hotbike

Car Strikes 11 year old Girl-on video-driver arrested

https://whdh.com/news/update-police-id-driver-caught-on-camera-hitting-child-on-bicycle-in-east-bridgewater/

Surveillance camera in the park led to arrest of the 62 year old driver.
Good think the girl was wearing a jacket.
Surveillance Video

Bald Paul

That young girl was very lucky she didn't end up under the vehicle. I can't believe the woman drove 60 feet before stopping.

hotbike

Yes, the car had a low plastic bumper. Luckily it wasn’t an SUV.
And it looked more like 60 yards than feet.

GamblerGORD53

The fault of the collision is 50/ 50, IMO. Girl blasted out from the trees. The driver was way slow hitting the brakes both before and after tho. Who knows, likely it turned out better that the car didn't swerve.
The distance was 8 parking spots, so about 68 feet.
No real need to run off either.

work4bike

The link in the OP didn't work for me, but I think I found the accident in the below video on YT. I don't think I'd characterize girls riding as blasting out from the trees. It seems to me that the driver had plenty of time to stop. And of course the fact that she left the scene is the kicker...

Paul Barnard

Driving off without making contact with the child's family and/or calling the police is unconscionable. Who does something like that? I swear, a person on a bike is somehow seen as something other than human.

I'd like to buy that child a new bike and a helmet. Is anyone aware of any associated crowdfunding?

RB1-luvr

horrifying. I've just started riding with my kids (ages 6 and 8) at their elementary school last week. One day I was not able to fit my bike in the car with theirs and I sat on a chair at the end of the lot and did not feel safe having them at the opposite end. I'd rather ride with them.

Eyes Roll

American society in a nutshell. A bunch of degenerates living amongst us. You would think with age and life experiences, people would mature; but, it doesn't matter, nowadays. A 62-year old ran her car over a child, and ran away?

jon c. 

i tend to assume intoxication when people leave a scene like that.

mcours2006

which begs the question, when do you feel there would be a real need to run off? If the girl was unconscious?

njkayaker

"Blasted"? Really?

The cyclist wasn't moving that fast and there was quite a large gap between the trees and the path of the car.

njkayaker

Unfortunate but kind of a dopey collision.

The speeds were low enough and the distances large enough that there was more than enough room for either party to stop in time.

Clearly, neither party was looking carefully at all.

work4bike

I just got back from a bike ride and I couldn't stop thinking about this video. As I played it back in my head, I thought how could the driver not see the kid on a bike and then how could it take her so long to stop. Thinking I was mis-remembering the accident, so when I got home I looked at again...and I can't believe she didn't stop (she had plenty of time) and why did it take her so long to stop after hitting the kid She must have been texting or something...


BTW, this morning at 6am when I first looked at it, I didn't even finish my first cup of coffee





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JW Fas

The driver appeared to be going a little fast for the conditions as indicated by the slightly aggressive cornering and acceleration. If you're in a parking lot, you should anticipate other people being around, and in a school parking lot you should definitely anticipate it having children. Even without leaving the scene, I'd give it 75/25 with the higher liability on the motorist. With the hit and run I'm not even going to be that generous.

njkayaker

The driver wasn't scanning to their left. They were in an empty parking lot (no cars) and "let down their guard".

No one would have really expected a cyclist to pop-out of the trees there. It's not like there was a road/path/sidewalk that might have given a hint somebody coming from there was possible. There was a break in the trees that the cyclist came through. So. there was some possible hint (but not a very good one).

Still, the cyclist was visible for quite a while. So, clearly, the driver wasn't looking that way. (Maybe, they were looking toward their right?)

The cyclist also had ample time to see the car.

njkayaker

This wasn't the problem here. The parking lot was empty.

The problem was that the driver (and the cyclist!) should have been looking around (scanning) regardless of it being empty.

Both parties should have been independently competent to avoid this collision.

Eyes Roll

In the past year or so, I have experienced 6 or 7 incidents where car drivers intentionally passed by me and entered my bike path, attempting to block me just for fun while I was riding my bike. If I hadn't applied my brakes, I would have collided with those cars. Interestingly, in every single instance, the car driver happened to be a woman between ages of 30 and 65.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that this incident was intentional on the part of the driver as well.

