1nterceptor

"This morning the City Council grilled representatives from the NYPD on why so few drivers face criminal charges after killing or maiming pedestrians and cyclists.

Here's what we do know, and it helps explain why so many drivers get away with murder:

The NYPD issued more summonses to cyclists than truck drivers last year: truckers got 14,962 moving violation summonses and 10,415 Criminal Court summonses, while cyclists got 13,743 moving violation summonses and a whopping 34,813 Criminal Court summonses. Priorities!

The AIS will only investigate accidents in which the victim dies or seems likely to die. If you get hit by a driver and end up in a wheelchair for the rest of your life, there's no AIS investigation. The patrol officers will fill out an accident report, and traffic tickets might be issued, but there will never be an in-depth investigation or follow-up.

241 pedestrians or cyclists were killed by drivers last year. Only 17 of the drivers responsible faced criminal charges.

Asked how many criminal charges were filed against drivers in non-fatal accidents, the NYPD reps said they were not aware of any."

Full article:
https://gothamist.com/2012/02/15/here...y_with_mur.php

rekmeyata

I think it depends on where you live. Where I live in Fort Wayne Indiana a cyclist can get away with breaking every law on the book while a cop watches and does nothing! Even when I lived in California I rarely saw a cyclist get a ticket; most cyclist I did see get tickets were usually younger teens and early 20's getting them. I got one once for speeding in school zone, doing 35 in a 25, the judge threw it out laughing about it.

As far as truck drivers go, not sure what your point is, most truck drivers are better drivers then most car drivers, so it goes to reason they won't get as many tickets. Usually cops gun for truckers because they can try to find other things to write a trucker up for that when all done and said the trucker will have a very expensive ticket to the tune of over $400, while a car pull over may only net $150. And because truckers know a ticket can get very steep they try to avoid them.

Most of the reason a cyclist involved fatality accident is never charged against a driver is because the cyclist didn't have all the safety equipment required by the state. Most cyclists, including myself, do not have the legal reflectors on their bikes, and no bell, if you don't have those and you die in an accident too bad, regardless if you were lit up like a Christmas tree. A lot of cyclist related accidents are the cyclist fault, they run stops all the time, make turns without signaling, etc. And just because no criminal charges were filed against a driver for hitting a cyclist, doesn't prevent civil charges from being filed. Most accidents involving cars and cyclists is the cyclist fault. We need to do be doing a better job out there.

Lake_Tom

I doubt that.

Like when they tailgate me for two miles?

dwellman

What's the old adage? Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics?

As far as court cases go: dismissed for lack of prosecution is fairly common (as basically mentioned in the last bits of the article). I agree with the fault statement. Driver could be going the wrong way down a one way street but darned if that's the only violation and you wouldn't have gotten hit for lack of a rear reflector. . .

Chris516

Granted. But while there are cycling scofflaws, the OP is illustrating, how biased the NYPD is towards cyclists. Not only that, watch a number of videos' on YouTube of Critical Mass rides in NYC, where police officers have attacked Critical Mass riders.

Again, The illustration is, how biased and one-sided the NYPD is, against cyclists.

Now that is really being 'enabling'. If a cyclist hits a pedestrian, you don't hear the cyclist making the excuse 'I never saw her/him'. But that almost always happens when a motorist hits a cyclist.

I ride in traffic and have never used a bell. Why, Because there is no way a motorist will hear a bell above the noise of their vehicle's engine. I don't use a reflector because, I use a light instead to help grab the attention of the motorist.

rydabent

Put a person on a bike, and they are of less value than a woman in Iran!!!

Giro

The 2010 NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System data added some data fields from the Pedestrian and Bicyclist Crash Analysis Tool (PBCAT). Here is the table for the most common fatal crash-types for bicyclists age 18 years and older for 2010 in that data:


Note that the most common group of fatal crashes is the "Motorist Overtaking" group with 13.3 + 7.7 + 4.1 = 25.1%. Bicyclist ride-through sign and signalized intersections is 5.7 +4.2 = 9.9%. Myself, I'm skeptical that all those "Motorist Overtaking - Bicyclist Swerved" are really exactly that; I think some are the bicyclist was always there but the motorist was not paying attention or distracted. When they look up, there is the bicyclist they proceed to run over and kill. "Officer he swerved in front of me."; dead bicyclists can't challenge that assertion.

The overtaking crashes are more frequent in rural than urban settings.

