10 Wheels

So Sad.
https://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5403903.html

stevesurf

barndoor

This just makes me sick....

You just have to wonder where the parents were.....

UmneyDurak

I probably going to get stoned for this here but, actually one has to wonder where the children common sense is these days.

kjmillig

A 7 year olds common sense says, "Hey, I have a new bike. I wonder how fast it will go." They have neither the life experience nor foresight to think about a car in the roadway that might hit them as they ride out. That's like wondering where the one year olds common sense was when they touched the stove.

UmneyDurak

Wow very low expectations. Where I grew up kids were out by themselves playing all day. Never heard of anyone being run over by a car because they rode in front of it. I think there is something fundamentally wrong with expectations that kids shouldn't have some basic common sense, and yes knowing how to interact with traffic is a basic common sense.
I think parents are partly responsible. Not for "not being there", but for not teaching the kid some basic "street smarts".

maximan1

R.I.P, but where are the adults, and that wasn't too smart of the kid either.

JeanCoutu

Sad yes, and no doubt the driver will feel like crap about it for a long time to come, but the news story really isn't giving much details about the whole interaction.

Xrisnothing

https://www.ksat.com/news/14922390/detail.html
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/met...d.257be56.html

Her brother is probably going to hate Christmas and bicycles for the rest of his life... He'll probably blame himself for leaving her alone too. I know I would feel guilty for it. If this was the girls' first bike, the parents really should have been outside with her. At her age though, I was riding to school and all through the neighborhood without a helmet.

The article says that the driver was accelerating from a stop sign when he hit her. Her brother was inside. It was Christmas morning. The neighbors were inside opening presents and such. I'm sure no one saw the accident, because the article does not mention any witnesses. It seems to me like the guy didn't stop. I find it hard to believe that a person could come to a complete stop at an intersection and proceed to gas the vehicle straight into a seven year old on a bike.

uciflylow

The "happening on Christmas" is in our own mind. I work in a hospital, and I assure you LIFE and DEATH doesn't take a day off on Christmas!

May God bring peace to all involved in this terrible accident!

StrangeWill

Doesn't anyone else remember as a kid yelling "car" and everyone gathering up whatever they were doing and splitting for the sides of the road, only to come back out once the coast was clear. Apparently my neighborhood had an understanding of traffic existing.

why2not

Perhaps the reason you never heard of a child being run over by a car when you were growing up was because:
A) You weren't on the internet exposed stories that can make the nation seem awfully small
B) You weren't very intrested in the news when you were a child, especially about someplace far away

Unless you can find statistics that back up your claim that kids are being run over more now than they were 30 years ago, I think your conclusion that kids have less common sense than they did 30 years ago is based upon flawed assumptions.

Hickeydog

Walter

A 7 year old on her first bike will make mistakes. That is true today and was true 36 years ago when I was that age. Why2not makes a good point about such news getting wider dissemination nowadays but I can assure you kids (and adults) got hit by cars "back in the day" as well.

While I agree that her parents should have been out with her I cannot bring myself to openly criticize them. They are enduring unbearable grief right now and they have my deepest condolences. I wish them God's Peace as they try to move forward.

AndrewP

This hit the news becuase it is so rare. The hundreds of motorists killed over the holidays doesnt excite any interest.

UmneyDurak

Well by similar logic do you have statistics that show accident rates are the same?

StephenH

I don't know that news like that got broadcast the same back then as it does today, either. The media has changed a lot through the years as to what does and doesn't get reported. It would surely make the local papers, but whether it made papers across the country is a different matter.

A childhood friend of mine had a scar on his lip from running out in front of a car- it wasn't bike-related, though.

AlmostTrick

My thoughts go out to the family of this little girl as they struggle with their pain.

