GamblerGORD53

Geeze, go back to the P+R backwards think echo chamber.

livedarklions

And he calls me a troll (because he lost an argument he picked with me last week, btw).

I don't think there's any rational way to label either of these people as being the victim of the other. Victims of their own stupidity, maybe. The problem with this thread is that almost no one actually disagrees with the obvious--he caused the crash by rolling the red light, and she was an idiot not to stop after he was hit.

livedarklions

Six hours delay is extremely suspicious as it would affect any alcohol testing as well.

3alarmer 

....Gordo !!!! Still lovin' that Sturmey Archer, man.

work4bike

Interesting video from November 2021. Looks like some are starting to look into the history of deGise.

Jersey City Councilwoman DeGise had car towed in Hoboken for expired registration

3alarmer 

GhostRider62

Who ran the light? The cyclist was wrong 100%. You do not go thru lights, period. None of this mess would have happened if he stopped.

Who got the damaged vehicle? The victim. Who will pay for the damage to the vehicle? The victim. You assume she has insurance. She will probably be sued. Who will pay her lawyer to defend in civil court. So yes, the driver is the victim of the lying cyclist. He told the cops that she ran the lights, a pure lie. Nonetheless, she deserves maximum penalty for not stopping. I think she could lose her license for 30 days in NJ and maybe $2k in fines. Possibly a little jail time. She screwed up but she did not cause the accident

GhostRider62

Talk about twisting something around.

Who said any of that.

GhostRider62

Why would the motorist be on the hook for damage to the bike when the bicyclist is the one who plowed into her SUV when he ran the red light?

Weird thinking here. I am out.

JW Fas

Read what I actually wrote and not what you want to believe I wrote. I said she was still on the hook for the crime of hit and run, because she should have reasonably known there was property damage to the bike and/or her car. Therefore, she should have stopped. The civil cost of the damage isn't relevant to whether she is on the hook for the crime.

3alarmer 

...OK then. I guess my question was extraneous. I knew there was a reason I was afraid to post in the Advocacy forum, and this thread has been a very good object lesson. Thanks to all who have shown me the light. I hope that everyone who lives in your neighborhood is smart enough to stay off your lawn.




...sarcasm is wasted in the A+S.

3alarmer 

...no, these are basic legal concepts, which you apparently do not understand. But I do agree there's some weird thinking going on here.

LarrySellerz

Ghostrider he could have easily not even noticed that it was a red light, its happened to me, he was focused on looking out for cars but somehow didn't see the one that got him. This is besides the point though. He could have been drunk or somehow distracted or just plain not having the best day, the car still came in way too hot and hit him. The driver is not the victim, the driver wasn't even slowing down

Daniel4

Have you seen the CCTV footage? He weaved his way to the left side of the first car. The first car was waiting at the red light. Then the cyclist entered the intersection while the car to his right remained stationary. A reverse angle footage shows the red light facing him. If the car on his right could see it, so can the cyclist. He knowlingly and deliberately entered the intersection on a red light. AND he lied on the police report that he had the light.

livedarklions

Why does that matter? The statute says she has to stop regardless of her fault or lack thereof.

No one thinks she's going to be successfully sued. She committed a crime after the crash.

livedarklions

You're going a bit too far with the "knowingly and deliberately" and "he lied" stuff. We have no way of knowing whether he even looked at the light and his recollection could be both honest and wrong. Witnesses get things wrong sincerely all the time, especially when they're undergoing something traumatic like getting hit by a car. None of this matters, state of mind isn't an element of traffic offenses, and he obviously violated the stop on the red light rule. The interesting thing about this video is that it both absolves the driver of fault and documents her hit and run.

livedarklions

The notion that she was coming in "too hot" is based on nothing whatsoever. If she had been speeding, physics pretty much dictates he would've been killed. The driver isn't the victim because we don't use that term to describe a driver who hits an at-fault bicyclist. To do so just reduces the meaning of the word "victim" to be anyone who experiences something unfortunate. To be clear, she has no valid excuse for not stopping after the crash.

mr_bill

Just a few observations.

The people who fetched his sandal and provided him with a cooler to sit on are everyday heroes. Kudos.

