Cyclists,
If you are hurt or injured in an accident with a motorist...please, please, please, call or have someone call the police and please, please, please, get a report and witness statements. Too often we are hearing reports that the police are citing injured cyclists where clearly a motorist was at fault as can be established by witnesses. Sometimes; however, no witness statments are taken when there were clearly witnesses present at the scene of the incident. Don't let this happen to you if you can help it.
The recent book Traffic by author Tom Vanderbilt is a must read for us all and an informative an entertaining study on the psychology of automobile drivers. I think what he is trying to say is, anyone behind the wheel of a car will have a lapse of intelligence rendering them stupid at some point behind the wheel-everytime they drive! Perhaps a giant oversimplification of a very detailed book yet, if this is in fact the message, I have to agree with the author. I add this as an aside but it is my way of saying, cars and those who drive them are stupid behind the wheel, myself included.
California recently started enforcement of the "hands free" law requiring motorists speaking on the phone to be using a headset. This must have been the brainchild of a phone headset company because honestly, there are still enough distractions to prevent people, in all of our weak human nature, from focusing fully on driving. I love the folks trying to put the ear bud in while driving, adjusting the ear bud while driving, or driving off the road wondering how to fix the lack of connectivity to their blue tooth.
So, on with the preaching I have digressed enough. The point of this piece is more about police and the need for more police training. If no one is reporting injury serious enough to require an ambulance the police will often not come to the scene. If they do come to the scene, it is not unusual for them to take as minimal amount of information as possible to fill in the necessary blanks on their report. After being hit by a car, generally speaking, one is in no shape to be hobbling about taking witness statements. If this happens to you, and you are lucid-at all, ask any human being on site to get the name and phone numbers of anyone who saw the accident, or anyone who saw you and/or the motorist in the moments just prior to the incident.
Ride Safely!
