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This email was sent in yesterday morning, Sunday, at 8:25 am. I did not check email until today.
From: Craig B.
Subject: hit & run takes out 5 cyclists
woke up this morning, turned the jumping box on to watch the Tour, checked my e-mail and found this . . . .
Just happened before 8 am this morning.
Ottawa is a close cycling community and am just waiting for the names to roll in. Fuck me.
Story here: ottawacitizen.com
Cheers,
big ring
Update: A new image of the incident below. I find it very hard to look at. But, still, I feel I should post it. Be careful out there.
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I have been seeing a lot of these lately, usually an impaired or psychotic driver (sometimes both) decides to take out some cyclists on the road. There was the group of 5 in CA, the group of 3 in NC, the pair in EnnZed, just goes on and on…
At least this one was in Canuckistan. They gots “free” health care, dontchaknow…
Still sucks.
Dave,
That comment was like school in the summertime….no class.
5 minutes alone with the fuck that did that and drove off.
a bullet for every driver.
My heart goes out to them, and I hope they all make full recoveries..riding in a group always seems safer, but i dont know..Im with humpty ….five min alone with the VAR frame tool and that guy..The fact that he drove off says it all..hope justice is served
Dave, I’ve got that Canadian health care you Americans ought to be pushing Obama, your congress and senate, to push through, but trucks still hurt bad. Even with ‘socialist’ health care I have switched from a roadie to mountain biking because I like my odds with trees and rocks much better.
WHY THE FUCK ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THE QUALITY OR COST OF THE CARE?
THE CARE – ANALYZE THAT WORD FOR A MINUTE.
This looks like no accident, but every time some angry driver decides to use his 3000lb rolling steel box as a murder weapon, it is called an accident. Five bikers and five bicycles do not get that badly mangled in an ‘accident’ – this person was out to hurt people, and just like in So. AZ they call it an ACCIDENT!
I agree. This could not have been an “accident.” This driver needs to have a member of the cycling community give him a chain-ring tattoo across his forehead.
That is so right,
You dont call manslaughter or murder a “accident”
This wasn’t a hit an run, it was fricking homicide! Take a look at the collection of photos… clear sightlines, bike lane, straight road, just past a 4-way intersection…. and then look at the trashed bikes. Some of the photos suggested this douche ran-over people/machine.
String him up by his balls and then let me have a crack at him.
a violent, painful death is far to good for this murderous asshole.
i believe a flamethrower is the correct tool for this situation.
don’t want to kill him tho.
i want him to be able to smell his own searing flesh.
maybe a little paint thinner to help put out the flames.
There’s an update on this story:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Accused+driver+March+Road+cycling+smash+stay+jail/1808868/story.html
This happened a block from my office, on a road I use in my commute every day. Short of a wall to seperate the bike lane there isn’t anything these riders could do to prevent this – not that they were at fault in any way.
I didn’t know the riders involved but I can say that Ottawa has a robust cycling community (Gord Fraser started out in the local scene here before going Pro) and everyone I have spoken to here is feeling just a little more vulnerable.
Thanks for the update, Hedy. That article says the prosecutors are asking for three days in jail to figure out more details. How many days are the riders going to spend in hospitals, involuntarily? I say keep him in there a whole lot longer. Stay safe.
That’s just fucked up.
It isn’t homicide yet (hopefully ever) but I do say assault with a Weapon of Mass Destruction, or attempted murder should be charged.
And maybe impersonating a human being.
…i’ve generally stopped commenting on “rider(s) down” posts out of abject frustration but i definitely follow ’em & beyond alcohol involvement, the one thing i never hear is that police are investigating cell phone usage in the case of injury accidents between cyclists & motorists…
…distraction…say it again, dis-fucking-straction is involved one way or another, 100% of the time…
…i don’t even know what else to say…
The ride they had planned works out to about to 106km, It looks really nice on google earth…
View Larger Map
This is obviously terrible, but I am also disturbed that people would be so quick to claim this doesn’t look like or isn’t an accident. Based on what? Do you also assume every car on car situation is intentional? There are a lot of careless, poor drivers on the roads who at some point will run into whatever is unlucky enough to be in their path.
It is bad enough without taking the equivalent of “playing the race card” and assuming if someone hits a cyclist they did it purposefully.
At least they are still investigating it. Sounds like they will take their time and level more charges based on what I hope is a thorough investigation.
BGW – a friend of mine in law enforcement mentioned that it is becoming pretty standard to look at phone records and even confiscate phones at the scene as evidence in cases like this, which is good to know.
