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Bicycle Safety

Cabbie Mistakes East River Park Bike Path for Highway

2:59 PM EDT on October 18, 2007

eastriver.jpg
The marker to the south is where the speeding taxi passed the cyclist. The marker to the north is where the cyclist gave up trying to chase after him.

A tipster sends along this story from the East River Park bike path...

Yesterday around 6:15PM, my friend and I were biking home from work through the East River park as we usually do, when a taxi flew past us! This path is separated from the FDR by a big fence and it is NOT easy to get onto it. We are used to park service and construction vehicles making their way down it, but they are always obeying the 5MPH posted speed limit and are generally not a safety hazard. This guy was doing at least 20MPH! Pedaling as fast as I could I couldn't catch up to him to either a) get his license plate or b) yell into his open window and call him a maniac and beg him to slow down and turn around.

There were a lot of people (kids on bikes, kids playing soccer, commuters, joggers) on the path at the time--did ANYONE manage to get a picture of this or get this guy's license plate? Even by NYC bike lane standards this was absurd. There is no way this person should have a license to drive, let alone drive a cab in New York. I want to see this guy's head in the stocks, and failing that, I want to see him fired.

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