Bicyclist hit at Duke and W Taylor Run, Alexandria

[CaseyKane50]

Does anyone have any additional information regarding this investigation? It’s been three weeks since the crash.

I saw something last week that the police were looking for witnesses, but nothing further. We might get an update at the next BPAC meeting in June.

[mstone]

@scoot 139663 wrote:

I don’t think it’s fair to single out the designers and throw them under the bus. Our entire culture is the problem; road designs are a symptom.

The roadway engineer is asked to provide infrastructure of maximal overall utility to users. Valuation criteria are set by our laws, regulations, and cultural norms. These continue to reinforce the idea that motorist convenience is paramount and that safety of vulnerable road users is a secondary consideration. The engineers are just following instructions and giving us what we want.

The engineer is the one with the legal responsibility for signing off that the design is safe. The engineer is the one who has had ethics classes explaining his professional responsibility. The fact that the engineer signs off on an unsafe design because the culture likes cars to go fast is a failure on the part of the engineer, and on the part of the profession which has actively resisted incorporating non-motorist safety features into standard design practices. There are good engineers out there, but too many are simply complacent on this issue.

[Steve O]

@mstone 140473 wrote:

The engineer is the one with the legal responsibility for signing off that the design is safe. The engineer is the one who has had ethics classes explaining his professional responsibility. The fact that the engineer signs off on an unsafe design because the culture likes cars to go fast is a failure on the part of the engineer, and on the part of the profession which has actively resisted incorporating non-motorist safety features into standard design practices. There are good engineers out there, but too many are simply complacent on this issue.

Or the lady blew the red.

Not to say the design is not lousy, just that its contribution to this crash may or may not have been significant.

[Sunyata]

Here is an article on VA Bike that talks (briefly) about this crash and goes into really nice detail about ways to fix this interchange.

[dasgeh]

#crashnotaccident

[Sunyata]

@dasgeh 140691 wrote:

#crashnotaccident

I am usually great about doing this in spoken conversation. Apparently it does not translate into written conversation. You are 100% right. Thanks for pointing it out.

[scorchedearth]

I have just heard that the police and attorney general have decided not to press charges. No one is sure if the woman received a citation.

The attorney general did not reach out to the family to let them know. It required a phone call from the family’s attorney to the AG to get this bit of information.

Lovely.

[Steve O]

@scorchedearth 140981 wrote:

I have just heard that the police and attorney general have decided not to press charges. No one is sure if the woman received a citation.

The attorney general did not reach out to the family to let them know. It required a phone call from the family’s attorney to the AG to get this bit of information.

Lovely.

This must have been witnessed by numerous drivers. I have a hard time swallowing the idea that he was crossing against the light, given that he was familiar with the intersection. If all they went on was the word of the driver, well, we know how that goes.

Question for lawyers: If the family sues the driver in civil court, will all the information about how much or little the police actually did in this investigation become part of the case? That would be interesting to know.

[CaseyKane50]

The Commonwealth Attorney said

“There is insufficient evidence to conclude that the driver of the motor vehicle acted in a criminally negligent manner. Therefore, I decline to seek charges against her.”

“As a prosecutor, I must make charging decisions that are consistent with the evidence in the case and the applicable standards of proof that are required under the criminal law. These horrible situations are often referred to as accidents for the simple reason that their occurrence is not intended by either person involved. Furthermore, the fact that a person was involved in an accident in which a serious injury occurred is, standing alone, an insufficient basis upon which to initiate criminal charges.”

Full article here

[bobco85]

@CaseyKane50 141022 wrote:

The Commonwealth Attorney said

There is insufficient evidence to conclude that the driver of the motor vehicle acted in a criminally negligent manner. Therefore, I decline to seek charges against her.

As a prosecutor, I must make charging decisions that are consistent with the evidence in the case and the applicable standards of proof that are required under the criminal law. These horrible situations are often referred to as accidents for the simple reason that their occurrence is not intended by either person involved. Furthermore, the fact that a person was involved in an accident in which a serious injury occurred is, standing alone, an insufficient basis upon which to initiate criminal charges.

Full article here

I have only been living in Alexandria for about 10 months now, but I have to ask the question:

Is it really a crime for a driver to hit a pedestrian/cyclist anymore?

Here we have a cyclist put into a coma, and last year we had a pedestrian killed in a hit-and-run (the driver kept going because they “thought they hit an animal”). In both cases, the AG decided not to press charges while giving the infuriating explanation for calling it an “accident”.

Maybe we need to adopt the Dutch strict liability laws for driving where the burden of proof is on the drivers that they were operating their 1+ ton vehicle responsibly. It’d probably do a lot to discourage texting while driving, too.

[mstone]

@bobco85 141039 wrote:

Maybe we need to adopt the Dutch strict liability laws for driving where the burden of proof is on the drivers that they were operating their 1+ ton vehicle responsibly. It’d probably do a lot to discourage texting while driving, too.

We should, but there’s no political will to do that; we’d rather just bury 30k people a year and write it off as culture. Someone asked about WABA upthread, and the reality is that they’re unwilling to rock the boat enough to press for real changes. The counterargument is that they’re just going after what they think they can actually get, but at the end of the day there isn’t an organized voice pushing for the reforms that are really needed–the goal is just to rearrange the deck chairs a bit.

[ginacico]

@bobco85 141039 wrote:

Is it really a crime for a driver to hit a pedestrian/cyclist anymore?

By all indications, no.

[lordofthemark]

@bobco85 141039 wrote:

I have only been living in Alexandria for about 10 months now, but I have to ask the question:

Is it really a crime for a driver to hit a pedestrian/cyclist anymore?

Here we have a cyclist put into a coma, and last year we had a pedestrian killed in a hit-and-run (the driver kept going because they “thought they hit an animal”). In both cases, the AG decided not to press charges while giving the infuriating explanation for calling it an “accident”.

Maybe we need to adopt the Dutch strict liability laws for driving where the burden of proof is on the drivers that they were operating their 1+ ton vehicle responsibly. It’d probably do a lot to discourage texting while driving, too.

IIUC Dutch strict liability applies to civil cases, not criminal. I would note that the Comm Attorney decision does not prevent a civil suit in this case.

[mstone]

@CaseyKane50 141022 wrote:

Furthermore, the fact that a person was involved in an accident in which a serious injury occurred is, standing alone, an insufficient basis upon which to initiate criminal charges

That part is actually true: they should initiate the charges regardless of whether someone is seriously injured. It’s just more obnoxious when you add an injury on top and the prosecutor still won’t get off his butt and do his job. At the heart of this is the attitude that prosecuting all of the moving violations would be too much work–so basically, he’s too lazy to do the job we pay him for.

“there was no evidence that she was intoxicated” <-- see? as long as you're not drunk you can do anything you want in a car. oopsie.

[dasgeh]

Was there even a traffic citation? It seems odd that there would not have been something.

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