Here’s an interesting news about a cyclist being hit by a muni bus and kept driving away:

[5-Fulton passenger Mary] Chancey said around 10 bus riders implored the driver to stop following the 8:30 collision — but he instead left the scene. When SF Weekly arrived just before 8:40, the young female cyclist was lying in the middle of the road, and police and fire soon arrived.

Now that’s what SFWeekly wrote and that’s what the bus riders would do, side with the bicyclist.

Here’s the bus driver’s story:

Well sir, a cyclist was trying to squeeze between some cars and a bus, and she slipped on those white circular raised bumps (in sweeping arrow formation) that attempt to separate the Muni and car lanes. So she loses balance on her bike and thuds against the side of a bus, and then to add insult to injury Muni rolls over her bike.

Let’s not jump to conclusions here because I had almost exactly same incident in my old place in Richmond district.

I was driving back from a restaurant after having couple drinks. I wasn’t intoxicated or anything but I almost hit a bicyclist that night.
What happened was that I stopped at the stop sign right in front of my apartment and as I was starting to get going again, a bicyclist came fast going diagonally across the whole 4-way stop section. I immediately hit my brakes and I did not hit the bicyclist but he sorta stopped too and fell on his side.

Since I did not hit the biker and he was illegally going too fast over the stop signs without looking, I figured I’d park my car in my apartment garage, which was like 30 feet away.

Some bystanders came by the bicyclist and thought I was hitting and running away and they called the fire department. I was really nervous because I had a few drinks and I didn’t even hit the biker, he just stopped and fell over by himself.

Anyways, I ran over to the biker after I parked my car by my apartment and I asked him if he was okay. He was furiously mad because he thought I should have stopped my car there and make a big scene out of it.

Well, the fire truck came about 5 minutes later. They came up to me and asked me what happened, I told them what happened that this guy was screeching without stopping on a 4-way stop residential street and I hit my brakes then the guy stopped and fell by himself.

Then the firemen asked the biker if he was hit by my car. Of course, because I had not hit him, he said “no”. After that, the firemen had this funny look like, “why the hell did you call 911 then.”

Anyways, I felt bad for the biker for having such a traumatic experience but the fact remains that he wasn’t in control of his bike and he fell by himself.

If I had parked my car at the scene, it would certainly would have looked like I was the bad guy plus they probably would have called the cops then probably test me for alcohol. But I wasn’t drunk, I was pretty darn sure I was way below the legal limit.

The point is that if they did test me and I tested for even small level of alcohol AND supposedly the biker decided to say I hit his bike, that could have lead to a lot more consequences I shouldn’t have to face because I never hit the guy, he fell by himself.

This is why I think the bus driver probably didn’t hit the cyclist, the cyclist probably bumped on those road bumps then fell on the muni bus. Of course, it might have been a good idea to stop the bus and help her but realize that in those circumstances, the “crowd” is usually wrong because they jump to conclusions.

In my case, I had 2 of my friends in my car (glad they were there to be witnesses) but all the random strangers who called in 911 (there were like 5 of them), thought I had hit this biker!

Really, if the muni bus driver “hit” the cyclist by maneuvering his big-ass bus to the right or left (which I highly doubt on such a busy street), that’d be something but under those circumstances, I would have to side with the bus driver, especially if he was already side-by-side with the bike.

If muni bus came after the biker though, perhaps the bus driver could be at fault.

I know there’s a lot of good bikers out there but that biker shouldn’t be risking her life in those “bumps”, that’s just plain stupid especially in one of the busiest places in San Francisco.

If the biker in fact did hit the “side of the bus”, then that proves it wasn’t the bus, it was the biker who thrashed herself into the bus.   I know, I feel bad for the biker too but the reality is, let’s not blame the bus driver if it wasn’t his fault.  Hitting the front of the bus on the other hand, is another whole story.

And you crowds out there or mobs, stop trying to be such caring, great people you are unless you saw the incident clearly yourself, it’s only hurting the real innocent people who did in fact nothing wrong.

Tags: bumps, Bus, bus_ride, cyclist

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 12:04 am and is filed under Bikes, News.