Two Brooklyn bicyclists were killed in separate incidents within two hours early Thursday morning.
In the first case, a man was struck and killed by a gasoline-delivery truck on Union Avenue in Williamsburg. The truck was turning onto Ten Eyck Street shortly after 4 a.m. when it hit the cyclist, who police said was trying to pass the truck and had been riding on the wrong side of the street. No charges were filed again the driver.
About two hours later, another man was riding his bicycle in Bedford-Stuyvesant and was hit by a white van at the intersection of Utica Avenue and Fulton Street. Police determined the driver of the van, Alfred Taylor, 41, of Brooklyn, had been speeding. He was arrested and charged with criminally negligent homicide.
Police were withholding the names of cyclists pending notification of family.
“We are stunned and outraged to learn that two cyclists were killed within the span of hours,” said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives. “Protected street space for cyclists is the surest way to make biking safe. The city must continue to work tirelessly to provide bicyclists with the protections necessary to ensure safe travel.”
12:02: Not wearing a helmet would not qualify as endangering myself in the eyes of, say the vast majority of cylists outside the US. This also does not disqualify me from commenting on other cycling practices (which I admit doing myself.) For a more detailed defence, please click on my name.
if we’re going to operate from stereotype here, how about the following:
navigating a multi-ton vehicle filled with volatile cargo requires much more caution than most truck drivers exercise. odds are he’d been popping some stimulant because most truck drivers do. most truck drivers blow through red lights and count on everyone else to get out of their way. most truck drivers use their large footprint to their advantage in traffic, and are much too optimistic (or uncaring) about the ability of other street users to avoid them in time.
cyclists, pedestrians, and other motorists are killed every day by truck drivers. that doesn’t justify assuming that the truck driver is wrong in every instance. nor does it justify assuming that the other party is to blame. and no matter who was at fault, if it is even something so clearly discernible, why focus on that? we will probably never know what really happened. it is a tragedy, period.
Please. I assume a bike rider (which I am) is much more vulnerable than a driver (which I am not), and therefore has to be a whole lot more careful.
victim-blaming in the sense of being ready to assume that the person who is now dead and unable to defend his actions must NOT have been doing the right thing. would you be asking what he was doing driving a CAR at 4am? why aren’t you assuming that the truck driver wasn’t using HIS lights? would you like to see yourself or someone you loved spoken of in such a cavalier way?
Victim blaming? Only to the extent that riding a bike on city streets requires much more caution than most cyclists exercise. Odds are he didn’t have lights because most night cyclists don’t. Most cyclists don’t wait for the green light. Most cyclists use their small footprint to their advantage in traffic, and are much too optimistic about the ability of motorists to notice them in time.
a lot of victim-blaming going on here.
where did the idea that he didn’t have a light come from? so far i’ve only seen it in a comment on streetsblog, preceded by the word “probably”, which means it was their assumption. can anyone substantiate that?
he was on a bike at 4am because he volunteered for a group that accompanies people home from clubs for their safety. why assume there were two people on his bike? why not assume he was walking with the person and then rode home?
why give the truck driver ALL of the benefit of the doubt???
I feel terrible for the guy who was hit by an oil truck … but WTF was he doing on a bicycle, probably without any source of light … at 4am?
And going the wrong way? If another car was involved …
Bicycles are subject to the same vehicle/traffic laws as motor vehicles. Hope one of these days there can be a level playing field re: enforcement.
I have a lot of questions, too, since it seems many riders believe “we are traffic” but that the traffic laws are only for cars:
Riding at 4 AM–with or without the legally required illumination?
Following traffic laws including stopping for lights?
Does “dropping off our friend”, mean riding two on one bike?
apparently that version of the story is under dispute:
“Elizabeth Weinberg, a friend of Murphey’s, tells Streetsblog that doesn’t make sense:
We know for a fact that he was coming from Lorimer (at Broadway) at that time (dropping off our friend) and heading to his place on South 3rd in Brooklyn, so he had to have been going NORTH on Union Ave, not south like the police report said. There is no way Craig would be riding against traffic and he had no reason to head back down in the opposite direction from home. He rode to work everyday in Harlem from Brooklyn; he knew what he was doing.”
the incident is still being investigated.
in any case the point being made by transportation alternatives, that we need more protected bike lanes, remains valid. and chandru, while i agree that there are many cyclists out there who endanger themselves with their riding habits, your “no-helmet” stance will always make you vulnerable to such accusations. regardless of whether the driver or the cyclist was “at fault”, one of them is dead. he was someone’s son, someone’s brother, many people’s friend, and he was only 26 years old. that is deserving of outrage.
Since the first cyclist was going the wrong way and, at least according to one report (streetsblog,) was trying to “beat the truck,” maybe Mr. White could control part of his outrage.
As a regular cyclist myself, I’ve seen my share of cyclists who ride too fast or too dangerously. It does no good for cycling advocates to trot out the knee-jerk reaction that the vehicle is always at fault.