Aaron, et al - Completely agree with Darin: It shouldn't fall to you, the injured party, to figure out what to do.
I'm guessing a fair number of people on this list have been in your position: Something really scary just happened, and maybe you are even injured. You aren't thinking straight, and the other party is also incredibly shook up. Being really nice people, we want to assure the driver that we are not seriously injured, that we understand that mistakes happen, etc. Normal human interactions. But then the driver leaves, no police report is issued, and maybe we even find out later that we are hurt or something is damaged on our bikes. No record of the incident exists. We may not even have the name, license plate, and contact information for the driver. This is why I am very distrustful of statistics on bicycle crashes. They are so under-reported that I just think the numbers are not representative of the full picture of bike crashes. A crash report is required in Wisconsin -- and therefore in the database and counted toward the statistics -- if there is a motor vehicle involved (not if it's a pedestrian-bicycle, bicycle-bicycle, bike-dog, bike-bad pavement, etc.) and one of the following: 1. An injury requiring medical attention (even if you don't seek medical attention) OR 2. Property damage of $1000 or more. Unless you are riding a pretty expensive bike, #2 probably won't apply. Since adrenaline often masked injuries, and so we may not know if we are hurt until everyone has left -- maybe even hours later -- and I don't want the driver to leave, my first response when asked, "Are you hurt?" is, "I'm not sure." I've never been in a serious bike-MV crash, but I've hurt myself biking in other ways. One of the two crashes where I had a bad injury involved another bike. The other was me hitting an object left where it shouldn't have been (on a public sidewalk) and endo-ing my bike. No crash report exists for either one. My one MV-bike crash -- resulting in some bad scrapes and soreness -- I didn't insist on a report, and I regret that, because the driver was a complete moron and could have used a lesson in looking for bicyclists. (Oh, yeah, I ran into the back of a city truck. My fault entirely, and no injury except to my ego, but it is the one crash that did get recorded because it was a city vehicle. And I bounced my head off the pavement and cracked my helmet down the back like an egg, so I am a believer in wearing one.) Robbie Webber Transportation Policy Analyst 608-263-9984 (o) [email protected] All opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer or any other group with which I am affiliated. On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 8:48 AM, Aaron Crandall <[email protected]>wrote: > > The reason for him not getting cited was partly my fault, because I didn't > push the issue and he was definitely shook up and extremely apologetic to > his actions. In hindsight, I should have kept him there until the Police > arrived and allowed the Police to decide whether or not to issue a > citation... I'm guessing this incident may have resulted in the motorist > receiving a citation. > >
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