Advocacy & Safety - Teen killed by car

Another senseless tragedy, with slanted reporting (http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/112-07092008-1560678.html):


MOORESTOWN — Police have released the identity of a 17-year-old township boy who died yesterday from injuries he suffered in when his bicycle collided with a car.

Police said William Christianson was riding his bicycle west along Camden Avenue at 5:30 p.m. Monday when he swerved into the path of a westbound car driven by Frieda S. Deacon, 89, of Merchantville, Camden County. The car hit the bicycle, causing Christianson to fall, police said.

Christianson, who was not wearing a helmet, suffered a head injury in the accident, police said. He was taken to Cooper University Hospital in Camden, where he died yesterday afternoon, police said.

Deacon was not injured.

Police said an investigation into the accident is ongoing.

Christianson graduated from Moorestown High School last month. He would have celebrated his 18th birthday Saturday. He is the third member of his class to die in a motor vehicle accident. The others, Evan Welch and Eric Messick, were killed in December in separate accidents.Not a whole lot of information, but if they're traveling the same direction, "swerving" seems to put the blame on him. If I had to guess, he was riding the shoulder and went into the lane to go around a parked car or some other obstacle.

The only thing we know from that report is that the driver lived to tell her side of things, and the cyclist did not.

"Swerved" can mean a lot of things. It could mean, for instance, that the cyclists suddenly and inexplicably swerved into the path of the driver's vehicle. It could mean that the cyclist made an error, and in attempting to avoid a surface hazard, rode directly into the path of the driver's vehicle. It could mean that the cyclist was riding in the door zone, and swerved directly into the driver's path to avoid a suddenly opened door. It could mean that the driver couldn't see because of the sun, and suddenly there was a cyclist in front of her. It could mean that the driver wasn't paying attention, and suddenly there was a cyclist in front of her. It could mean he was doing something she didn't like, and she purposely ran him down.

We'll never really know anything about what happened beyond the driver's version of events, so we'll never really know what "swerved" means.

...and maybe he did swerve into the car's path. He wasn't wearing a helmet. Those could be the facts.

There's nothing in the article that's slanted at all. It could be accurately reported based entirely on the police report.

And the driver is 89, which, of course, has no relevance to the collision?

We don't know who confirmed that the young man swerved or whether or not the driver is actually fit to drive, by reason of her age.

In short, we only have the newspaper report to go on, as usual

Police said an investigation into the accident is ongoing.And yet they have already declared the cyclist at fault.

In short, we only have the newspaper report to go on, as usual

And what else were "we" expecting to find from trolling/Googling the Internet looking for these kind of reports?

The Driver was 72 years Older than the Bicyclist.
Dead is Dead.

Another bike forum posting with typical blame assignment (http://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.php?p=7034255&postcount=1)