold up and work. People around the world would do a lot for one of these. And we look down our noses at these poor schlubs that have to ride them instead of the latest, greatest thing.
Jebediah
@Ruckus:
Yeah – and sometimes the latest and greatest isn’t all that. Downtube-mounted friction shifters have far fewer fiddly parts to go wrong compared to an indexed brake-and-shifter. And I have a pair of wheels on my road bike with cup-and-cone bearings. They work great – I have coasted downhill right past riders with modern sealed-bearing wheels. Mine just roll easier, and even a chimp like me can take them apart, clean and re-pack them, and enjoy the trial-and-error of getting the pre-load correct.* I’ve had them for many years and I might not ever have to replace them.
I definitely don’t look down my nose at riders on cheap bikes, but I will admit being VERY tempted to flag down certain riders as they roll past my front door. The ones where you can hear their chains before you see them. “Dude! I just want to put some oil on that poor chain. It’ll just take a second, I promise!”
*ETA: And you get to use cool, archaic-looking hand tools. Double bonus!
JWL
“How do people live with themselves after hitting someone with their car and then just driving off”.
The Vietnamese likely pondered much the same about Americans after 1975.
asiangrrlMN
I don’t know, Cole. Let’s ask Amy Senser, wife of Joe Senser (ex-Vikings player) who hit and killed a person and didn’t stop. Her excuse? She thought she hit a pothole.
I hope your friend recovers as painlessly and quickly as possible, Cole.
Lex
@Another Halocene Human:
This. I was a cops reporter for years and covered dozens of hit-and-runs. Some people are drunk or intentionally hightail it for other reasons, of course. But but a lot of drivers don’t realize they’ve hit anyone, particularly at night (or driving straight into the setting sun). They think it was a pothole, or road debris, or at worst a possum or raccoon. And the reason they can think that is that they’re just not paying attention. They’re messing with the radio or their phone or they’re just distracted. It sucks and it shouldn’t happen, but it does.
Around streets, I tell my kids don’t just assume that drivers can’t see you, assume the driver is also trying to text someone. That at least puts the fear of God into ’em. Because if you’re a pedestrian or cyclist and you put the burden on the other driver to do the right thing, sooner or later you’re screwed.
Gex
@asiangrrlMN: I was going to mention it if no one else had. Of course, the part you left out is that the Sensers are the “right kind of people” so you can see why different standards should be applied.
tom
I once read in a cycling magazine, “if possible, avoid riding on Friday evenings, i.e. beware happy-hour drunk drivers!… or Holidays like 4th of July, St. Patty’s day, Labor day”. The article had the statistics to prove their point.
I hope your friend fully recovers.
localnebula
Lurker, really late to the (shitty) party and all that…
Don’t have an answer on how they live with themselves, exactly, but they really do seem completely untroubled by it. Pointless story about people like that driver:
Back when I was 10 or so, I was riding in the back of my dad’s car. He’s busy talking (with both hands) and not paying attention to the road, so he plows through a crosswalk and the pedestrians in it against a red light. One of the pedestrians slid up over the hood and against the windshield before sliding off the side. It was icy out, so fortunately he was going only 15 or so and didn’t (AFAIK) kill anyone. But he just kept on going. “JEEZ! Are they crazy!?” he scoffed at them, apparently pissed that they so rudely bothered him. I was freaking out, mom was freaking out, my little brother was freaking out. Dad wanted to know what the hell was wrong with us getting so pissed at him. Then he continued driving to dinner as though nothing happened. Insisting “they’re fine, drop it,” is the closest he’s ever come to showing the slightest bit of concern. As far as I know, he sleeps like a baby.
Some people just don’t have a conscience. At all.
P.S.: Sending good vibes as requested. Hope your buddy has a swift and full recovery, John.
Jebediah
@localnebula:
Holy shit!
I guess nobody bothered to call the cops?
localnebula
@Jebediah:
I can only assume they didn’t get the plates. All I know is what I saw and that he never faced any consequences for it.
Bill D.
Another possibility is denial. As in hearing a noise and maybe even seeing the person laying on the road back there in the mirror, but not being willing to admit to yourself that you actually hit that person (for instance, if you brushed against them and didn’t actually see the collision). Sounds crazy, but denial is powerful in some people.
OTOH, I saw an accident where a vehicle went around a blind corner in a parking lot, very clearly hit another car as a result and caused substantial damage, slowed momentarily, then took off in a hurry. No insurance, or possibly they wanted to avoid any possibility of contact with the law due to their legal status. It’s amazing how many people the cops pick up on warrants when they make traffic stops.