Hit by a Car While Biking? Don’t Waste the NYPD’s Time

A Streetsblog reader named Jessica sends along yet another story of the NYPD’s failure to treat bike commuters as full-fledged citizens of the City of New York: 

This evening around 8pm I was biking home down 2nd Avenue in the bike lane. I had a front light, back light, a bell, and was wearing a helmet. At St. Marks Place I came to a red light and stopped. When the light went green, I went straight, only to be struck by a minivan making a left hand turn, throwing me and my bicycle to the ground, and the minivan continuing to roll over my front wheel, then stop directly upon it — successfully crushing my fork and mutilating my front wheel.

They stopped, and after checking myself out to realize I was physically fine, I asked about being compensated for the damage. In their eyes there was no damage. Knowing its important to report such an accident so that its on official record and could possibly be used to better the infrastructure to prevent such accidents, I called the police. At that moment the minivan driver became completely uncooperative and felt as though i was wasting her time.

The cops came, said they could issue no tickets because they did not see it with their own eyes, and informed me they could only take a report. They then said, to receive a copy of the report, I have to go to the precinct and pay $10. The cops make it seem like I was wasting their time as well, and almost implying to the driver that she had nothing to worry about.

Jessica