From: jesnow@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan E Snow)
Subject: Bad Accident
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 17:24:13 GMT


	
	Sure, everybody has seen a bad accident, cyclist meets 
car.  Even participated.  Still, it doesn't make them any less 
upsetting for the people involved, and this one had two important
lessons for me.

	I was riding east on Mass. Avenue in Lexington, when 
another cyclist turned in from a side road.  He was the 
type I see every day -- Big beefy guy, flappy cutoff T-shirt,
geek bars, no helmet, no hello.  My usual "I will now drop this person"
game didn't work, so I played the "let him gap me then reel
him in a few times" game.  By this time we were nearly to 
Arlington.  He went around a corner, then when I came around the 
corner, I didn't see him anymore.  Then I saw him.  He was 
lying against the curb bleeding with his smashed bike behind him,
and no car in sight.

	I stopped at the same time as an ambulance driver who had
seen the whole thing.  It was bad.  The cyclist was shaking 
violently in convulsions and bleeding from his mouth, nose and ears.
His eyes were open but one was dilated and the other's pupil 
was nearly invisible. He was breathing in gasps.  The ambulance 
driver called paramedics, then I helped him start to give first aid.
Being just an ambulance driver, he did not have the training to 
actually treat the guy, but he made sure his airway was clear and 
tried to keep him from flailing too much.  He was completely 
unresponsive to voice.

	The cops and the fire department arrived within 5 minutes.
(If you get hit, do it in a wealthy suburb!).  That was the end of 
anything I could do.  As the paramedics tried to get him on a 
back board, the cops tried to figure out how the accident happened
by interviewing the elderly lady who was the driver.  (She had driven
to her home, called the police and walked back.  She was extremely 
upset.)   

	"I didn't see him"

	The cop first said: "Well he must have been on the sidewalk
(i.e. she's not at fault), because that's where he landed."

	Me: He was riding on the right side of the road when he passed
me, five seconds before.
	Cop: Did you actually see the accident?
	Me: No.
	Cop: Then shut up.
	Ambulance driver: He was in the street.  She made a left turn 
from the oncoming lane and hit him, and he went over the hood and landed 
there where his is now.
	Cop: OK, he was in the street.  Well, I think she had 
completed her turn and he hit the side of her car.  She has a 
right to make a left turn, after all (i.e., it's not her fault)
	Cop 2 returns from looking at the lady's car and confirms 
that the damage is to the grill and hood.
	Me:  This guy was riding legally down the road, and got 
hit by somebody turning left who didn't yield to oncoming traffic.
If he had been in his car, you would cite her for sure, but now
you're going to let her go, aren't you?
	Cop 1: We haven't decided that yet.
	Cop 2: What good is it going to do to cite an old lady?
	Cop 1: You goddamn cyclists are all alike.  You ride too
fast in town, you don't wear helmets, you break every traffic law 
in the book, then when something like this happens, you whine 
because I won't cite an old lady.
	Me:  It's true, cyclists break traffic laws.  So do motorists.
Just because some cyclists do that is no reason to think that THIS
guy did anything to cause this accident.  The witnesses
say he was going in a straight line, on the right side of the road,
right where Massachussetts law says he should.  And he sure wasn't
going faster than the other legal traffic.
	(Cops ignore me and wander off)

	The cyclist by this time is still fighting, spitting out 
teeth and gore onto the sidewalk.  They have him half strapped 
onto the back board, but he's a big guy, and swinging his fists
like mad.  He hasn't moved his lower body since I arrived.  He knocks
the oxygen mask off and connects with one paramedic who tries to 
put it back on.  His eyes point in different directions.

	No citation is issued.  The cops grudgingly take the 
names and addresses of some more witnesses who show up.  They 
are two middle aged hispanic ladies who are now incoherently sobbing 
in between praying loudly to Jesus for the guy to live.  I hope it 
helps.  No ID of any kind is found on the cyclist, just 5 bucks and a
patch kit. I wonder what this guy is doing on a 10(?) year old Tomassini 
with C-record nonindexed stuff and cheap clipon geek bars.  Hardly the 
typical trigeek setup.	
	
	They load him into the rescue squad truck.  He's stopped 
fighting, but his breaths are coming shallow, in jerks.

	Look, I have NO symapthy for this guy's head injuries;
he made his choice, took his chance and paid the price.  On the other
hand he was riding in as "effective" a manner, otherwise, as I've 
ever seen, and still got flattened.  Third, the cops seemed unaware
that he had any rights at all that they might be interested in 
protecting.  What if that ambulance driver hadn't been there (in a 
Vonnegut-type twist, he turned out to be a Boston Road Club Cat IV
I was off the back with at Manchester last year)?  I think the 
cops would have been happy to pin a citation to the stretcher 
for inconveniencing an old lady.

	1. Conclusions about wearing helmet.
	2. Conclusions about intransigent police who don't think 
cyclists are legitimate users of the road.


	jon "You draw them"