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Police say bus driver didn't know he'd hit bicyclist in Allston

Boston Police today identified the BU student who died on Brighton Avenue on Monday as Chung-Wei Yang, 21.

Police add:

Preliminary investigation suggests an MBTA bus did come in contact with the victim. There is no indication that the driver or any of the passengers on the bus knew anyone was struck. At this time, no charges have been filed.

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Comments

Pulled over a kid that was riding behind me as we passed by Sunset. I wasn't sure why they pulled him over or of they were pulling me over but I hoped off onto the sidewalk and made my back. I asked them if I had been pulled over, they said no, don't worry, it was the other rider. I spoke with them a little bit, thanking them being there to enforcing the traffic laws and pulling over cyclists that break them, it will just make for better road conditions for all.

"We're out here to let cyclists know that they are vehicles and need to follow the rules of the road too," said one of the officers. Thats great but it needs to be coupled with education and enforcement for ALL VEHICLES on the road. Buses, cars, trucks and bikes alike need to be made more aware of their obligations to creating safe environment on the roads here. Patronizing signs of "Wear a helmet, no excuses" do nothing if they aren't do in tandem with "Use your mirrors and signal, no excuses."

Still, I'm glad they are out in force, its just disheartening that it took the death of a young man to force the BPDs hand in this.

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Both myself and the other biker had been stopped at the red light in front of Blanchards and had moved forward through the intersection when we had the proper green light.

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THANK YOU for waiting for the green. The road is already scary enough to drive on without people flying through red lights. More people should be like you!

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Thanks, I try to lead by example, it frustrates me to no end when other bikers blow by me as I come to stop. Mainly because they are stupid and signing there own death wish but also because I wait for the green and a few blocks down the road, I'm passing them because they are going slower then my top speed. So what the hell was the point of running the red in the first place?!

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The most common excuse I hear thrown around for why bikers CAN'T stop at red lights is that it's "too dangerous." As in the traffic conditions around them are too chaotic that stopping at a red light would be worse than blowing through it, blah blah blah, etc., etc. What are your thoughts on that? Why are you able to stop at every light when other bikers make it sound like that is an impossible thing?

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I'm required to by law, so I do. Its not worth risking my life, stressing about dodging traffic and what not. I'd rather just stop at the light, catch my breath and enjoy the scenery. Hell, sometimes I'm presented with a good photo to take and might take out my iPhone for a quick shot or pull off to the side and take out my camera I sometimes ride with. Really, I bike for commuting and fun, if I want an addrenaline rush and high speeds go go go attitude, I'll go play hockey.

I started urban cycling back when I was living in Berlin for study abroad a few years ago. Now they of course have much more established bike culture there and I never felt unsafe on the roads riding next to buses or cars, even with or without a bike lane. But the one thing we learned early on, you do not disobey the traffic laws there. Not only will the authorities pull you aside but regular citizens will call you out. Same policy on the subway there. They don't have turnstiles, its a proof of purchase system that is randomly checked but other citizens will take the role of conductor and say "where is your ticket?"

I've started taking this and applying it to my commute here. My girlfriend and I both bike and obey the rules of the road and are calling out bikers that don't. "Stop being a dick and giving us all a bad name." was a recent one I heard from another biker yelling out at a scofflaw.

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You hipsters are the worst. It don't matter if you stop or go at a red light. You're skinny blue jeans and Burn helmets make me sick.

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Every time a driver kills a pedestrian or cyclist, Menino tries to blame the victims by having police pull over cyclists and pedestrians, while ignoring all the drivers who break the law daily in Boston. Drivers in motor vehicles run red lights, dont stop at stop signs, and dont use their signals all over Boston, I see it every day I walk through Boston, but Menino does nothing to enforce those laws. He is living in the GOP dream world of the 1950s, where cars and trucks were kings and if you didnt drive, you had no right to be in Boston.

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So in other words the police had no right or business stopping the other cyclist either it sounds like.

