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Bicyclist struck by police cruiser

Boston Police report they are investigating a collision Tuesday morning between a 63-year-old man on a bicycle and a police officer in a cruiser on New Chardon Street. Both were taken to local hospitals, both are expected to survive.

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Comments

My only regret is that I am going to be travelling most of the day and can read regular trollisms. Bring it on folks!

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Both were taken to the hospital?

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How do you expect the cop to file for disability from the emotional trauma without a doctor's note?

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The How-to-Claim-Disability handbook, of course.

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My guess is the bike went through the windshield and hit the trooper.

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Was there a state trooper in the Boston Police cruiser that was involved in the accident? Are the state police investigating the accident because a Boston police officer was involved?

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If that happened, I am surprised the bicyclist want arrested for assault.

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Is it that difficult to imagine that the officer swerved to avoid the bicyclist and ran his cruiser into something else, injuring himself?

Seems pretty irrational to immediately assume that the officer is trying to milk this for some sort of disability.

But he did hit a bicyclist, which among this site's audience, requires eternal damnation.

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Only the cruiser passenger side mirror was broken, but the cop may have spilled his coffee. The cyclist appeared to have a bloody face and witnesses report his helmet flew off. Cop called ambulance right away. Cyclist reported to be a lawyer. This is gonna cost the taxpayers, the biggest victim in this event.

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Call me crazy, but I think the biggest victim just might be the guy who got hit by the car.

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When the extent of the cyclist's and cop's injuries are compared with costs of emergency response, paid leave, insurance claims, and lawsuit from the lawyer cyclist, we can debate who the loser is. One thing is fairly certain, taxpayers will be paying for most all of it.

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Um, yeah, what's your point? The "taxpayers" pay the police officer's salary. So if he (or she) is negligent and causes injury, the taxpayers pay for his negligence, same as your employer (assuming you have one) would pay for your negligence if you injured someone in the course of your job.

So what's your point? We shouldn't pay for public employees' negligence because it costs money?

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A more extreme case would be the trans-sexual Green line driver smashing up her train while texting her girlfriend. The cost to taxpayers was in the millions of dollars. Other examples could be bad (road) designs that ended up hurting people. If employees had even just a little culpability for their actions, they might be more careful. With public servants who screw up, most can't even get fired. Unlike a texting or sleeping T worker, the cop probably had a genuine accident, though going to the hospital was probably a complete waste of money.

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Hey, if you're arguing that cops who hit cyclists with their cars should be fired, I'm all for it.

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What does the green line driver's gender identity have to do with anything, exactly?

Die in a fire.

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while dying in a fire may be a bit extreme, the details about the T conductor's sexual orientation or who the conductor was texting is not relevant in the slightest.

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ruh roh.

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Is it that difficult to imagine that the officer swerved to avoid the bicyclist

It is kind of difficult, considering that he, you know, hit the cyclist with his car.

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BURN!

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Right, because him hitting the cyclist means theres NO WAY he hit anything else in the process. Come on, use your head.

@kaz - That burning you smell is the gears in Scratchie's brain grinding, trying to wrap his or her head around the concept.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of the way some of our 2-wheeled pedestrian friends think. They read a short blurb of an article about a cop hitting a bicyclist – with no detailed information, mind you –  and automatically assume the following:

1. The bicyclist is in NO WAY at fault. How could he be? He's on a 63-year-old on a bike for Christ's sake! And vulnerable!

2. It's obviously the cop-pig's fault. And he's somehow injured? But he was protected by that big hunk of metal he was driving! He must be trying to get disability...

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Where did I say that the cyclist wasn't at fault? All I said is that it's difficult to imagine the cop avoiding him since he DIDN'T FREAKING AVOID HIM. Stop me if I'm going too fast for you.

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The photo they ran on the Metro shows the car stopped in the middle of the street, both doors flung open. It doesn't appear to have hit anyone or anything else, unless it hit a second car which then fled the scene.

I have no stake in either party's culpability, so I'm neither singing his praises nor calling for his damnation. Just stating what a photo shows, and so far, it shows only a collision between a bike and a cruiser and nothing else.

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Where did it say the officer was a 'he'?

I'm with you on the swerving idea though.

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The bike community is going to castrate this cop with no information about the incident!

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"The cyclist was probably doing something wrong because I see it happen all the time and I never see anyone in a car, let alone a police car, do anything questionable or dangerous!"

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I hope that cop sues that cyclist for stressing him out like that.

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The west end in general is awful for bikes, I'm actually amazed more cops don't hit people. Because you need to be going 70 everywhere you go in your official "duties"....Boston sucks for bikes.