DeadheadSF

I guess it's easier for the NYPD to physically assault or pepper spray cyclists than drivers... easier target.

NYPD needs to fire every single cop and start over from scratch - by far, one of the worst, most corrupt police departments in a nation of corrupt police departments. Even Chicago looks better by comparison.

rekmeyata

Quit hogging the fast lane then! I'm driving in the slow lane and I'm actually passing a hog in the fast lane, then I see a big truck start riding the tail of the fast laner who refuses to get over because they think they own the road and their doing the speed limit so screw everyone else. I rarely see a trucker tailgating someone in the slow lane, but I do see it a lot in the fast lane, where I also see car drivers tailgating as well to try to give a hint to the hog to get over and let us by. Not that I agree with tailgating because I don't, and we all know trucks can't stop anywhere near as fast as a car, so a trucker is playing a dangerous game by tailgating, so I hear you, but you need to get over as soon as you finish passing a car and don't take your time passing either, give the car some gas to get pass the set cruise control speed and quickly pass and then merge back into the slow lane and let cruise control resume.

I have a friend who drives truck and I've been out with him a couple of times and I can tell you that car drivers are pure ******** around truckers. A car driver would rather die then be behind a truck and will do suicidal stunts to get in front of a trucker, or pass a truck then do a radical right turn across the bow of the truck so they can exit. If you ever get the chance to ride in a big truck do it, and you'll see how car drivers like you and me put trucks and themselves in danger all the time. So a trucker not only has to drive his truck but he has to drive the other peoples cars around him because they sure in hell don't know how to drive.

But mile for mile most truckers ARE better drivers then most car drivers, and that's a fact. You can sit there in your arm chair spouting off your a better driver but you don't drive professionally for a living and putting anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 miles a year in all sorts of weather and road conditions.

By the way, my friend, who drove for a long time on the NASCAR series hauling cars and gear, has driven over 2 million miles commercially, and never had an accident either commercially or privately. When you can do that then we'll talk about how good you are as a driver.

Bekologist

That is thoroughly disgusting. How unfortunate a state of affairs for bicyclists, pedestrians and public safety in New York.

vol

Many cops here are cowards. Perhaps they are afraid to be run over by a car *let alone a truck) when confronting the driver? The cyclists look so much weaker and less powerful on a road full of vehicles. There is almost no way for a cyclist to get revenge when the cops come in a patrol car.

It's just so easy to block a bike. Even a teenager can do it.

CB HI

The studies that have looked at actual fault find that for adult cyclist, the motorist is at fault between 70 to 90% of the time depending on which study you look at. That includes an old Hawaii study 75% and a brand new Australian study 90%.

Maybe rekmeyata believes the San Francisco newspaper claim that cyclist are mostly at fault when they just looked at police reports that claimed fault. When others looked at the same police reports, they saw that SFPD frequently blamed cyclist for large numbers of collisions due to "cyclist excessive speed". The cyclist were generally riding within the speed limit at the time they got blamed.

rekmeyata

Wow. Look I've known a lot of cops in various places I lived, and these guys knew I rode a bike, and some of the cops rode bikes too and I rode with a few. And all of those cops say the same thing, that most cyclists ride irresponsible with no regard to safety! And I've been riding bikes for 40 years, been driving a car 42 years and I agree with the cops!! You can hate me all you want, but you all need to watch how cyclists ride, the reason most of you are upset about this is because you're riding in a manner that is unsafe yourself. Many think it's ok to run lights and stop signs, turn in front of cars without signaling your intentions, ride a foot from the bumper of another car, try to squeeze between a car and the curb, no lights and or no reflectors; I've seen it all, and if cops would just start giving out tickets to dumb ass cyclists who think their above the law a lot of cyclists fatalities would go down.

Does that mean I'm implying that if a car driver that hits a cyclist and driver is at fault they should be excused? NO, it means the cops need to handle it like a car to car accident and determine fault. Then you all read partial statistics and go crazy; partial statistics? What the heck am I talking about? Here's what I'm talking about: "241 pedestrians or cyclists were killed by drivers last year. Only 17 of the drivers responsible faced criminal charges." There is nothing in that statistic that says how many of the 241 drivers were found at fault except for 17, no information if 100 were found at fault but only 17 faced criminal charges, nothing. So you all assume the cops did a poor job and most of the drivers were at fault. And what were the 17 criminal charges? Drunk drivers? Probaby. You can't sentence a driver for making a right turn and crushing a cyclists by accident with no illegal activity causing that event to happen and prosecute criminal charges! And how many of the 241 cyclists and pedestrians were drunk themselves? So you take a partial fact and go crazy with it and read into all sorts of nonsense.

