Collision on Beauregard St near Mark Center

[bobco85]

I orginally posted this in the morning commute thread, but it’s more appropriate to go here.

Well, I’ve been biking for the past 25 years of my life, and today is the second day that I ever had a collision with a car (my first collision was hitting a parked car when I was about 8 years old). Luckily, this was a very minor collision.

I was riding eastbound on Beauregard St and was in the middle of the right lane (I was taking the lane since there are 3 lanes of travel). Just after crossing Mark Center Dr (approaching Seminary Rd), I heard a van pull up from behind on my left side and *whap* his side view mirror hits my left forearm.

I was surprised by it, and the driver immediately pulled over into my lane. I rode up alongside him as he rolled down his window in the right lane. He asked if I was okay and apologized since he realized he had hit me, and I said I was fine and that to please give 3 feet when passing. Then, we parted ways as he headed onto Seminary Rd (I-395 bound I’m guessing) and I continued on Beauregard St towards Arlington. I had my front-facing camera on at the time (my rear-facing camera was out of battery power), so I did somewhat record the collision (I will review it when I get home).

Looking back at the situation, I think he tried to pass me in my lane which does not work when there is not enough room to do so (3 foot passing law). I was also uninjured due to the following:

• the force of his side view mirror hitting my forearm was displaced due to the fact I was holding a casual/somewhat loose grip on my handlebars at the time and the side view mirror wasn’t very dense
• he was only driving about 5-10 mph faster than me in the same direction
• the collision felt similar to if someone were to hit you by slowly swinging a plastic wiffle bat (enough to be annoying, but not enough to cause pain)

I will report the incident in to the Alexandria Police later today so that it can be documented. Other than slightly annoyed and renewed in my vigor to ask for better bicycle infrastructure on Beauregard St (right now, there’s nothing), I am fine.

Topic

[dasgeh]

The inaction by the police has me fuming. But you have video! That could be very powerful. I would take to twitter, and ask very publicly why the PD wouldn’t take a report when a car hit a person riding a bike. Tag whatever political leaders are on twitter.

LMK, if you want help or retweets.

[bobco85]

@dasgeh 144323 wrote:

The inaction by the police has me fuming. But you have video! That could be very powerful. I would take to twitter, and ask very publicly why the PD wouldn’t take a report when a car hit a person riding a bike. Tag whatever political leaders are on twitter.

LMK, if you want help or retweets.

I was disappointed that no record would be kept of the incident unless I had called police to take a statement at the scene. I linked to the video on Twitter, but if you know the right people to send it to, please do so. My Twitter handle is (not surprising) @bobco85 Thank you.

[dasgeh]

@bobco85 144327 wrote:

I was disappointed that no record would be kept of the incident unless I had called police to take a statement at the scene. I linked to the video on Twitter, but if you know the right people to send it to, please do so. My Twitter handle is (not surprising) @bobco85 Thank you.

I can’t find the tweet… Could you link to it? Thanks!

[CaseyKane50]

@bobco85 144327 wrote:

I was disappointed that no record would be kept of the incident unless I had called police to take a statement at the scene. I linked to the video on Twitter, but if you know the right people to send it to, please do so. My Twitter handle is (not surprising) @bobco85 Thank you.

Posted on the BPAC Facebook page. BPAC will also raise this with our APD police representative.

[AlexandriaBiker]

Bob, I’d like to see your video on Twitter and sent directly to @alexandriaPD. The 3 foot law was broken and they refused to do anything about it again. The culture has to change.

[DismalScientist]

Hate to be the contrarian around here,:rolleyes: but do you really want the police to chase down every cyclist that blows through a red based on someone’s video evidence that is sent to the police?

[Judd]

@DismalScientist 144339 wrote:

Hate to be the contrarian around here,:rolleyes: but do you really want the police to chase down every cyclist that blows through a red based on someone’s video evidence that is sent to the police?

No. Just like I don’t want the police to track me down when a car with a dash cam catches me running a stop sign at Hains Point. If we were talking near miss, I’d chalk it up to a near miss, but Bob was hit by a car. Thankfully no medical issue has popped up as a result but what if something did? I’ve had two points in my life where I wrecked, once in a motorcycle and once on my bike where I initially thought I was fine only to later find out a bone was broken.

I think it’s more of a threshold issue. Hit by car rises to police should take a report. People running stop signs rises to the level of police should placate the complainer with promises of more enforcement.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bobco85]

Quick update: I was reminded by some fellow WABA folks last night that I should submit the collision to WABA’s crash tracker (I totally forgot about it!). It has now been submitted into their system.

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