Bollard placement kills cyclist in James County

[lordofthemark]

@Hancockbs 197614 wrote:

Yet, none of these actions have caused me to crash at speed into a stationary object that I could clearly see in advance of the event, as appears to be the case here.

So, I was once new to bike commuting. At my workplace, bike commuters need to show their ID card to the guard, before proceeding immediately down a fairly steep ramp into the garage. I held out my id, managed to get the cord on it tangled with the handle bar, while going down hill, and I ended up going over the handlebars and hitting the pavement on the ramp.

I was not killed. There was no bollard there (because this was a place where bikes used the same space as autos). If for some reason there WAS a bollard or similar obstruction, there is a non zero chance I would have been killed.

IMO, very precisely that death would have been due to the combination of my error, and the placement of the bollard. To say in that case that a bollard caused my death would not be in error.

I do congratulate you though on not making such errors.

[lordofthemark]

@Hancockbs 197614 wrote:

We are obviously at odds over the statement and interpretation of events here, so I’ll make this my last attempt to get my pure point across. One last time, ALL I am advocating for is stating known facts in cases such as this. If you really believe that the placement of the bollard killed the cyclist, then we have nothing to discuss. I believe you’re wrong and we’ll just have to go our separate ways. If the placement of the bollard killed the cyclist, then how come tens or hundreds of more cyclist aren’t dead from the same bollard?

Someone shoots a gun, firing 30 bullets towards a crowd at some distance. Only two people are hit, one is killed. IMO its correct to say that the gun killed the person, even though most were not killed. Some might have been smart enough to duck, some might have just been lucky.

Heck, we’ve all seen instances where a driver made an improper turn, failed to signal, or sped through a red light. And we avoided a collision by sheer good luck, by hypervigilance, or some combination. Would that mean that when someone IS killed by scofflaw driver, we do not say the scofflaw driver killed them?

[Hancockbs]

@lordofthemark 197720 wrote:

So, I was once new to bike commuting. At my workplace, bike commuters need to show their ID card to the guard, before proceeding immediately down a fairly steep ramp into the garage. I held out my id, managed to get the cord on it tangled with the handle bar, while going down hill, and I ended up going over the handlebars and hitting the pavement on the ramp.

I was not killed. There was no bollard there (because this was a place where bikes used the same space as autos). If for some reason there WAS a bollard or similar obstruction, there is a non zero chance I would have been killed.

IMO, very precisely that death would have been due to the combination of my error, and the placement of the bollard. To say in that case that a bollard caused my death would not be in error.

I do congratulate you though on not making such errors.

Against my better judgement, I’ll continue the conversation. To say that the bollard caused your death in that case would be inaccurate IMO. The bollard contributed to your death, certainly, but I would say the cause was closer to you not stopping to put away the ID and cord, thereby causing the hazard that resulted in your death by hitting the bollard. Perhaps that is semantics, but I prefer to “blame” the action rather than the inanimate and non-moving object.

[Hancockbs]

@lordofthemark 197722 wrote:

Someone shoots a gun, firing 30 bullets towards a crowd at some distance. Only two people are hit, one is killed. IMO its correct to say that the gun killed the person, even though most were not killed. Some might have been smart enough to duck, some might have just been lucky.

Heck, we’ve all seen instances where a driver made an improper turn, failed to signal, or sped through a red light. And we avoided a collision by sheer good luck, by hypervigilance, or some combination. Would that mean that when someone IS killed by scofflaw driver, we do not say the scofflaw driver killed them?

Now you’ve gone to completely different issues. I could argue the gun did not kill the person in your scenario, as a gun can’t do anything by itself (much like a bollard), but that’s a totally different argument. I will say that in all of these stated cases, you are providing an action by another party that caused a death. I’m fine with contributing the death to an action and/or the person generating the action, be that the party who died or the party that caused their death. I’m not okay with contributing the death to a non-moving inanimate object. If someone crashed and hit their head on the ground, you might contend the ground caused their death. I would not.

[Hancockbs]

@mstone 197709 wrote:

Weird how much your later posts differ from your original post. To refresh your memory: “The bollard placement did not kill the rider. Lack of attention, riding too fast, or something similar resulted in the cyclist crashing into a bollard and his death.” Again, that’s not a call for “facts”, that’s a call for a specific conclusion based completely on speculation in the absence of supporting facts.

“something similar” is a specific conclusion? The bollard in and of itself, nor its placement alone could possibly cause a death. Unless the bollard was somehow launched at the rider, he had to be moving toward it, fall on it, or something similar to result in a death. Lack of the person hitting the bollard or the bollard hitting the person, with some velocity, there is no possible outcome of death.

[lordofthemark]

@Hancockbs 197737 wrote:

Now you’ve gone to completely different issues. I could argue the gun did not kill the person in your scenario, as a gun can’t do anything by itself (much like a bollard), but that’s a totally different argument. I will say that in all of these stated cases, you are providing an action by another party that caused a death. I’m fine with contributing the death to an action and/or the person generating the action, be that the party who died or the party that caused their death. I’m not okay with contributing the death to a non-moving inanimate object. If someone crashed and hit their head on the ground, you might contend the ground caused their death. I would not.

The headline says the bollard PLACEMENT caused the death. IE a human action. To place a non moving inanimate object in a dangerous spot. Instead of guns, would you prefer land mines? If many people walked through a minefield and survived, and one person was killed, would you say they were not killed by the mine? Would you quibble over minefield placement? Or would you deny that it was the minefield at all, because so many survived it?

