A cyclist was hospitalized with life threatening injuries Monday morning following a crash near Belmont Ave and E Pine, according to Seattle Police. Medics were called to the scene at 4:39 AM and the adult female was taken to Harborview Medical Center.
Police arrived at the scene to find the rider down and unconscious after the incident was reported to 911. The rider suffered serious head injuries after crashing into a building on the northwest corner of the intersection. According to SPD, it did not appear the woman was struck by a car. “The bicyclist was riding westbound on E Pine St attempting to make a right turn on Belmont Ave. She failed to negotiate the turn and ended up colliding with a building,” a report from SPD on the incident said.
A Seattle Fire spokesperson tells CHS the victim is an adult woman who was transported to the hospital in critical condition. A hospital spokesperson confirmed that the woman was in critical condition this morning but could not provide additional information.
Detectives from the Traffic Collision Investigation Squad were working the Capitol Hill scene, which was cleared around 7 AM.
chs, you provide a great service to our community but it’s time for an update! these days women are simply “cyclists” (or doctors or drivers, etc), not “women cyclists.”
This was my response as well – I was confused when the rider’s gender wasn’t relevant to the story.
This is the grossest comment I’ve read in a long time.
No need to further pile on — there’s a simple solution.
We’ve changed the headline:
new: Woman seriously injured in Pine/Belmont bicycle crash
old: Woman cyclist seriously injured in Pine/Belmont crash
Hope she’s alright. I went by the scene around 7am, and it looked like there was a human sized hole in the windows of that building, but not super close to the intersection. My thoughts are with her for a quick recovery.
As for the discussion of identifying gender, instead of “woman cyclist”, what about “woman riding a bike.” Gives her a bit more humanity.
Holy crap folks…..who, what, where, when, why ,how. Noone stole her dignity or humanity.
While it seems like word policing, it’s been shown that when we use people first language such as “Person walking”, “Person biking” or “Person driving a car” instead of pedestrian, biker/cyclist, or driver, we’re more effective at communicating with each other. This article gives more insight as to how this has specifically helped in Seattle, with moving forward towards a fully utilized transportation network for all.
http://www.peopleforbikes.org/blog/entry/how-smart-language-helped-end-seattles-paralyzing-bikelash
These complaints over pointing out the gender of the cyclist are asinine, to put it mildly. This is journalism 101, dummies. There is nothing degrading, or backhanded about specifying the gender of main subject of an article. Changing the phrasing to “woman riding a bike” reads lazy. Bad suggestion.
Not asinine – good grammar. Would the headline “Man Cyclist Seriously Injured…” make any sense?
yes, it would make perfect sense
If the cyclist were a man it would make sense.
In point of fact, “Woman Cyclist” could not be farther from Journalism 101.
In my Journalism 101 class, we learned the Associated Press Style Guidelines, one of the standard style manuals used in Associated Press news articles and newspapers across the country. The AP style guidelines prioritize avoiding sexual or racial stereotyping and unnecessary use of gendered language and advise writers to use gender-neutral words (e.g. firefighter instead of fireman, chair person instead of chairman) whenever possible.
Identifying the victim in this article as a “woman cyclist” was not “Journalism 101” and was, in fact, an error, because it is not unusual for women to be cyclists. The correct tactic would be to identify the victim as a cyclist (as that is the most relevant information to the story), then provide information on the victim further in the story, or use the gendered pronoun “she” if that information is not available.
You are trying to use journalistic standards to invalidate the feelings of the people who feel insulted that the original headline made it seem unusual or notable that a woman was a cyclist. It is wrong of you to do that, and the tactic you used was wrong.
This is, of course, a moot point by now, since Bryan Cohen has updated his article. However, I suspect people continue commenting on the issue because they feel the author has not sufficiently acknowledged his error.
Only in Seattle would people drivel on ad nausem with more whining about gender language than what actually happened to the poor vicitim. Clearly nobody actually SAW anything, because nobody has anything of consequence to add.
Dang! I hope the lady cyclist recovers soon.