Home Hacks Photo Job Blog About ________________________________________________________________________________ Bike Accident On 5/17/2007 (notice it was Bike To Work Day 2007 ), while coming back from work, I was hit by a car entering a driveway, while I was riding in the bike lane on Wolfe Rd (Northbound). Statement I was going EB on Old San Francisco Rd, the car was going WB. At the intersection, the car made a right, I made a left. After that we were both going NB on Wolfe Rd. The car was going very slowly, I was going full speed. The car was a bit ahead of me, but I was going faster (around 25 MPH). I was in the bike lane, the car was in the right lane. When I reached its right front wheel, the car suddenly made a right turn to go in a driveway. The car had no flasher on, and cut right through the bike lane. The right front wheel of the car rolled over my front wheel, stopping my bike right in its track, and I went flying on the sidewalk. My bike went under the car but was stuck under the front wheel so it was dragged on the pavement a bit before the car came to a complete stop. My bike left a lot of aluminum on the road... The front wheel was badly damaged, but also the fork and the handlebar, plus all the damages I cannot see. So basically, the driver of the car turned without checking around, without putting her flashers. She cut right through the bike lane instead of merging into it before making its turn. Besides, she was wearing a huge black visor on her face so I am sure she couldn't have seen me coming anyway. The Law So, what does the law say about bike lanes ? Well, it depends on the county you live in. For Santa Clara county, the rule is pretty clear: | Sec. B5-6.5. Vehicle on bicycle lane. | | No person shall drive a vehicle upon or across a bicycle lane except to | enter a driveway and except to park such vehicle or leave a parking space. | No person shall drive upon or across a bicycle lane as permitted by this | section except after giving the right-of-way to all bicycles within the | lane. | | (Ord. No. NS-1004.106, § 1, 2-1-72) Full link to the law . Pictures The two pictures below are screenshots from Google Earth . The first image shows Wolfe and Old San Francisco. The small line is a mark to identify the bike lane where I was riding when the car hit me, trying to get into the driveway at the end of the line. The second image is a zoom of the corner of Wolfe and Old San Francisco, with the same line as above, and its approximate length shown. The driveway is 27m after the corner. Below are "ground" pictures of the corner, and the driveway where I was hit. View from the corner of the street, you can clearly see the "Bike Lane": View from the driveway: Use the links below to navigate and find out the various damage I report: Bike/Bike_Accident Bike/Front_Wheel Bike/Fork Bike/Handlebar Bike/Rear_Derailleur Bike/Right_Shifter Bike/Helmet Bike/Misc All the pictures are available in full resolution, in a zip file, here . ________________________________________________________________________________ 2007/10/12 Debian / W3C / vim / PHP powered |