And as usual the bus driver is not charged when instead this driver, and all 57 drivers because they all harass or kill cyclists without exception, walks away free to kill more cyclists.

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The other cyclist did nothing different then me at the light. The only exception was he was not wearing a helmet. Now I wear my based on my own reasons but I do not advocate requiring them by law.

I didn't hear what they said to him but I can imagine it was some patronizing lecture about helmets. Awesome. Where are they when a 57 bus passes me within a few inches?

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So let me get this right...
you don't know what the cops said to the kid?
you don't know why he was pulled over?
you don't even know if it was BPD or BUPD?

Also...
you have no idea who is at fault with the 57 bus?
you weren't there?
you didn't read any witness statements?

Okay buddy keep making pulling stupid stuff out of thin air and making a-hole claims about everyone being at fault except the biker. Because you obviously know everything.

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Don't know what they said to the kid.
Don't know why he was pulled over but I do know that he operated his bicycle in the same manner as I did, but did not have a helmet.
It was BPD, I'm sure of that and noted that.

Can't comment on an investigation where I'm not privy to all the facts and I won't pretend that I know. But I ride this stretch each and every day and despite following all the rules of the road, I am buzzed at this spot from time to time by 57 buses and I have had incidents where I have almost been struck when I clearly have the right of way and the bus has clearly not passed me at a lawfully required safe distance.

What I do know is that as of this morning, the BPD detail was not there.

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pedestrians are all part of this equation and need to follow the laws as well as be observant (waiting to cross at a walk light, checking side mirrors, etc...). RIP to the young man's family.

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All the education you're talking about is ostensibly taught in driving school, and tested via your driving test. This education is there. This is not the case for a bike; there's no base level of education and state regulation required in order for someone to become a cyclist.

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That was over 12 years ago for me. How many different laws of the road have been added or amended since then? Some of the more important safety upgrades with regards to bicycles only came out in the last several years if I recall correctly.

The education is there but it is never retested or updated for currently licensed drivers. You get to renew the license as I have a few times over the year without any kind of test to see if you are up to date on the current laws.

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Sure, my 15 and 17 year olds don't have driver's licenses ... yet ... however, the vast majority of cyclists are also licensed drivers because the vast majority of people over 18 are licensed drivers.

The idea that cyclists "don't have licenses" is a fiction.

Consider as well that the relative youth of the cycling population means that they probably have a better idea of modern driving rules than the average driver ... particulary in MA where both the written and practical tests have historically been much less than rigorous.

So, until we start making everyone sitting around that registry office waiting for their photo take a quick test on road rules (focussed on recent changes), I'm not buying the "don't know the rules" argument. The reason cyclists blow through red lights is the same reason I regularly see dozens of motorists each day box block, blow through lights, and violate other road rules: they are massholes.

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I got my car driver's license in NJ but a few years ago I got my motorcycle license in MA. I went to the Watertown DMV to take the "written" test needed to get the permit. To take the test I was told to go into a room, find a computer, and follow the instructions. There was no RMV employee in the crowded room. The computers were so close together I could see the other screens without trying. I could overhear one kid asking another what the answer to a question was.

My test had about 25 question. Most of these had absolutely nothing to do with safety, motorcycles, or traffic laws. A few of them were in regards to the "Junior Operator's" rule -- the regulations that apply to people under 18. As I'm well above 18 these questions were simply stupid.

The test is a joke and hardly ensure motorist know driving laws. The idea that somehow car drivers are more responsible then cyclists is laughable in this regard. The fact is that most adult cyclists ALSO have driver's licenses. (Most of the adult population has a license.) People who are dangerous drivers are dangerous cyclists. People who are safe drivers are safe cyclists and vice versa.

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I could overhear one kid asking another what the answer to a question was.

What does a yellow light mean?

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I see cars blow through that light all the time, and taking illegal right turns on red constantly, without even stopping.

When I ask the BPD sergeant about it, he just shrugs. Nothing is ever done.