And by the way, how many of you have been in a car accident with another car and been charged with a criminal offense? NONE of you unless you were drunk or some such thing! So if your not charged for a criminal offense in a traffic accident then why should it be different with a cyclist? This sort of stuff gets handled by insurance companies and if your at fault then your inssurance pays for the liability to the other driver just as what happens and should happen between a car and cyclist hit. So unless the person at fault is at fault due to being drunk their not going to be charged with a criminal offense so the NYPD is correct and not slacking in their job unless they let a drunk at fault driver go which they don't do these days.

Can't wait for all the hate mail now. This ought to be fun.

CB HI

You are so full of it with your "I know some cops and we THINK it is the cyclist fault".

AdamDZ

Yeah, perhaps. But what many people fail to realize is that NYC has one of the lowest crime rates and serious car accidents in the country. That doesn't mean there is no room for improvement but NYPD isn't all that bad.

CommuterRun

It has been my experience that, as a group, professional drivers of vehicles that require a CDL are the most courteous and professional drivers on the road.

As for cyclists causing most collisions; that is simply a false statement. While it is true that the cyclist often could have avoided the collision by taking preventive action, riding further to the left in the lane, etc., the actual collision is very often the fault of the motorist.

Poguemahone

Laughable. I personally have been pulled over by an officer who told me I needed to be riding on the sidewalk and proceeded to misquote and make up laws regarding cyclists, ie, "cyclists must yeild to all cars."

dwellman

irresponsibly

Sincerely,

The Association of Pedantic Taxidermists.

However,

We agree with your premise, in part, the vast majorities of so-called cyclists we see do ride in an irresponsible manner as to either put themselves and / or others in unnecessarily risky situations-- yesterday a fully kitted out rider illegally passed (TN 55-8-118 (b)) our vehicle on the right.

CB HI

Seems that under (TN 55-8-118 (a)(2)), if the cyclist was still riding on pavement when they passed you, they did so legally.

rekmeyata

Why is it there's always one person who thinks their gods gift to mankind concerning proper use of the english language? Then insult those by saying such crap like they have a narrow focus of learning and somehow academically inferior to you! I'm really glad you know how much academics I have, you must be the smartest person in the world to know that information. I write these post fast, I could care less if I misspell a word, don't use a word properly, blah blah blah, I'm not writing a college thesis anymore and I'm especially not writing one here. But hey, if your bored with your life and feel the need to try bring someone down to your level to keep you company go on ahead and make your day, I just don't care to participate, find someone else to play with.

You should read your last sentence in your signature, because with snide comments you like to make you're not even close to fighting the good fight!

Lake_Tom

Are you done yet?
You're just making stuff up and putting it on the internet.
Just for fun

dwellman

"or main-traveled portion of the roadway. " which, it wasn't. So no, "pavement" is not a catch-all here.

Goes to show there's a marked difference, which, we are all aware, between what's "legal" and what's expected. For instance, it is technically illegal (here) to ride on the shoulder in any case but it is normally expected, in most every case: that a cyclist should do so if one is available.

But it's "legal" that matters is in court.

dwellman

Because this is teh internets and that is what persons sometimes do. Time to put on one's big girl pants!

But if you want to fight everyone on the forum, sure, I won't stop you (A&S is something of an echo chamber most days, so yeah). Take "yes" for an answer. It appears to me you were so busy feeling offended that you failed to see and/or acknowledge where I was agreeing with you.

illdoittomorrow

Cool story, bro.

Show us where anyone claimed to be a better driver than your "professional" heroes.

And Daniel Tschetter wiped out a family of five while driving "professionally". There, now I've matched you story-for-story.

rekmeyata

You know the stupidity shown here is incredible. Big deal you can come up with a truck accident, gee, lets see all the car accidents that wiped out families, how stupid are you? You people hear of a truck driver having an accident and suddenly their all bad, that's akin to saying all commercial pilots are bad because an accident wiped out 250 people...get real.

But let the records speak for themselves: https://www.census.gov/compendia/stat...es/11s1102.pdf
In case you can't read the intellectual stuff, in 2008 passenger car drivers accounted for 14,600 deaths; large trucks accounted for 700. And if look at all the years prior to 08 it's the same story. So I guess your wrong. But it sure has been fun playing with idiots.