"Hey, you are cute, and your bike is cute. Let me run over you."
(or)
"How dare you to come in my way, girl? No one comes in my way. I'll run over you and teach you a lesson."

......could've happened along those ^^^ lines.

work4bike

I'm not totally letting the kid (11-years old) off the hook. However, the bulk of the fault goes to the adult and that's before factoring in that she left the scene.

The driver didn't have to be scanning to the left. If you look at the video at the 47-second point and allow it to go forward from there, the kid first enters the parking lot at about the 50-second point. At the time the cyclist was directly in front of the driver, because the driver had not even completed her right turn and was facing the kid. And if you allow the video to roll from the 50-second point you see that the kid was directly in line with the car, i.e. fully visible.

I'm kind of curious how many feet was traveled in this time span from the 47-second point until the impact at the 52-second point.

njkayaker

There doesn't seem to be anything about this situation that was beyond the ability of an 11-year-old to handle.

I'm sort of guessing the cyclist "let down their guard" (too) since they would have already been in collisions before this one if the lack of attentiveness was characteristic.

The cyclist only can control what they do.

That doesn't really "factor in" with preventing the collision in the first place.

There was (it appears) a long time to see the cyclist. There should have been some chance of seeing the cyclist even in their peripheral vision.

You can't tell where the driver was looking. Maybe, the driver was looking right. If so, "scanning left" is referring to left of where they were looking. It's possible that the driver didn't register the cyclist even looking directly at them.

It's fairly weird the collision happened.

The cyclist emerged from the gap in the trees and a bit later turns towards the car (so the car is pretty much in front of them). They then turned to the left and rode straight across the path of the car. Maybe, they expected the car to drive behind them? The driver straightens out from a right turn. Before the collision, the cyclist turns left (trying to avoid the collision, it would seem).

flangehead

Video starts at :48; cyclist comes into view at :50 and is hit at :53 and the crash comes to a complete stop at :58

Observations:

a) Looking at the angles, it is possible the cyclist was behind the A-pillar for a critical part of the 3-seconds.
b) Three seconds is not a lot of time. Reaction time is variable but say 1-1.5 seconds.
c) Very hard to understand why motorist did not stop sooner. The vision and sound directly in front of the motorist should have generated a reaction. A stop time of 5 seconds is more consistent with 50 mph, and the motorist clearly wasn't driving that fast.

I'm interested in what lessons I can take away from this crash. "Whose fault is it?" may be of interest to lawyers and insurance companies but a hit cyclist hurts a lot more than the downside of a dented fender. Bad subsequent behavior is what it is.

So takeaways:
1) Those pesky A-pillars can block a motorist's view of me. My spine should tingle when I'm at that angle...
2) I often succumb to the "there's no one around" logic to relax my situational awareness when I'm on the road. That's really only valid when there are no vision blockers .. and most of the time, there are vision blockers..

I grouse a bit about the "blame game" because all of us on the road need to do what we can to put lots of slices of swiss cheese in the way of an injury. In this particular case, at a school, we ask people to drive slower because children are less aware.

tomato coupe

To be fair, the driver got out of the car and asked the girl if she was okay, and the girl said she was.

Korina

She had just been hit by a car. Adrenaline and shock can mask a lot of damage, that's why we adults are told to never say "I'm fine" after being hit.

Florida (wo)man; 'nuff said.

ETA: The kid was working with the facilities she'd been given, which begs the question; why is that path there and why isn't there a crosswalk or some kind of marking to indicate kids may come through?

retswerb

Ok, but... one of these parties is an adult operating a potentially deadly motor vehicle that requires training and a license. The other is a child on a bike. Let's not act like these two are on the same playing field.

Troul 

bc those that sign off on such decision making lack common sense & likely other skills too.

If it's truly a hit & run, the driver needs to own it.

Troul 

where are legal guardians of the child?
the child should not be left unsupervised if both parties are not to be viewed equally.
A public property that has held such an incident isn't the same if it happened out in front of the child's house imo.