When Brenda Wynne gets hit by a speeding SUV, do they send out officers to stop traffic on Comm Ave and remind them how red lights work? No.

But when there's a chance to attack bicyclists, they send FOUR officers?

What the fuck!

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Were they BUPD? BUPD has been making incursions out into the community to "protect their students," and since the killed rider was a BU undergrad, it wouldn't surprise me if they did that.

It's not really their jurisdiction, but their officers are always polite and professional, unlike BPD, so it's probably a good public service.

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Kid dies after being hit by a bus. "We gotta start hassling these bikers!" Fix the real problem, terrible drivers rushing to make the light. Quit blaming the victim.

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lets see those coppers try to catch me with my new gearing!
http://i.imgur.com/ui6j4.jpg

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nice gearing and backwards fork. looks like a wild ride

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All you have to do is swerve into the cyclist, and then pretend that nothing happened!

What could possibly go wrong with that sort of policy? Hmmmmmm ...

Who says that you can't get away with murder!

Perhaps the rules should be changed, Eurostyle, such that IF you hit/injure someone AND then claim that "gee, I didn't know", it means an AUTOMATIC suspension and firing.

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Can we do it with murder, too? Due process is such a hardship. Much easier to lock someone up if the cops have a hunch he's dirty.

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Yes and he must have used his bus driver millions to bribe the passengers to say they didn't see or notice anything either.

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about the BUS FULL OF WITNESSES in your rush to convict the guy just because he's a bus driver.

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1. I didn't say jail or execute the driver.
2. Due process is about criminal prosecution.
3. You have a right to due process when you are being prosecuted; you have no such right against being fired or having your license revoked.
4. You have no right to drive, right to a driver's license, or right to keep a particular job.
5. It is not unreasonable to expect that a driver would know something happened when passengers, who are less familiar with the handling and driving of buses, didn't detect it.

Now that that is clear, explain to me how we prevent a driver from 1)intentionally murdering a cyclist or pedestrian or 2) killing a pedestrian or a cyclist while driving carelessly and getting away with it, if they seem to be so magically and automatically exempt from laws about leaving the scene of an accident AND can just say "gee, I had no idea that I KILLED SOMEBODY"... my bad!

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1. No, you just said "automatic suspension and firing." Putting aside the redundancy of the first in light of the second, you propose an adverse consequence to an event that may have occurred through no fault of the operator and without his or her knowledge.

2. Due process is not "about criminal proceedings." It's a civil protection as well. It's further afforded to employees of many agencies, perhaps including the MBTA, whose employees have a right to protection from retaliatory firing or capricious discipline or termination, which is exactly what you're describing.

3. See #2.

4. No one is claiming such a right, but someone (you!) is claiming the right to suspend and fire a person for an unintentional action they don't know they committed or maybe didn't even commit.

5. This reminds me of something that anti-cycling provocateur, who pretends to be a bike advocate but tells people not to wear helmets because their safety is someone else's responsibility and all bus drivers are murderers without exception, said. It was something like, cyclists are so attuned to their bikes that they don't need to look where they're going and can just feel the force running through them. Maybe bus drivers have it, too, or maybe you're suggesting that a person at the front end of a bus would have a better idea of whether he or she ran something over than a person sitting directly above the wheelwell.

I'm not a cop and probably not the best person to teach detective skills, but it seems to me that the perfect crime you're descriving would be solved the way every other crime is solved, which is evidence and witnesses and not an immediate presumption that someone is a murderer because you don't like bus drivers.

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I think I'll fire a few rounds into your house ... I can't be expected to be aware of whether I actually hit somebody. That would be ... responsibility?

God forbid that I be expected to be a responsible gun owner.

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That's horrible logic. Just stop trying. You are making no sense.

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Firing a gun into a house is a crime. Driving is not. If you don't know the difference, I can't help you.

