Police and fire units were called to E Pine and 11th Tuesday night after a car struck a bicyclist near the bustling crossing to Cal Anderson Park. There are no official details yet on the collision but the Seattle Times brief on the incident describes the collision as a “severe impact.”
The bicyclist is a male in his 40s according to Seattle Fire radio. Dispatches described him as having “obvious head injuries” and behaving in a combative manner.
The stretch of Pine where the collision occurred is busy with foot, car and bike traffic. Last summer, we reported on this incident in which a car hit a pedestrian at 10th and Pine, a block to the west.
We will update with more details as they become available. If you saw the incident or have pictures, email or txt us at (206) 399-5959.
I didn’t see the impact, but walked right by as he was arguing with a medic while police watched. I heard the medic say, “I think you’re drunk”. The cyclist was on his feet, and balancing on one foot while waving the other and his arms around quite expressively.
The left side of his face was a mess: lump the size of a grapefruit, and the color of a raw steak. The car looked fine; not even a hood dent that I could see. The bike looked fine, too…
Dan — is this your Twitter account?
http://twitter.com/dspnorman/statuses/240631030984364033
“cyclist was on his feet, but appeared intoxicated”
yup. phone battery died as I was trying to snap some photos at the scene. :(
The last time I got hit by a car, I got myself a concussion – which feels like being drunk without any of the fun. Just rapping anecdotes.
People walk, bike, drive drunk…one possibility.
I’ve also suffered a concussion (soccer) and I did appear intoxicated – the brain doesn’t function when you have a head injury that doesn’t knock you out, affects your speech, motor control, cognitive thinking.
Let’s wait and see what comes out before we judge the situation.
Fair points. I’m just reporting what I saw and overhead on the scene, and while I certainly *hope* a trained paramedic could make that distinction, I’ve certainly run into my share of indifferent medical professionals.
Can we wait until we find out the facts before calling the guy drunk? I work with certain public servants who frequently assume traumatic brain injured folks are drunk. The more you say it, the more angry the person gets. Welcome to living with a common factor of TBI. We’re going to see much, much more of it as our vets come home. Hopefully, EVENTUALLY, first responders will know how to assess it. Maybe this guy was intoxicated, but assuming it – out loud – could only have aggravated the situation.
@Dan. I thought your post was excellent. :-)
Sounds like from the description some bone head driver forgot to check his/her mirror or look over their shoulder before side swiping a law abiding cyclist. So many comment threads I see people write “the cyclist was at fault” or “bikes should register too”, baloney! Where are those motorists smack talkers now? Fact is cars are deadly weapons and should be operated as such. This cyclist is lucky he’s not a statistic, there are no such things as “fender benders” on a bike. Pay attention people, the ramifications could be catastrophic.
This type of comment was why I wrote what I wrote above. You have no idea the complete set of facts, yet you’ve already determined it was the “bone head” driver’s fault. What if the cyclist was intoxicated, as one witness said?
“What if the cyclist was intoxicated, as one witness said? “
The only problem is theres often no updates to say weather this is the case or not. Someone gets hit on a bike, many people make assumptions, we wait for more details, but they never come.
Plus if theres a bike blog out there that does followup on accidents, if they are sympathetic to cyclists, they probably wont post the followup if the cyclists really is at fault.
*if* the biker was attempting to pass a car on the right at an intersection, it’s pretty understandable how this happened. Drivers are conditioned after years and years to look in front of them when approaching an intersection, both at oncoming traffic and on the sides for pedestrians. And drivers rarely check their side mirrors when making a right turn from the rightmost lane (or in this case, the only car lane). I do not know what the laws are regarding this particular circumstance (is it legal for a biker to pass a car on the right at an intersection?), but it seems a pretty risky maneuver. If the car is slowing down as it approaches an intersection where the light is green, it is almost certainly making a turn; if you don’t know which way it is turning, then you should hit the brakes. We don’t know if a turn signal was used or not, but it is almost moot if the biker was alongside the car, he probably could not have seen a signal anyway. You can fault the driver for not looking around 360 degrees, but any biker who assumes that all drivers always do this are going to be in a collision at some point. Saying bikers shouldn’t have to worry about this kind of thing is pointless, because no matter how careful or dumb a car driver is, car smooshes bike every time. I love riding my bike, but I always ride on under the assumption that a car only ever sees me if it passes me from behind. It may take me 5 minutes longer to get where I’m going because I’m being overcautious, but I’m probably going to get there in one piece.
I wish more cyclists were as cautious as you are.
This incident perhaps is why it’s so important for car drivers to use their turn signals well in advance of a turn. In recent years, this crucial safety measure has been abandoned by many drivers, and as a result we are all less safe.
I ride through this intersection every day. It’s easy to go fast, particularly if the light at 12th is green. And if you ride in the bike lane, you’ve got to be hyper-aware of the cars turning right across the bike lane.
Which is why the westbound bike lane on Pine should be scrapped. Drivers expect cyclists to ride in it, and cyclists feel like they should – even though it’s far safer to just take the lane. Besides these right-hook collisions, the buses dive across the bike lane to make stops, and in the morning there are all sorts of delivery trucks blocking all or part of the bike lane. All on a grade where it’s not hard to hit speeds nearing 30 mph.
When the city repaved the blocks between 13th – 15th it replaced the westbound lane with sharrows (while retaining the eastbound – uphill – lane). They should do the same for Pine the whole way down to Melrose.
“some bone head driver forgot to check his/her mirror or look over their shoulder before side swiping a law abiding cyclist”
Yes, that is possible. On the flip side of the coin, as both a cyclist and a motorist, I am aware that cars have blind spots where they won’t see you even if they are checking their mirrors and looking over their shoulders. When I see a car slowing for a turn, I slow down. It isn’t worth taking the chance. That isn’t to say its the cyclist’s fault or the motorist’s fault, we just don’t know.