RobertHurst

This past Sunday a bicyclist was literally run over by an RTD driver on Denver's 16th street mall. The driver came up behind the 72-year-old bicyclist, honking his horn repeatedly, and he didn't slow down. The bicyclist freaked out and lost control of the bike, and the bus ran over his leg, crushing it and ripping it to the bone. The victim is in fair condition but may lose the leg. The driver told police he didn't slow down because "I had passengers." He was cited for careless driving.

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news...74/detail.html

This driver, not surprisingly, had a prior citation for careless driving, in 2005, and also while driving his shuttle. I wonder if RTD gave him a bonus for that one.

Earlier this year a bicyclist was killed by an RTD bus in Lafayette. The driver of that bus had also been cited for careless driving previously, when he sideswiped a bicyclist he was passing, no doubt on purpose. In each of these cases, RTD sought to retain the drivers after their first careless driving citations, and apparently did nothing to educate them about the rights of bicyclists, or about how to drive a freaking bus on a public roadway.

Before either of these incidents occurred, in January, I wrote on my website of an apparent pattern of malicious driving by RTD drivers around bicyclists, based only on my personal experience as a messenger in downtown Denver. I warned that novice bicyclists would sooner or later be getting seriously injured or killed by these malicious, bicyclist-hating careless drivers. Sooner.

https://www.industrializedcyclist.com...r_the_Bus.html

I hope the survivor of this crash sues everybody's pants right off. I guess it's the only way to get anything done around here.

crhilton

Sounds like a negligence case against RTD.

Sad to see it happen. I'm a big fan of mass transit. I suppose this is one of the advantages: There's someone with pockets who is liable instead of some guy who hits and runs.

Thanks for posting the link.

mikeybikes

I'm tired of the irresponsibility of RTD and its employment process. How was this driver still driving after a citation for careless driving already?

bhop

I like how they're considering banning cyclists because idiots can't drive...

RobertHurst

Right. Maybe it was because the previous citation involved a bicyclist, and RTD management hates bicyclists as much as these drivers do. I don't know, just throwing that out there.

Chip Webb was killed in Lafayette by an RTD driver who had a previous careless driving v. cyclist, and that prior incident sounds to me a like a case of deliberate hostile driving like the ones I experienced over my messenger career. RTD saw fit to put him right back out there.

The agency would seem to have its legal hands full now, with this most recent incident, the Chip Webb fiasco, and the driver who ran a red light and killed two people and injured like a dozen.

RobertHurst

Yeah, at least there is some kind of responsible agency to go after.

mikeybikes

Well, cyclists are already banned from the mall every day except for Sunday. I think they're just looking for an excuse to ban them on Sundays as well.

Personally, I'd rather see cyclists allowed through the mall and have the shuttle buses moved one block over in each direction. Have them circle between 15th and 17th streets. This will be especially possible once the union station expansion is completed as market street buses will no longer need to leave via 16th street.

Zizka

Are the transit drivers unionized? If so, there may be something in the contract that prevents the transit agency from firing him or makes it really hard to do so.

markf

RTD drivers are represented by the Amalgamated Transit Union, and yes, RTD would have to follow certain procedures and establish cause before they fired a union driver. Without seeing the contract it's hard to say how hard it would be to fire a bad driver. It's quite possible that RTD management is just too lazy to follow those procedures.

A lot of RTD buses are operated by subcontractors, who I don't think are unionized. If that's the case, RTD would have to convince the subcontracting company to fire a bad driver, which may or may not be easy to do. AIUI, Colorado law requires that a certain percentage of RTD buses be operated by subcontractors, so RTD management can't just get rid of all the subcontractors and use their own drivers 100% of the time.

Seattle Forrest

I'm pretty sure that if somebody at any hospital in America used their job to steal medical data, they wouldn't just be out of a job, but would be unable to work in the medical industry again...

SCROUDS

Not only that, but the hospital could be fined as well. https://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar...l/me-britney15

DX-MAN

When you decide on a course of action that causes bodily harm, you have committed assault, aggravated by use of an object/weapon.