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The statement that "Boston sucks for bikes," like "Boston's winters are brutal" or "Boston has a lot of three-deckers." It's not like a topographical feature. Boston only sucks for bikes--sometimes--because of careless and uneducated drivers (and yes, sometimes cyclists) and a bike infrastructure that's still a work in progress. It's actually something that we can change and a lot of good people are working on making the city safer for cyclists and pedestrians AND drivers.

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Unfortunately, it is sort of just the way we are. The common law around here has always been "you keep out of the way of my car" for as long as cars have been on the roads. Unless the City of Boston is willing to make a concerted effort to change that (as opposed to their half-assed current attempts), it's unlikely to change outside of Cambridge and Somerville.

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I don't drive. And I agree that the infrastructure really doesn't protect us too much. But every accident I've been in has been the result of me being careless or impatient. The same is 100% true of every bike accident I've personally seen and almost 100% true of my cycling friends experience. Yes, there are a few in which the other guy wasn't paying attention or there was a road hazard on a dark path, but when we talk honestly among ourselves we all know the truth. Tickets and traffic stops are for cars, not us. We don't have to worry about insurance premiums going up for bad driving. And there's a shared agreement among us that the rules about lights, signs, crosswalks, etc don't really apply to us or are guidelines rather than something we have to abide by.

Ever since my last crash, which was minor but coincided with a realization that I'm just getting too old to take stupid risks, I've started slowing at yellow lights, yielding at intersections, keeping an eye on the blinkers of the cars I'm riding near, using my mirror, and generally following the rules of the road. I've noticed two things.

First, only about half of my fellow cyclists do this. Some will actually suck their teeth and sigh when they have to slow down and walk their bikes between me and a car so they can ride through the red light we're all stopped at. You know, like I'm the jerk in that situation. Drivers and cyclists will all speed through the yellow-to-red light, but I've only ever seen cyclists just bomb right through a red.

Second, by adding an extra ten minutes to my commute, I can ride more safely, more calmly, and just generally more enjoyably than before. I guess what I'm saying is, if you think "it's unlikely to change" then do that dumbass hippie thing and "be the change you want." If you want to just ride like a jerk and do everything you want anywhere you want, then either move to the middle of nowhere or get a good insurance policy because you're going to get hurt.

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Uh, if your default mode of bicycle riding is "reckless", then obviously when you're in an accident you will have been riding recklessly. When I ride a bike, I stop at red lights and stop signs and obey traffic laws, and generally ride in a cautious manner. And guess what? The two times I've been hit in Boston/Cambridge, I've been riding legally and cautiously. (Once from behind, by a driver who hadn't noticed traffic slowing down, and once being doored when forced to the right by a person encroaching on the Comm Ave bike lane.)

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seconded here.

all my accidents and the majority of the accidents my friends have been in were the fault of the driver, not the bicyclist.

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Adam, how about a Best of Universal Hub comments section like Craigs List? This post is a fantastic candidate!

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Ever since my last crash, which was minor but coincided with a realization that I'm just getting too old to take stupid risks, I've started slowing at yellow lights, yielding at intersections, keeping an eye on the blinkers of the cars I'm riding near, using my mirror, and generally following the rules of the road. I've noticed two things.

Uhh, ever since your last crash? WTF? I just scolded a driver for driving like an asshole and making it hard for all the other drivers, but the same thing goes for bikes: cycling like an asshole makes it harder for the rest of us cyclists.

Drivers and cyclists will all speed through the yellow-to-red light

Nope, plenty of people don't run red lights. Most drivers I know don't run reds, including yellow-to-reds. You just think they do because that's how you drive. Being on a bike should give you a better opportunity to observe cars: while a few may run a red here or there, if you watch, I bet most cars don't run the yellow-to-red.redu

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obviously you don't commute on the parkways - no turn on red? hah! speed through red right after yellow? no problem. block the intersection? you betcha! drive at least 25 mph over the speed limit? doesn't everyone? I especially like the jerks who like to follow the ambulance near longwood immediately after people move over to let them through.

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Thank you. This is like a breath of fresh air.

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I'm probably twice your age. I bike pretty slowly, with a sometimes ridiculous amount of caution, and still, I've had more close calls than I like to think about, mostly because of drivers who are just not aware of what's around them or are too hurried, too distracted, or just idiots. Most of the bike accidents with people I've known have been the result of dooring or other driver inattention. I've seen plenty of idiot, devil-may-care cyclists too and have been hit by one of them but until they start actually killing people in large numbers, I'm going to worry more about drivers.

I still think the "this is just the way we are" attitude is BS-- just an excuse for a lot of idiotic behavior.

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Do you mean the common law (i.e., real law, as set forth in court decisions) or some kind of informal consensus amongst some portion of the population?

