Madison, Wisconsin - bicyclist seriously injured

[metzenberg]

Look at the astonishing comments that anti-bike people have made on this forum for a Madison, Wisconsin news article. Can you believe this is Madison?

http://www.madison.com/tct/forum/viewtopic.php?t=47144

My posting is there. I attended high school in the 1970s near where this accident took place. I pointed out in my posting that you can do your own investigation of the accident scene using Google Earth and Street View through Google Maps to see the accident for yourself from the perspective of either the bicyclist or the driver. The accident took place in a quiet residential neighborhood where the Governor of Wisconsin himself grew up, a block away from a school, early in the afternoon when school children could be out. The driver actually admitted to driving faster than the speed limit.

If you are from Madison, or know Madison, please show some support for the bicyclist.

Howard

[Shemp]

It looks like there are a fair share of cycling advocates posting for one. Secondly, there's no indication that this motorist was at fault in the article. Third, I've driven through Madison many times to visit my sister. No question that there are a lot of bad cycling habits going on in that City that don't represent the best interests of the cycling community as a whole.

[Wiswell]

The only thing I can say that is if you read the Cap Times website regularly, you will notice that the comments sections of ANY articles are filled with rude, derogatory comments targeted towards the contents of any article: anti-UW, anti-liberal, anti-conservative, anti-bike, anti-car, anti-state, etc. I try not to read them, for one, because they give a very negative impression of the city, and two, 9 out of ten times they are not particularly thought-provoking or reasoned.

That neighborhood is a very difficult neighborhood to ride in. The roads have a very high crown, there are the traffic calming devices, the roads are narrow, and it's quite hilly (hence the name University Heights). I imagine the true fault may lay in the design of this older, not designed for cars, neighborhood. Best wishes to the cyclist.

[iab]

I grew up there, went to college there, I went to the grade school 3 blocks from there and I had a friend whose apartment was a block north of that intersection.

Assuming it is an uncontrolled intersection (no stop signs), the southbound driver on Lathrop has the right of way over the cyclist eastbound on Van Hise. Van Hise ends at Lathrop, the cyclist either had to turn left or right on Lathrop, any vehicle on Lathrop has the right of way.

I feel bad for the cyclist and I hope she recovers quickly but traffic laws apply to both cars and bikes.

[czwhite]

Are you sure the driver had right of way? I was taught that uncontrolled intersections (no stop signs) should be treated as yields and generally you must yield the right of way to traffic on your right. In that case, the bicyclist would have the right of way. The fact that it is a T intersection doesn't mean anything if there is no stop sign.

[metzenberg]

My point (in that forum) that the driver is ipso facto guilty is very simple. This is a residential neighborhood, not a major highway or urban street. In this neighborhood, the speed limit is unmarked and the intersection is not controlled by stop signs. The relevant Wisconsin law states clearly that the speed limit is automatically 25 MPH, but also that it is the driver's responsibility not drive too fast for conditions, and that the driver must limit speed accordingly.

The fact that the driver was unable to come to a stop and did not see the bicyclist means that the driver was driving too fast for the neighborhood. I invite you to read the article and the forum comments carefully. My own comment, which nobody has responded to yet, gives you all the information to go look at this intersection through Google's Street View and see for itself. The driver has acknowledged that he was driving "25-30 MPH", which is over the speed limit.

It's not even a question of right-of-way! In a residential neighborhood with uncontrolled intersections and no speed limits, the driver does not have the right to drive too fast to stop for somebody else who is in the intersection, whether or not it is their right to be in the intersection. This neighborhood is also one block from Randall Elementary School. Your child could have been there!

Now, as to the question of right of way, at an uncontrolled intersection, the vehicle that is already in the intersection has right of way over a vehicle that has not yet entered the intersection. That's what Wisconsin's law says. The bicyclist was already in the intersection, as evidenced by the fact that she was hit by the car, which entered the intersection and hit her. Bicycles are slower than cars. The driver obviously wasn't looking carefully enough. And do we we really believe he was only driving 25-30 MPH?

Howard

PS: I do remember several old humped streets of that neighborhood. I don't think these streets fit that description, but if they did, it would be the driver's responsibility to slow down even more because the conditions required it. Most of those old humped streets were up on the hill above. Although the neighborhood is called University Heights, this particular intersection is flat. Both Lathrop and Van Hise have gentle hills up the street from the intersection. Not much of a hill though. This is the Midwest.

I always rode across Madison on minor streets like Van Hise Avenue. There were no bike trails yet in the 1970s. The other good route was Kendall Avenue a few blocks to the north.

[iab]

Not that I want to get into an A&S pissing match but you can easily take your statement and switch the words driver and bicyclist. They were obviously at the intersection at the same time, the difference was probably a split second and you will never know who was there "first" or if it was even measurable. Also, to assume the driver was going even more than what they claimed is at best cynical.

Now cz has a good point about yielding to traffic from the right, that is definately true for normal crossing intersections. But this is a T intersection and I could be wrong but I always thought the vehicle going straight had the right of way over the vehicle turning.

Either way, this is pure speculation from everyone here. The article does not provide enough information and I will trust the investigation that we are not a part of will determine the sequence of events.

[metzenberg]

It's a shame that Madison does not have a blogger journalist of the caliber of Jonathan Maus, in Portland, Oregon, who specializes in bike community news. At http://BikePortland.org, you can be sure that news will be dissected and analyzed from a bicyclist point of view, and that a bike accident will not automatically be blamed on the bicyclist. Jonathan Maus in effect acts a a freelance reporter for the Portland metropolitan area.

The Capital Times article did nothing but present the driver's point of view, as given by a police department spokesperson. The Capital Times does not send a reporter to the scene. It is a tiny newspaper that is a complete anachronism. It has fewer than 30,000 readers, and has survived for the last 50 years only because its founder, William T. Evjue, made a an agreement with the dominant newspaper in the market that the two newspapers would share profits equally, and in exchange, the Capital Times would remain an afternoon paper and not switch to morning or publish a Sunday edition.

This monopoly power sharing agreement was supported by local liberal politicians and unions, as an exception from the Sherman Anti-trust Act, and sanctioned by Congress. Eventually, all other afternoon papers in other markets in the USA went out of business or shifted to morning publication. Over the years, the dominant paper in the Madison market, published jointly with the Capital Times, gradually took over the entire market, becoming more liberal in the process to fit the demands of Madison. For years, the Capital Times was a strange anomaly, in that it had more news reporters and editorial staff than its circulation could possibly justify. But at some point, the original editorial fervor disappeared, the third generation of the Evjue family died off, and the Capital Times became what it is today, an empty shell. It has practically no news staff and most of what it publishes are wire service and police reports or press releases.

This article is itself an example of the kind of news the Capital Times can afford to publish. It is simply a police report, in which the reporter was never at the scene of the accident, and got all his news from a single source, the Madison Police Department spokesperson, who of course, has simply presented the driver's point of view.

Howard