Another "Bicyclist collides with bus" story
I’ve written about “carhead,” the bias we often encounter that favors motorists over cyclists.
The Portland Oregonian has a story today about Austin Miller, who they say “collided” with a bus and was killed.
What appears to have happened is that directly before the crash, Miller took a right turn from a bike path onto another bike path without stopping at the light.
An oncoming bus passed him, then turned into the bike lane. The bus knocked him down and ran over him as it pulled into a bus stop.
The bus driver has been exonerated.
If you want the gruesome details from the police report, you can get them here. (.pdf).
How much does it matter that Miller ran a red light before the bus ran over him? The driver had a right to expect vehicles not to run that light, but did she not have a continuing obligation to make sure she wasn’t running over cyclists as she turned into the bike lane?
And is it really true that Miller collided with the bus? Was he the actor in this collision? He was, after all, riding his bicycle in the bike lane.
–Erik Ryberg
June 20th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Ooh, I like it! Nice picture.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Regardless of who collided with what, the fact remains that cyclists should not attempt to pass large vehicles to the right, and you especially shouldn’t pass a bus entering a bus stop (!). I’m sorry for Austin’s family, but I believe in this case that the cyclist was at fault. Turning right on red, even from a MUP onto a bike path, is common practice but it’s still illegal and potentially dangerous.
June 24th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Fritz, I don’t think anyone really knows what happened here but it does not seem that Austin attempted to pass the bus on the right. The bus passed him. I don’t disagree that he likely ran the stop light to make his right turn onto the bike path, but it seems that directly after that turn the bus passed him and turned into the bus stop, where it ran over him.
–EBR
March 18th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
[...] acknowledge or confront, the immense price we pay in order to have cars in our lives. Carhead is why in news reports cyclists are always colliding with buses and drunk or sleeping drivers, even when hit from behind. It is never a bus that hits a cyclist, [...]