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The common law around here has always been "you keep out of the way of my car"

Umm, no, it isn't. You think that's the "consensus" because that's how you drive, but the only reason you can drive that way is that most people drive defensively, with the attitude, "I keep out of the way of your car." When two people who both drive with the attitude, "you keep out of the way of my car," encounter each other, they tend to get into a lot more accidents than the rest of us.

You're just an asshole driver, and think it's ok because everyone else is, too. They're not, and it's not ok.

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I didn't actually say that was how I drive. I said that's the way most people drive around here. Sorry if that offends your delicate sensibilities, but it's reality. Why do you think they call them "Massholes"?

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I'm not saying you meant it like that--I just hate the idea that "hey--that's just the way we are! We suck at driving! Our traffic stinks! Sorry!!"

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I see there is a total lack of respect for law enforcement among some of us.

Amazing how things go back to "normal" a few months after a tragedy, isn't it?

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Not all of us were ready to get down on our knees for the cops after manhunt day. I for one was pretty terrified of the response; militarized police, lock down, warrant less searches, having a citizen find the guy outside the search area, sending a robot with a camera into the boat, only to shoot 300 rounds at an unarmed guy anyway.

Local law enforcement is lucky the whole thing wrapped up quickly before they started shooting anyone wearing a white hat and hoodie, a la the several different Dorner shootouts in LA where they'd just shoot up any random pickup truck.

also, there was a picture of the cruiser, only the mirror was damaged, so it doesn't appear the cop hit anything else.

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It's not a lockdown if they politely request you stay inside and don't take any action against people who decide not to. Really.

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the t was shut down, offices were encouraged to close, we were told to "shelter in place" and I don't believe you were able to leave your house if you were in the search area, and if you did it resulted in guns pointed at you, you being cuffed and searched. Remember the picture of the guy in his cuffed face down in his underwear that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time? so while not officially a lock down, it was effectively one.

Almost a solid rebuttal of one point though. Really.

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Sorry, but could you remind us of all of the folks who were cuffed and searched that day? Aside from that one mysterious guy who was a dead f'ing ringer for the older Tsarnaev brother?

Honestly...anyone who compares anything that happened that week to a "police state" needs to take a quick tour of, oh, I don't know--an actual police state. Syria, maybe.

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here's at least on example Sally. I never said police state, but since you brought it up...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xv6jL1NXQI

"This was part of a larger operation that involved total lockdown of the suburban neighbor to Boston. Roads were barricaded and vehicle traffic was prohibited. A No-Fly Zone was declared over the town. People were "ordered" to stay indoors. Businesses were told not to open. National Guard soldiers helped with the lockdown, and were photographed checking IDs of pedestrians on the streets. All the while, police were performing these disgusting house-to-house searches."

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I live in Watertown and took a walk around my block that day with no problem. The swat team that came to search my apt 1) asked politely and 2)told me I could say no (I said yes).

That's pretty much the reaction I got from neighbors later on that night when it was over, even ones who were asked to evacuate.

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And again, if this is your idea of police brutality, abuse of power, etc. etc. I suggest you talk to some people who have actually experienced it. The idea that Watertown was somehow brutalized or that any residents were in fear of the police is patently absurd.

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People weren't afraid of the police that day because no one knew where the bomber was, despite the fact that he ran off on foot with the ability to carry nothing more than a handgun, which he didn't even have. So the entire city was shut down to find one person.

I didn't say police state, you did, and its certainly not everyday, but on manhunt day it is debatable. Point assult rifles at people in their homes doesn't help your argument much though

http://jimbovard.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/...

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When exactly was the last time you were in Syria Sally?

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or Iran or Saudi Arabia to understand that Watertown residents do not a police state? I don't think so.

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We should never even question that cops are always right.

Because if we ask why this accident happened, and even DARE to include the non-zero possibility that the cop caused it, the terrorists have won!

(resists temptation to Godwin the thread)

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1) I respect most law enforcement officers. There are a crap load of law enforcement activities I don't respect for a wide variety of reasons. But, for the most part, the people doing the jobs they're told to do are reasonable people. My post, that you replied to, was a joke. People you respect can be the butt of jokes. We're all the butt of some joke at some point; we all can give as good as we get. Sometimes, it's even a backwards way of pointing out your respect (this wasn't one of those times). So, you're off base to suggest a total lack of respect based on my post.

2) I'm probably the last person you want to use as an example of things going back to "normal" after the bombing/chase/lockdown (or any other point in time you want to use as an example of people acting differently in their genuflection for law enforcement). I didn't alter my opinion of law enforcement activities as a result of the situation nor my opinion of the officers.

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63 year old cyclist gets hit by police cruiser and suddenly we're talking about the lockdown after the bombing?

I was hoping for "that stupid hipster on a fixie probably ran a red while sipping ice coffee from a mason jar."

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