[lordofthemark]

@Hancockbs 197738 wrote:

“something similar” is a specific conclusion? The bollard in and of itself, nor its placement alone could possibly cause a death. Unless the bollard was somehow launched at the rider, he had to be moving toward it, fall on it, or something similar to result in a death. Lack of the person hitting the bollard or the bollard hitting the person, with some velocity, there is no possible outcome of death.

A bike trail without bike riders moving on it is sort of a useless bike trail, IMO.

[lordofthemark]

@Hancockbs 197735 wrote:

Against my better judgement, I’ll continue the conversation. To say that the bollard caused your death in that case would be inaccurate IMO. The bollard contributed to your death, certainly, but I would say the cause was closer to you not stopping to put away the ID and cord, thereby causing the hazard that resulted in your death by hitting the bollard. Perhaps that is semantics, but I prefer to “blame” the action rather than the inanimate and non-moving object.

Except that what actually happened was that despite my error, I did not die, because no one insanely placed a bollard there.

The point is that humans make mistakes. Setting things up so that a mistake is fatal is killing them.

[n18]

Found a YouTube video showing a similar bridge with similar bollards on the same trail. It seems that they are all constructed the same way after seeing several bridges. All wooden bridges, and earlier in the day there was light rain for 30 minutes. The side bollards are awkward to get around.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]21002[/ATTACH]

[Steve O]

@n18 197742 wrote:

Found a YouTube video showing a similar bridge with similar bollards on the same trail. It seems that they are all constructed the same way after seeing several bridges. All wooden bridges, and earlier in the day there was light rain for 30 minutes. The side bollards are awkward to get around.

I believe this may be the one.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]21005[/ATTACH]

[n18]

@Steve O 197748 wrote:

I believe this may be the one.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]21005[/ATTACH]

Unfortunately not the exact one. See this Google Maps link that shows where the cyclist went in the video. In the video, at time index 3:07:18, the cyclist turns right(to the south), and the trail branches into 2 direction 10 seconds later(east toward the high school where the cyclist crashed, and south toward the start of the trail). At time index 3:07:30, you will see the trail intersection, and the cyclist went south instead of east. However, like I said, I saw several bridges that look the same. All wooden, some only have a center bollard, others have 3. Here are some timing that I noted:

2:50:04 Crossing John Tyler Hwy
2:58:17 Crossing Two Rivers RD
3:02:02 Bridge 1 bollard
3:03:22 Crossing Heritage Landing RD
3:04:02 Crossing John Rolfe LN
3:07:18 Going south near the end

Also, I think the cyclist who crashed was heading west. This is based on Google maps showing that there is a 3-foot drop across the bridge, and the witness said he was going downhill.

[mstone]

@Hancockbs 197738 wrote:

“something similar” is a specific conclusion? The bollard in and of itself, nor its placement alone could possibly cause a death. Unless the bollard was somehow launched at the rider, he had to be moving toward it, fall on it, or something similar to result in a death. Lack of the person hitting the bollard or the bollard hitting the person, with some velocity, there is no possible outcome of death.

I guess you think this is cute. I think it’s disgusting.

[peterw_diy]

@Hancockbs 197738 wrote:

“something similar” is a specific conclusion?.

Yes. You’re pretty clearly accusing the deceased of negligence. For all we know, a large animal sped toward the trail as he approached the bollard. Oh, but maybe you would blame him for not holding his line anyway. Lack of attention, right? Or something similar, surely.

Also your whole blame-the-moving-thing line of argument is ridiculous. “Don’t blame the bear trap (or the person who set it beside the public hiking trail) – it’s the dog’s fault for not looking where it stepped! The trap was just sitting there, perfectly still and therefore it, and the person who placed it, are blameless! What do you mean, it is designed to injure? So what? Without the animal’s movement there would have been no injury!”

[SpaceJockey]

Are bollards in a bad spot? YES
Do freak occurrences happen that may result in a Rube-Goldberg-esque series of events that caused an exceptionally safe and aware cyclist to meet their end upon a static piece of infrastructure? YES
Do people make mistakes? YES

It sucks, be smart and do your best to ride safe.
One “rider level” fix……what about signage or yellow tape if you notice a trail hazard? There are emergent issues that cannot be resolved within the timeline of public debate and government approval.
I’m accustomed to no assumption of personal safety. In fact, I’ve experienced a life-threatening trauma pneumothorax and had a tree fall literally one foot from me while on a bike. It happens.

[Hancockbs]

@lordofthemark 197739 wrote:

The headline says the bollard PLACEMENT caused the death. IE a human action. To place a non moving inanimate object in a dangerous spot. Instead of guns, would you prefer land mines? If many people walked through a minefield and survived, and one person was killed, would you say they were not killed by the mine? Would you quibble over minefield placement? Or would you deny that it was the minefield at all, because so many survived it?

Okay, you guys convinced me and you win. The nexus between a hidden landmine (or bear trap) that is designed to kill by kinetically exploding and a clearly visible static bollard is very obvious.

I’ll continue to take as much responsibility as possible for my own safety by paying attention, slowing when needed, and having an escape plan when things go wrong. You can do whatever it is you want to do and blame the bollard after you hit it.

Best wishes for a safe ride for all of us.

[Author]

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