Update: My understanding was that the woman had been hit, but a commenter says that it looks like equipment failure and not a collision. The pavement is awfully rough through the intersection, and the bike lane, unfortunately, channels bikes through the worst of it.
This broken bike sat quietly amid the sirens and flashing lights of an ambulance, fire trucks, and police cruisers. The bike and its owner were hit at the corner of Beacon Street and St. Thomas More, hit hard enough to send the woman to Beth Israel and to break the front fork into pieces.
I came on the scene just before 6:00 as I rode home. The woman was just being put into the ambulance. Nobody I spoke to knew what happened, only that the woman did not appear to be seriously injured. According to one police officer, she was complaining of some back pain.
I know the bike and the woman who owns it, in the way you know a stranger who shares a common pursuit. She is one of the regulars on my commute. I see her once every couple of weeks or so. An obviously experienced cyclist with the stars-and-stripe bike, she's hard to miss.
Can't imagine how this happened. Glad that it sounds like it wasn't serious.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Biker down on Beacon Street
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5 comments:
That makes 3 accidents, 1 fatal, for the month on/near Beacon street.
That's terrible news - whether she's seriously injured or not. And it's one more example of how a bike lane is not the saving grace of us cyclists. I hate cars more and more these days. I don't think every person who drives a car and hits a cyclist or pedestrian is a horrible person. But the fact that it happens so often says something about the human's ability to handle one of these things. Add that into the environmental costs of these things and it just adds up to "cars are one of the worst things for people."
That looks like a fork failure. The crown inserts pulled out of the intact tubes. No major rim damage to indicate a car strike. Are you certain a car was involved?
The fork looks like it is carbon fiber. They break instead of bending. Could have hit a curb/pothole, or had a collision with a motor vehicle.
In response to Paul... and every cyclist that pulls out in front of a car, or runs through red lights into a pedestrian, or rides on the wrong side of the road, isn't a horrible person either. Some of those encounters are more forgiving because they're not up against a 3000lb. piece of metal. But it's just as clear that it's not always the driver's fault. Maybe humans can't handle a bicycle either. When I'm driving, I stay away from motorcyclists and bicycles, but I've seen some absurd riding habits by bicyclists. And I've stopped riding with some groups of bicyclists because I thought they were obnoxious road hogs who were bent on getting themselves hurt.
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