This happened in a residential area were drivers should be more aware of the possibility of playing kids entering the streets unexpectedly. As a driver it is hard for me to accept that running down a kid in these conditions (no matter what they did) is unavoidable. In my neighborhood I see many drivers going too fast, giving little or no thought to the possibility of a kid popping out in front of them. Try as it sometimes seems they may, no kid will ever get me to hit him/her while I'm driving. So yes, no matter how it happened, the driver is at least partially to blame, and could have avoided hitting her.

Walter

Kids riding their new bikes on Christmas Day is as close to an ubiquitous experience as there is so yes the driver should have been more aware of what was going on.

He may not have technically been at fault but I agree with AlmostTrick; he probably could have done more. Without knowing him at all I'll assume that he's as grief stricken as anybody else in this sad story and I won't pile on him any more.

maximan1

One time me and my friends had this idea to pretend we fell over a speed bump and see if people would get out of cars to help us.
Boy was that a mistake.

fthomas

My prayers for the parents and the driver.

How tragic.

closetbiker

It's pretty sad but it has and will happen again. Children are over represented in cycling accidents

on this page

https://www.helmets.org/bcstudy.htm

it shows that over a 10 year period close to half the fatalities were to children and/or involved drunks (on the bike or in a car)

It also says,

It is one thing for a child to ride a bicycle in a cul de sac. It is another to ride it in thoroughfares busy with myriad types of motor vehicles, varying road conditions (including those under repair) and where there are a variety of signs and signals that are confusing to most of us. When do children's psychomotor skills develop to the extent that they can ride safely in busy traffic? Some researchers indicate that a child's poor comprehension of safety rules may limit the effectiveness of safety education programs because young children do not perceive the traffic environment as do adults. Findings of a study into these matters could have a profound impact on bicycle safety education as well as providing guidelines as to the time when children may 'graduate' to riding on shared roadways.

and recommends,

to conduct a study to determine at what age children become sufficiently mature to understand and follow the rules of the road and, at the same time have the requisite psychomotor skills to do so.


In a different study of all collisions between MV's and cyclists it shows the number of collisions by age



and in this graph it shows some riding behavior by age that may lead to collisions

randomgear

My thoughts go out to the family of the little girl.
Anyone who drives in a residential area must be aware of the possibility of kids running/riding into the road.
I saw a safety message on the back of a tractor trailer a few days ago "behind rolling ball comes running child". At first I thought it very quaint, but I remembered back about 15 years ago, driving down my street a kid came running out of a tall hedge, I hit the brakes, turned the wheel hard, and then repeated it. I remember asking my sister, who was sitting beside me if we hit anything, I couldn't believe that I didn't hit the kid or the oncoming truck. I looked back in the rearview mirror, the kid was still standing, but looking a bit shocked. Several people were very fortunate that day.

Gus Riley

Some drivers are absolute idiots. I have not read the article yet before writing this. Judging by how some people drive around neighborhoods here I think I can imagine what the basic story will say. "She came out of no where; I just didn't see her...ETC ETC"

In town we pick up our kids from school. On most days I pick mine up (and the neighbor's) on our Triplet with piccollo attached, but some days in the car. While in single file we wait to move up to the child pick up point. The road is narrow, barely enough room for any traffic to get around the waiting cars. Yet there are several idiots that drive by at a speed that makes it impossible for them to see any child running out from between cars in time to avoid them. This pick up point is NOT along a busy section, but practically an alleyway behind the school.

Some people drive with no foresight ability. I have seen these people speed up to the school to the drop off their own kids with no thought for the safety of anyone else’s children. They are in a huge hurry to delivery their own kids while they put everyone else’s children at great risk. I can see the news now... "He came out of no where I just didn't see him...Oh I'm sick over this, I'll never be the same!!!"

I can vouch for that if they run one of mine down!!

slagjumper

I learned on a dirt road with no cars. Cant really blame the driver. It takes a while for kids to get the hang of braking and all of the other skills involved in riding. I saw a kid crash into a water foutain at the park because he forgot how to stop. Good sense is not common.