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I understand that your frustrated by these accidents. However, accidents demand an investigation about it's cause. To reflexively start firing people as the first step is hardly the way to go.

1. I didn't say jail or execute the driver.
2. Due process is about criminal prosecution.
3. You have a right to due process when you are being prosecuted; you have no such right against being fired or having your license revoked.
4. You have no right to drive, right to a driver's license, or right to keep a particular job.

You are right, there are not many legal worker rights in Mass or on the Federal level. As a citizen however who believes in corrective action being used only for factual occurrences. It goes without saying that only the resultes of an investigation provide the best chance of obtaining those facts.

If we don't have rights to a driver's license, there are rules governing their suspension that again revolve around investigative results.

In my world, and I think most people would agree with me, loosing one's employment and/or driver's license is indeed a punishment that carries major consequences.

To automatically suspend and terminate without an investigation is simply reacting to the emotion involved. It does not allow for those accidents where the cyclist would be at fault, but automatically punishes the motor vehicle driver.

5. It is not unreasonable to expect that a driver would know something happened when passengers, who are less familiar with the handling and driving of buses, didn't detect it.

Accidents come in many different flavors so its' very imaginable. Once scenario is a narrowing street near a busy intersection with several merging streams of car traffic where an aggressive cyclist decides that he's going to fly by the bus in the right, hits the side of the bus with the left side of his handlebar and is knocked over, falling under the rear wheels of the bus.

(I write this as a former cyclist who rode over 10k miles/year for over a decade)

Now that that is clear, explain to me how we prevent a driver from 1)intentionally murdering a cyclist or pedestrian or 2) killing a pedestrian or a cyclist while driving carelessly and getting away with it, if they seem to be so magically and automatically exempt from laws about leaving the scene of an accident AND can just say "gee, I had no idea that I KILLED SOMEBODY"... my bad!

1) People who commit homicide are a problem. I think that they also are exceedingly rare. I think that if you rethink your impassioned question here.

2) Negligence is another matter, that is more likely. I would suspect that given the distinct size, shape and markings of an MBTA bus, number of witnesses in the area along with those who are passengers that the likelihood of a driver successfully getting away is not really a problem.

I don't think any policy that is based on one side is always right, the other is always wrong is going to serve society well.

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Both buses and trains, and I am really tired and offended by your constant carping that drivers are "1)intentionally murdering a cyclist or pedestrian or 2) killing a pedestrian or a cyclist while driving carelessly and getting away with it" Also offensive is your assumption that the driver was flippant upon hearing the news he had struck someone. In my admitted limited experience with vehicle accidents I know of no one who would have responded to the news of a death with a MY BAD!

Considering the miles they drive every day the ratio of accidents to vehicle miles driven is low. Not perfect, and it never will be. While I don't know this driver personally, trust me he did not get in his bus intending to hit any one or any thing. As hard as it might be for you to believe there is no secret incentive to drivers to strike anything. No big sheet in the bus barn keeping track of persons injured or killed. No morning briefing with a requirement that X number of property damage must be done, or a incentive plan based on the number of people injured.

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I sleep with the son of a long-time bus driver and carman's union chief ... and have for nearly 30 years. Many members of both my and my husband's families have been bus and truck drivers.

He ain't buying the "just didn't know" either.

Either the T has to improve its buses, retrain its drivers, or somebody will get killed again.

Either the T has to remove this huge incentive to hit, run, and stay quiet to avoid a proper inquiry or consequences, or we will see more dead cyclists.

Hit and run should never be excused by "gee, I didn't know". Professional drivers paid as much as these folks are should be, well, driving professionally. Period.

I'm tired of you dropping in on threads covering situations you can't know much about from your suburban troll hut that you never leave, and utterly offended by your pseudo outrage "on behalf of others". Go get on a bike and ride the bike lanes of the city and see how long it is before you get buzzed or hooked by an overtaking bus with a driver too impatient to follow the basic driving laws.

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Do you really want presumption of guilt?