Dchiefransom

A union contract that makes it harder to get rid of a bad driver makes the union a target for a civil action. After a shooting at a Postal facility in Detroit, the union local was sued. If this driver was kept on as a result of the contract, then the cyclist should also go after the union.

Spire

So the RTD bus runs over a cyclist without even slowing down and now wants to move for cyclists to be banned?

How about operating your busses in a safe manner??? No that would be crazy <roll eyes>

Digital_Cowboy

I loved that drivers quote of:

In a videotaped police statement, "Klein admitted he saw Hall as he was approaching him (but) never slowed down by braking because he 'had passengers,'" the report said.

That and:

Now RTD plans to meet with Downtown Denver Partnership and city officials to discuss whether cycling on the mall should be completely banned, given the busy nature of the popular pedestrian mall.

If this is a pedestrian mall, why are there buses on it? How many pedestrian's have been hit and injured or killed?

phoebeisis

Wow, that was a gruesome injury.It might take a while, but I expect it will eventually be amputated.They'll try to save it, but the blood vessels are probably too damaged.

I bet dollars to donuts that bikes will be banned from that mall.

Bus drivers are pushed to stay on schedule. They see bikes as toys-strictly road blocks ridden by eccentrics. Many many drivers see us that way.

Expensive gasoline-$6-$7-that is the only thing that will make bike riding mainstream. We will be evicted and limited in various ways until gas becomes expensive. Decent bike lanes are our best bet until then.

invisiblehand

I don't know anything about the cyclist. But at 72 most people don't recover very well from such tramatic injuries. I hope that the RTD and driver is forced to pay severely for this crime.

Digital_Cowboy

Bike lanes are only good as long as they are an option and that their use is not mandatory.

meanwhile

The guy saw the cyclist and didn't slow down and that is only careless driving? This doesn't make sense.

dougmc

The bus passed the cyclist -- if a car comes up behind you and passes you, there's no need for it to slow down.

However, it appears that the bus must have passed somewhat close, and the cyclist was frazzled by the honking (or the passing?) and crashed into the bus somehow, ending up under the rear wheel. (Perhaps the bus driver passed at a reasonable distance, perhaps not, but if the cyclist was losing control even ten feet may not be enough.)

It's not really reasonable to expect the bus driver to control vehicles to the side of him -- he should pass at a safe distance (and it's not clear that he did or didn't) -- but it would seem that his abuse of his horn contributed to or caused the accident. So maybe the charges are appropriate, but there will likely be a significant civil suit later, and the driver should be fired.

Of course, there may be more to the story. The video should have helped explain what happened (and we don't get to see it, it would seem.) I hope the guy was able to save his leg ...

bmclaughlin807

The driver aggressively approached another vehicle and used his vehicle's size, speed, and horn to intimidate... I'd rank that as assault. Too bad it was 'only' a cyclist... had it been a car the driver would most likely be up on serious charges.

mikeybikes

I seriously doubt the bus driver had passed the cyclist. You need to realize the environment this occurred in.

Its a pedestrian mall with two narrow lanes for transit shuttles. The transit lanes are curbed and are barely wider than than the shuttles. Unless the elderly gentleman hopped the curb, I do not see how the shuttle could have passed him.

From 9News:

I don't see anywhere that the shuttle passed the cyclist.

hotbike

I say replace the busses with Light Rail. At least with rail, you know exactly where the vehicle is going. Just don't get your tire caught in the flange-way.

mikeybikes

Except light rail requires its own, separated right of way. This is not a solution for 16th street.

There were plans at one time to replace the transit shuttles with a street car system. I think the downtown Denver partnership rejected it because of the unsightly overhead wires.

IMO, the solution for 16th street is to just get rid of the shuttle. Move 'em to 15th and 17th streets and have them circle. Get those menacing things off of the mall.

SCROUDS

Light rail doesn't require seperated rights of way. The lines are pretty blurred between what a light rail and a streetcar system is.

I don't see how a bus -> light rail/streetcar would solve transit / cyclist conflicts in this corridor.