The only person who drove through the intersection at the speed limit during the video was Amy DeGise. The only one. (Clarification, everyone else was well below the speed limit.)

We see her vehicle for nearly four seconds, including two seconds after the collision. Either she never touches the brakes, or her brakelights are inoperable.

Forrest Street is a narrow street, parking on both sides, with 15 MPH speed humps.

We see two demonstrations of how to do an Idaho Stop.

One, a rolling Idaho Stop, which directly led to the collision. Textbook how to not to.

The other, the scooter rider, who a block up stops for a pedestrian at Virginia Ave, and then continues through the red light.

The parking enforcement was moving people along for the street sweeper following behind.

Finally, we repeatedly see what disasters unfold whenever a motor vehicle operator slows or stops while going through the intersection while they have the "right of way" with a green light. I lost count of how many people got rear ended. Oh, wait. (Hint. Nobody has the right of way, the rules simply say when you must yield the right of way. And yes, when a hero steps in front of your vehicle to fetch a sandal, humane humans don't run them over. And certainly, humane humans stop after they hit a human.)

-mr. bill

livedarklions

Agreed they definitely did the right thing, I've been in situations like these as a bystander where I do step in and provide whatever assistance I can. On the other hand, if I can see that people are attending to the guy and they seem to have things in hand and I have nothing special in the way of skills or resources to offer, I sometimes decide that the best thing I can do is to move on and keep out of the way of any emergency vehicles or whatever that may need to be summoned. Leaving wouldn't look good in the cc video, but that's not the point.


I've been on both sides of bystander aid--I've always been pleased by people's willingness to help. I also think people seem really good at deciding whether or not to call 911 and/or dividing up tasks between themselves at the scene. Last "emergency" assistance I rendered was administering a Kind bar to an elderly man who ended up on the ground when he bonked on a MUP (he had already fallen when I found him). He was pretty sure he was ok, and definitely didn't want an ambulance called. I decided to stay with him for a few minutes to make sure he was continuing to recover as he thought he was. He was quite lucid, and he got to tell me all about his 1990s custom built Litespeed, As we were there, more and more people gathered around us, somebody had some bottled water for him, and he wanted to get back on his bike. Someone offered to ride the few miles to his home with him to make sure he was ok, which he eagerly accepted. Between the entire committee, we triaged him, stabilized him, and provided safety for his transport home. I got a fun conversation with an old bicyclist out of the deal..

Esos1

"Government Prostitutor" 😂 I like your version better

Korina

I saw one idiot, one criminal (for leaving), and several helpers. Also, there was no indication that the cyclist was unhurt. Up and moving doesn't mean unhurt; poor dude was in shock. I'm glad people helped him, and a subsequent video said he had minor injuries.

I was up and moving after I got hit, much slower than that (and also my fault), but I was definitely hurt. Shock held me together until the ambulance came, and then I fell apart. (Heh; ambulance company charged me $7 for the gauze to wipe my tears.) I was very lucky to get away with massive bruises and a torn muscle in my mid-back that bothered me for many years. I'm glad he also got off easy; hopefully it was a cheap lesson.
EDIT: To clarify, I was 18 and stupid.

JoeyBike

Bench warrants, failure to appear, outstanding tickets, etc, etc.

Driver and cyclist not looking where they should be. Wondering if cyclist had ear buds inserted. Unless that was an electric car or other environmental noises covered up the sound of approaching rubber.

Look both ways before you cross the street. The color of the light is irrelevant, as the motorist found out. Green gives the motorist right of way, not divine protection from red light runners.

Daniel4

Nothing would have changed for the cyclist if the driver had done all the right things.

However, if the cyclist had done the right thing by waiting at his green light with everybody else, none of this would have happened.

So whose bad decision had the bigger impact?

livedarklions

Not the point at all. This isn't a contest.
In this case, evidence discovered after the fact showed who was at fault, and the injuries turned out to be relatively minor. It doesn't matter for the driver however, because she committed her crime after the crash. The law doesn't let you guess about whether help is needed or if you were at fault, you hit someone or something, you have to stop.

wolfchild

If the law doesn`t care who is at fault then the law is wrong...In this case the cyclist should be charged, the driver should be free from any wrongdoing.