I prefer to see if there were any witnesses, like any other judicairy process her in the USA. I prefer to know the circumstances of the accident, what led up to it. Like any other vehicle accident, it deserves to have some type of process to see how it happened. Then, you can decide who is at fault and whether someone should get fired, fined, etc.

FWIW, I'm an avid cyclist.

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Is that not a crime?

Are there any other states where "gee I didn't know" will get you out of a hit-and-run?

I'm sure there are more than a few drunks who could say "gee, I didn't know that ..."

Is that what we want?

As it stands, drivers now have no reason to stop if there is nobody on the bus or nobody on the bus who saw what happened.

Is that what we want?

As it stands, we have an MBTA with no incentive to train drivers in proper passing of cyclists - who DO have the right of way when being overtaken.

Is that what we want?

As it stands, we have an MBTA with no incentive to properly equip buses such that the drivers can actually operate them with some awareness of what/who is around them.

Is that what we want?

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The driver has to know there was an accident to be charged with leaving an accident.

Meanwhile, you need proof that there was wrongdoing, like any other process, legal or otherwise. It can really suck sometimes, I know, but you need proof. Why should this situation be any different? Man, I would hate to have someone accuse me of hitting them and go to jail just because of your logic. I go to jail because some cyclist does something stupid I don't even see, and ends up under my rear tire? I want proof that I did something wrong.

Stop the witch hunt. And as is usually the case, you (and the rest of us), have no idea what happened.

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And isn't that the problem? We have people getting killed by buses and, somehow we "just don't know what happened". So we can't do anything about it, and people will continue to be killed because "we just don't know".

If so, then "just don't know" is a problem in and of itself.

And "just don't know" will continue to be a problem because 1) the bus drivers have NO incentive to cooperate or own up to a rundown and 2) we have people operating buses who have no incentive to look where they are going.

Lovely.

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It was stated that the bus in question did not have cameras, as many MBTA buss now do. But perhaps a traffic camera or nearby security cameras captured the accident, and showed investigators that there as a very good chance the bus driver indeed saw nothing, especially if the contact was with the rear wheels.
You seem to know that the contact must have been with the front of the bus, the driver must have seen it, and just kept driving. I have seen no information released to confirm that is what happenned. Do you have more data you are not sharing? There are lots of locations on a moving 40-foot bus to make contact with a bike, and not all of them are in clear spots for the person driving the bus to see.

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Based on the positioning of the accident, and the experience many bike riders have had of being cheese gratered by the 57 bus drivers, the assumption (and I admit it is just that) is that the bus driver saw the rider as he overtook said rider, but did not leave enough room between his bus and the side of the road when passing. So while he may not have seen the rider get struck he had to have known he was dangerously close to said rider. Indeed the only legal way for him to pass the rider would have been to switch lanes all the way over to the left which did not happen.

Now this is all based on peoples educated guesses since there is no footage, being made public anyhow, of the incident. But those guesses are based on the positioning of the accident, known information about 57 bus route and typical driver actions. So they are not necessarily baseless.

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They are still guesses. And you don't fire, prosecute, condemn, etc. someone on a guess,as educated as that guess may be.

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If your world view scares me or makes me feel pity for you? Do you really thing that bus drivers are out there looking to hurt people? There are PLENTY of incentives for drivers to operate as safely as possible, starting with their being fellow human beings.

If your world view was true we would be having daily bus accidents, this is Boston not Death Race 2012

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What you say may hold true for most bus drivers, but not most 57 bus drivers. Brighton and Comm Ave is Death Race 2012.

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You seem to think the MBTA assigns drivers to specific routes for their entire career. There are several garages and drivers pick their work based on seniority quarterly. Its not even unusual for a driver to be on different routes in their first and second parts of their daily assignment. The driver on the Route 57 bus in the evening can be driving a Route 59 trip in Needham in the morning. Perhaps it is not a different breed of driver on the route as you perceive it, but different types of roadway conditions.

