Here in San Francisco some years back, the police chief (Fred Lau) was featured in a full-page ad for “Pedestrian Safety Month,” commenting on several recent collisions, all but one fatal to the pedestrian. For every fatal crash, he made some excuse for the driver: The sun was in his eyes…, Over the hood of his very big truck he couldn’t see the very small woman crossing as he turned…, etc, etc. Only for the one nonfatal incident did the chief lash out at the perpetrator. Why? That person was on a bicycle. No excuses for what that guy did (hit someone while riding on the sidewalk), but the double standard was blatant.

Kelly’s actions were commendable, but were there reporters with him at the scene? It seems more likely that the NYPD is using the incident to buff the Commissioner’s image. Did they really need to flog this to the press? Let’s hope Ms. Hoffman makes a full recovery.

Of course, the Post describes the cyclist as “speeding,” but nowhere has it been reported who, if anyone, was at fault (the Post says that Ms. Hoffman was “in the crosswalk,” but makes no mention of whether she was crossing with or against the light). And Mr. Pacheco wasn’t summonsed for running a light or failure to yield, though his three summonses were three more than he would’ve received had he been driving a car rather than peddling a bike. And why cite him for not having lights at 8:23 a.m.? Are lights now required during daylight hours?

Before someone jumps on me, I know that cars are much more dangerous than bikes and that many more people are killed and injured in automobile accidents than biking accidents. I am not arguing these points, I just am pointing out the irony I see in the above comment.

@com1,

I wasn’t attempting to assign blame, just pointing out that the Post, in typical fashion, employed pejorative language in describing the cyclist. If he’s riding, say, at 20 mph down Fifth Avenue with the light, and a pedestrian steps off the curb against the light, then it’s hard to find fault with the cyclist — and the same would hold true in that case if he were driving a car.

The larger point is that, if one were to believe most police reports of vehicle-pedestrian conflicts, it seems that the drivers are hardly ever held accountable; nor are they ever talking on their cellphones, exceeding the speed limit, turning illegally into crosswalks, etc., etc. Yet as you rightly point out, motorized vehicles do cause much more damage.

We’re all responsible for obeying the rules of the road, and looking out for the safety of others: peds, cyclists, drivers (I’m all three), skeateboarders, equestrians, whatever.

And I fully subscribe to what Ian posted above: as a cyclist (or driver, or pedestrian), I don’t want to put anyone else in harm’s way — or myself in harm’s way, either.

As I wrote earlier, here’s hoping that Ms. Hoffman makes a full and speedy recovery.

P.S. Brad the hed and 1st sentence of this post are pure gold, had me laughing out loud!

Glenn, I’m ready to keep an open mind, but is there any evidence you can point me to suggesting Kelly would be the least bit enlightened on livable streets issues? And are you sure Thompson wasn’t just opportunistically pandering to outer boros when he bashed Bloomberg on livable streets, and hence might just as quickly find livable streets religion (of a kind) if running against a candidate who has personally seen to it that just about every black person in NYC got frisked if found on the street in certain neighborhoods?

Interesting. May be true that Kelly tries to posit himself as a continuation of Bloomberg, but I can’t think of anything he’s done with the NYPD that’s “Bloombergian.”. For example, parking placard reform at NYPD (such as it is) very much seems like somthing being done to NYPD, not done by NYPD under Kelly’s leadership. Maybe I’m a cynic, but I suspect Kelly would run on a fearmongering anti-terror meme.