At a former company we were warned not to conduct business on our mobiles while driving because of the number of lawsuits that apparently have blossomed recently. Guess people are going after employers when someone is involved in an accident while talking business and driving simultaneously…
pirata, I’ll meet you half way. We can give benefit of the doubt on intent when it comes to the impact, but a hit and run is at least partially intentional. I defy you to find someone who can ace five cyclists and *accidentally* flee the scene. When the bleeding victims are strewn about the site and you leave, there is some SERIOUS negligence going on, even if the *hit* half of the equation was “eyes not on the road” or “changing the radio station”, etc…
…pirata…thank you for the valuable input & it is good to know…unfortunately, it has to be part of an investigation “after the fact”…if only more common sense were used w/ the understanding that driving a vehicle is the most dangerous activity we engage in on a regular basis & if we lose track of our focus by “hanging out” on the phone, be it for business or pleasure, we endanger the lives of both others & ourselves…
…mention that to a younger person some time & they’ll look at you like you’re an idiot & they’ll let you know that ‘they’ don’t have any problems doing both but who has the highest statistical number of accidents & how many of those involve the distraction of phones &/or devices ???…
…i have no idea if this particular situation involved a phone but unless it really was intentional, as some of the vitriol implies & which i highly doubt, one way or another, the driver was distracted…but that doesn’t lessen the impact, if you will…
…& woody, you are absolutely right…two separate instances occurred…
…while the “hit” may have been an accident, there is no way in hell to justify the negligence of leaving people, who, if you have any sort of intelligence, you would have to assume are dying on the roadway…
…to call it negligent is to be polite…in reality it’s disgusting, it’s chickenshit & it’s the lowest form of thoughtlessness imaginable…
…& woody…i might add that w/out statistics to back me up, it seems as if in 90% of these cases the driver essentially gets a wrist slap considering the mayhem their destructive & life changing actions incur…
…thus, i believe, some of the understandable vitriol from our fellow posters…
Gory stuff, indeed. Unfortunately there are still a lot of people who find joy in a scene like this. The eugenicists have got them right where they want them and it leaves our civilization hanging by a thread of torn human flesh.
The lady that is 46 is getting close to the back burner, unless she’s a really important/well-to-do person the older you get the less important you become in the socialized health care system. Too many dumbed down American’s think that Nationalized health care is a panacea. The bankers and doctors of today are limited in the scope of their ethics by profit margins. Nationalized health care will be like a bandaid on one of these person’s smashed skulls because the same old bastards are still going to be running the show.
Sadly, just about the only thing that surprised me about that article was the fact they didn’t make a big deal about whether or not they were wearing their helmets…
Which is what most article of that type seem to fixate on.
I wear one when riding but I’m also fully aware that it will do exactly jack shit if some asshat in a single occupancy armored personnel carrier decides to try and park it on my head.
Don’t expect the courts to do much for it either, recently here, in NJ, we had the killer of NYC cyclist Camille Savoy get off scot-free in court even though the evidence indicated that the driver was a foot and a half over the fog line when she hit him in the shoulder of Rt 9 in Alpine.
Kinda makes one wonder what shitstorm would have broken out if it had been a pedestrian or another motor vehicle instead of “just a cyclist”.
Apropos of my previous post: Camille Killer Gets Off
Makes for interesting, if disturbing, reading.
Schultzenheimer, you are smarter than most who opine here.
Gotta clarify, I don’t think leaving the scene is accidental in any way. People panic and do stupid stuff but this guy knew what he was doing when he bolted. He new it was wrong and chose to run. That was definitely intentional.
Yes, operating a vehicle is one of the riskiest things most people regularly do. I have to travel on a length of highway regularly and see erratic driving. I like to play a little game when I see the car that keeps leaning into lanes, varying speed, swerving… the usual suspect behavior. I bet on whether they are on the phone or not. Most of the time they are. Frightens the hell out of me. Thats the shit I think about riding my bike on the road. Someone, perfectly sober, texting, trying to look up a number…whatever, take a second too long staring at the phone, drift a little too far over…
Something else about the article that struck me was that there was great detail about what a generally great guy the driver is. Not much about the people in the hospital. I can already hear that being used in arguments to minimize the penalties for the guy. I understand he may be a great guy and all, but how great is someone who runs down 5 and leaves’em for dead? Thats not just a little f-up.
I do understand the anger. As cyclists we are lower on the asphalt food chain, and there often seems to be little we can do. Texas Governor just shot down a Safe Passing bill, makes ya wonder if his donors in the trucking companies may have had his ear. There are two sides to that one though…another discussion in itself.
Got to thinking a little more on this. See, today I attended a training class presented by a local police officer. One thing he mentioned was that the leading cause of death in the line of duty was being struck by vehicles. Stated he was more afraid on the shoulder of the highway than responding to a domestic disturbance…anyhow, I did a quick search for statistics, found this: http://www.odmp.org/year.php which at the very least indicates that automobiles are the biggest killers in some way or another.
What I got to thinking about was that I would bet my next paycheck that the conviction rate and penalties for those guilty of killing a cop with their car is probably much higher than for those killed on bikes, I just wonder how drastic the difference is. Of course the individual circumstances will vary widely, but just thought I would throw that out. Would be interesting to see a comparison of the two scenarios, but probably just make me feel bad…