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First, how hard is it to log-in after writing so many paragraphs?

Second, as charismatic of this rhetorical style of this post, your response is still a call for presumption of guilt.

A few days ago, you gave of of your many high-minded lectures you like to give, that time on the justice system presumption of innocence.

Like or not, it is quite plausible to get hit in the backside of the bus and the driver on the other end would not notice it. It is a particular reality when I was riding on campus at BU, you do not want to be near the bus. Not because the driver is terrible and/or evil driver (usually), but it is very error prone position and getting hit in a certain end may mean the driver may not seen or heard anything at all.

In other words, no matter the training or experience, any one of us can make the same mistake with a bus. Unlike your analogy to a drunk driver where you can test and prove being inebriated and hitting with a car is noticeable no matter what part is hit. Hit and Run means being aware of hitting a victim and choosing to leave the person at the road. Bus does carry the possibility of not noticing the hit.

Even as a biker, I cannot call for his head unless I know he knew he hit something and intentionally decided to leave him for dead.

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I'm not talking about the justice system. I've made that clear.

If you don't know the difference, I can't help you.

The MBTA doesn't have "due process" for firing cel-phone users and sleepers. It doesn't need it to disincentivize killing and driving away.

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The direct post I replied to used "hit-and-run", "leaving the scene of an accident", "is not a crime", and "more than a few drunks". Each of those implies criminal proceedings. You may initiate your premise for employer action, but you are using a lot of arguments of justice proceedings.

Also license suspension is a due process type of action.

And can you ever stop snaky lines like "If you don't know the difference, I can't help you."

Unlike cell phones, sleepers, and shooting guns at houses, where you have to deliberate action to make a call, close you eyes on the job, or pull a trigger. It is actually possible to unintentionally hit someone with a bus. Surely you been in moments of being way too close to a bus. You must have noticed before that between the pulling in and out of stops, roar of the engine, and geometry of a bus you can get hit no one in the bus can notice.

Thus is why you can compare this event and your analogies.

Calm down and reread PeterGriffth5's response. We both biked down the same roads of Boston and seen the same dangers. In an ideal world, no one wants a death nor any accident. Everyone agrees that if a person deliberately hit someone or deliberately leave the person for dead, it warrants punishment.

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You know nothing about how the MBTA operates. Since you don't want to know, I can't help you either.

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And you know this, how?

I'd wonder if you had visited a fortune teller, but maybe you are one. I hear it is a pretty common "profession" in that famous north shore town you never leave. Strange how you seem to think you know something about living in Boston.

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One day when you get off Bath Salts you should read your baseless claims and absurd rants on this thread.

Also in the future please excuse yourself from any requests to sit on a jury.

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The BPD would need a force 10x it's current size to catch all of the traffic violations that occur in the city on any given week.

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Instead we're burying a kid.

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People on bikes die in accidents

People in cars die in accidents.

Dead is dead and pointless bickering over who the biggest group of assholes are doesn't change that fact. You don't like it, move to fucking Vermont and get out of the big city.

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Contacting your state legislators and requesting that hearings be held on what the MBTA is going to do about the fact that their drivers and buses are killing people and nobody is being held accountable.

In other words, what are they going to do to both prevent these accidents ... and to remove the incentives for drivers to just not stop when they hit someone because they now know they can just say they didn't know and DERRRRRP! and get away with it.

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And to what end? As someone who sat in horror as an MBTA bus ripped up the entire driver's side of a Town Car I was driving as we both refused to give an inch while trying to squeeze into that little island on the right at Packard's Corner, you didn't see me asking for hearings.

Or maybe I should be asking for hearings into that 16 year old girl who T-boned me last July when she ran a red light while texting at the corner of Mt. Auburn and Belmont Streets. That sent me to the hospital.

Your argument is that hearings should be held to discuss how to prevent accidents. You ask for legislators to hold hearings to prevent the unpreventable. And as far as I know, unless the T has started Death Race 2000, I can think of no incentives they offer to their drivers for killing people.

