Earlier tonight there was a car-bicycle collision that was reported in the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) as Woman suffers head injury after being hit on bicycle

A 21-year-old woman suffered a head injury and road rash after she failed to yield the red Schwinn bike she was riding, according to the Ludington Police Department.  

The extent of the woman's injuries are unknown at this time. 

The accident occurred around 7 p.m. Monday when a woman driving a black Mazda CX-9 collided with the bike rider that was crossing Robert Street between the Ludington Avenue Wesco and the old location of Makers Market, police said.

Police stated that witnesses of the accident reported that the woman driving the Mazda was crossing Ludington Avenue to continue onto Robert Street when the bike rider failed to yield. (End of Article)

I have a hard time reading such incidents and see that the bicyclist is suffering a serious injury and getting blamed for the accident, when it may not be the case.  The overhead look of the accident scene is above, with the direction of the car in red, and the direction of the bicycle in blue, meeting in the crosswalk going across south Robert Street. 

If we travel back in time before the incident, the Mazda was stopped at stop sign to the north of Ludington Avenue, while presumably the bicycle was traveling east on the sidewalk in front of Wesco.  The Mazda driver at some point saw that they could cross over Ludington Avenue due to vehicle traffic being absent. 

What every driver must know, however, is that when you cross a street in a city, you also cross over two crosswalks and they must also be clear of cross traffic.  It would take a Mazda starting from a stop to take under two seconds to cross the 40 or so feet of Ludington Avenue.  Depending on what speed the bicyclist was traveling, let's suggest 12 mph, she was within 20 feet of entering the crosswalk at the time the Mazda began accelerating across the avenue.  As you can see from the overhead, the Mazda driver (if paying attention) could not help seeing the bicyclist traveling to the crosswalk, and entering the crosswalk while they were crossing over the middle lane.

Now, if we change viewpoints, let's look at two cases:

1) If the bicyclist stopped before crossing the street:  anybody who has started a bicycle from a dead stop knows it takes long to get started, she may have started up her bicycle at or before the time the Mazda began.  As there was no car crossing at the time she began, she obviously couldn't have failed to yield before being sideswiped by the car.

2) If the bicyclist was moving and did not stop at the crosswalk, the Uniform Traffic Code (UTC) adopted by reference by the City of Ludington has a rule: 

As noted, there is open sight lines within 20 feet of the intersection, if the bicycle was moving to the crosswalk, noting there is no traffic control for pedestrian or bicycle traffic to cross Robert Street, the driver should have seen the rider for up to two seconds before plowing into her, and be at fault. 

But wouldn't the bicycle rider have some fault in the latter case?  Let's note that when a bicyclist is traveling on a sidewalk or crosswalk, he "has all of the rights and responsibilities applicable to a pedestrian using that sidewalk  or crosswalk." (see MCL 257.660c(3)).  These are illustrated in the following rule, also in the UTC.

Technically, the bicyclist would only be at fault if they 'darted out' in front of the vehicle, but as noted, if the bicycle was stopped, it would be starting at about the same time as the Mazda.  If she was riding the bicycle at 12 mph towards the crosswalk, the driver would seem to have had the duty to not proceed through the crosswalk and smash into the bicycle.  This is not to suggest that this is a proper or safe way to ride a bicycle.

Frankly, in these circumstances, the driver should have either full or partial legal responsibility for the incident, presuming the bicyclist was riding legally on the sidewalk and crosswalk, as portrayed in the article. 

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So..... "Police stated that witnesses of the accident reported that the woman driving the Mazda was crossing Ludington Avenue to continue onto Robert Street when the bike rider failed to yield."

Are witnesses dictating the law..?  Or is this how the officer took they're statements..?  I understand this is still under investigation, but it may be decided.

On the other side...

Is there any laws (or just rules) that bicyclists when riding the sidewalk are to walk their bike across street intersections..?

Brad, I think you keyed in on what I found a little fishy in this article.  I love witnesses, but most are thankfully ignorant of the hundreds of sections and subsections littering the state's motor vehicle code and the UTC that dictate the finer points of traffic law. 

Frankly, if I had been the driver of the Mazda, I would have been alert enough to recognize that a bicyclist was entering or about to enter the crosswalk in that first second, and would either stop on the south lanes of the avenue, if there was no immediate traffic heading east that might hit me, or change my route to a left turn onto Ludington Avenue.  Personally, with the data given, I can't gauge how any non-distracted driver would do otherwise, rather than running into a bicyclist using the crosswalk.   

On one of the radio stations... think WLDN... they stated the police said the cyclist failed to yield.

...Wonder who the driver was.

I have never seen a pedestrian (even on a bike) be at fault in this kind of accident.

Yesterday's COLDNews p. 3 reported that the rider was Guliya Sabirova, a Russian, and also states police made the decision to claim she was at fault for failing to yield.  It reminds me of another young Russian woman clipped from behind by a bad driver and who was claimed to be at fault by the idiots in our sheriffs road patrol (see Russian Woman Denied the Right to the Road in Mason County). 

Part of the reason I started this group back in 2009 was to illustrate how bicyclist, motorcyclists and pedestrians get the short end of the staff in accidents by the police, media, and auto-centrists.  This is an improper mindset that is pervasive. 

If a bicyclist had started crossing Ludington Avenue, like this Mazda did, and they rode into the side of a car going east on the avenue, wouldn't the bicyclist be at fault for the accident?  Yet somehow a pedestrian/bicycle not otherwise travelling unlawfully on the crosswalk getting broadsided by a mass of metal ten times their weight, not only gets seriously injured, but the blame here, despite laws that say the motorist had a duty to make sure the crosswalk was clear.  I, like you, find it odd.

What do we have to do FOIA to find out who ran this poor Russian gal over on her bike? I'm betting the person is locally connected somehow. There is no crosswalk light on that corner so the bike had the Right of Way in my opinion. 

The FOIA request has been sent out as of yesterday to find out some of the missing components of this story.  From other sources, it appears that the accident was caught on video by Wesco cameras, and a copy of that footage was given to the LPD. 

These sources also indicate that Guliya, the bike rider, appeared to be riding carelessly down the sidewalk and crosswalk, before getting rather seriously injured.  The Torch sends their prayers and sincere get-well wishes to her.

The focus so far by the police, media, and witnesses seem to be only on the rider's liability, that in itself seems a bit unfair.  Hopefully, the footage, the investigation and the report can lead to seeing whether their analysis is fair to both people involved with the accident.

I'm curious about the definition of 'riding carelessly'...what is that?

Far from being a legal term, riding a bicycle carelessly in this case would indicate that she was riding with little regard for her own safety by not looking both ways before proceeding out into the street's crosswalk. 

If Guliya would have been riding her bike on the right half of the right lane of Ludington Avenue, there would be no question that she would not have been at fault, she would also have been more likely to be seen by the Mazda driver.  Precisely a big reason why I advise riding your bicycle in the street in a city's downtown, rather than the sidewalk. 

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