And unless the T has a collection of sociopaths on the road, I'm sure that person's death weighs just a little teeny bit in the conscience of that driver.

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Drop your arse on it, ride it in the MBTA service area. Do it only in bike lanes, if you want ... and you will understand why I think we need hearings.

We need them because cyclists constantly report buses "buzzing" them, even in marked bike lanes and the MBTA does nothing.

We need them because people are being killed by buses and "nobody knows how it happened".

We need them because the MBTA and its drivers have no incentive to change the situations which are resulting in these deaths because there are no consequences for the driver or the MBTA if they can simply say "didn't even know there was an accident" and drive away.

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is the stationary one at the gym. I fail to see the logic in driving anything in the city that does not have a couple of tons of steel protecting me. And even that isn't enough.

You want to ride a bike in the city, you also assume the huge risk. Hearings will never change that.

For example, all of those cops that were at the corner of Harvard and Brighton were gone last night around 8:30. I say that because apparently I wasn't driving fast enough for the guy in the Escalade pick up truck who blew by me at those lights last night so he could do 50 mph to get to that next red light at Cambridge Street.

So there's that.

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For example, all of those cops that were at the corner of Harvard and Brighton were gone last night around 8:30. I say that because apparently I wasn't driving fast enough for the guy in the Escalade pick up truck who blew by me at those lights last night so he could do 50 mph to get to that next red light at Cambridge Street.

You actually think the cops would do something about that if they were there?

I doubt it.

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"No, ma'am, you're boy wasn't murdered. The bus driver didn't even know he'd killed him."

Doesn't that just make this negligent manslaughter instead of homicide?

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So, you want to presume guilty, too?
I can think of a number of scenarios where the cyclist does something, the bus runs him/her over, and the driver has no idea what happened. But you just want to ignore all that and string the driver up? Sure, let's have a lynch mob even though we (you included) have no idea what happened.

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Unlike some of the calls here for hearings and fears of incentives to run over bikers when being a bus driver, I'm not going to assume malice.

Putting disincentives only works if the actions are done deliberately. And I'm not going to assume the driver was being deliberately kill the biker or deliberately negligent to cause this. Like I pointed earlier, between the noise, blind spots, and geometry, the bus driver can hit someone and not know it. I'm sure many of us have biked near a bus and noticed the possibility of being hit and in an area where the bus driver could not have noticed.

Thus, it is rather hard to change behavior where there is no "bad" behavior to change. Unless we categorize driving in any form as bad.

So I can see two things that can help.

First is camera (and sensor). Increasingly in luxury cars, they have sensors and cameras that alert to objects in blind spots. This may allow the bus driver to be aware of dangers in the angle that is hard to note. At the very least, it will allow more onus to the driver and allows us to the intentional from the accidental.

Second is cycle tracks. Brighton Ave and Comm Ave actually can fit it. The sacrifice might mean a narrow median and no trees to keep the sidewalk wide enough to have a road to fit in bike lanes and lanes that uses parked cars to give protection. As annoying as Mark is, I am willing to concede the bulb can be made to better use to pulling it back for the said semi-separated lane too.

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There's a lot of discussion on this thread about bus drivers overtaking bicyclists, and the fact that this particular bus driver MUST have known that he hit this guy. However, nobody has brought up a possibility that I experience frequently while commuting as a bus passenger: the bicyclist may have overtaken the bus on the right, and been clipped by the back end of the bus. I've seen bicyclists pass my bus in a space barely wider than their handlebars. I once saw someone pass in a space so tight he couldn't actually pedal - he inched himself past the bus with his palms planted on the sides of parked cars. If something like that happened, it's entirely plausible that the driver and passengers were unaware of the accident.

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Informal report from the police is that two witnesses saw the bicyclist weaving erratically prior to the accident, and then he was caught up in the rear wheel of the bus as it passed him. Don't have any further info than that, sorry.

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