Accident Reconstruction Wins The Day For Injured Chicago Cyclist

My client and I had a problem.  The young man who hired our firm had a separated shoulder after getting hit by a taxi.  That was his biggest worry.  My concern, however, was how to demonstrate the cab driver's negligence.  You see, the bicyclist was not completely without fault in the matter.

On January 6, 2013 at around 12:30 a.m. the male bicyclist was riding home from a friend's house in the shared bike lane north along the 3300 block of North Damen Avenue when the taxi, which had been stopped along the curb, suddenly pulled out in front of him.  The cyclist could not avoid striking the front wheel well of the cab.  The cyclist had had a few beers, though he was not drunk.  He was also riding without a front headlight on his bike, a clear violation of the Illinois Vehicle Code.  He was also wearing dark clothing.  Yeah, we had problems.  I was not worried about the beers.  I had no reason to believe that that contributed to cause the crash.  The folks at the hospital did not feel the need to draw his blood to run a toxicology screen.  The defense would have no admissible evidence regarding intoxication we needed to worry about.  But his lack of a headlight worried me a lot.  I wondered, had the taxi driver looked in his mirror before pulling from the curb, could he have seen the cyclist?  I decided to find out.

A few weeks after the crash the client and I, with the help of Aaron Bussey of LOOK! Chicago and Elizabeth Adamczyk of Ride of Silence who graciously offered up their time, went out to the scene of the crash to investigate.  The plan was to replicate the conditions of the crash as closely as possible.  We brought the client's bike, absent any lights.  Aaron would play the part of the cyclist and wore the same sort of dark clothing worn by the cyclist on the night of the crash.  I parked my car in the same spot the taxi had occupied.  Elizabeth sat in the driver's seat with a video camera pointed at the vehicle's side view mirror. Outside of the vehicle I yelled, "Action!" (I always wanted to do that) and Aaron tracked the same route the cyclist had on the night of the crash, riding in the bike lane.  The video below shows the results of our test:

The bicyclist would have been more visible if he had a light on his bike.  But, the video demonstrates that had the driver looked he certainly could have seen him.  The area was very well lit due to the presence of street lights and a gas station across the street.  I would argue that since the driver would be pulling from the curb into a portion of roadway marked for bicycle traffic that he should have carefully looked for cyclists in the area.

The taxi company's insurer was persuaded by our efforts.  This week, they agreed to a substantial settlement to compensate the cyclist.

I want be perfectly clear that if you are riding in pitch dark without a light on your bike and get tagged by a motor vehicle the mostly likely outcome is that you will not be compensated for any injuries you sustain.  We are good lawyers, but we are not miracle workers.  However, drivers and insurance companies should understand that a lack of lighting does not necessarily preclude liability for harming a cyclist.  In big cities like Chicago there is ample lighting on most main roads at night.  Drivers have a duty to look -- not just glance -- but look for cyclists at night.

What Really Happened To Chicago Bicyclist "Rescued" By The Mayor

The Chicago bicyclist who was struck by a turning tanker truck on North Milwaukee Avenue last Tuesday is grateful to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, his security staff and the numerous other nearby cyclists who immediately came to her aid.  Today, our law firm was retained by the injured woman to represent her against the driver.

Some media sources covering this story focused primarily on the Mayor's involvement, and were cavalier or dismissive about the bicyclist's injuries and the facts of the crash.  Prior to the collision, the 29 year old female cyclist was riding southeast on Milwaukee Avenue.  She stopped in the clearly marked, dedicated bicycle lane when she reached the red light at intersection with West Ogden.  At that location, there is a right turn lane next to the curb, a four foot wide bike lane and a through lane.  The cyclist waited at the light with the huge truck stopped to her left in the through lane.  There was one cyclist ahead of her at the light.  When the light turned green she proceeded.  The truck driver, apparently not noticing the cyclists next to him, swung his vehicle right onto Ogden.  When he did, the truck's front wheels slammed into the woman.  The rider was thrown to the ground and under the truck.  The driver apparently did not realize what had happened and continued forward.  Numerous nearby cyclists shouted and banged on the truck to get the driver to stop.  Luckily he did before the truck's rear wheels rolled over the downed rider.

The video below was recorded by the dash board camera of a witness traveling in the opposite direction, northwest on Milwaukee. The tanker truck is clearly seen turning right from the through-only lane, its front wheels striking the cyclist in light colored clothing.  The video captures well the enormous amount of bicycle traffic along Milwaukee Avenue at that time of day.

As has been reported, the Mayor was nearby in a coffee shop and came running when he heard the crash. He comforted the woman and brought her to his vehicle, giving her water and a chance to collect herself. Medical personnel arrived quickly to the scene and tended to deep, bloody cuts to her left leg.  Her right shoulder was painful and becoming hard to move.  The Mayor asked a member of his security detail to drive her to the hospital.  She was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital right away.  She was diagnosed with a separated right shoulder and a fracture.  The wounds to her left leg were stitched closed and dressed.

Despite media reports to the contrary, Chicago police made a report of the crash.

The injured cyclist is still receiving medical care.  Later this week she will have the stitches removed from her injured leg.  Her right arm is immobilized and painful.  She will follow up with an orthopedic physician.

IDOT Driver Strikes, Injures Pregnant Chicago Woman Riding Divvy Bike

Life was good when the 34 year old woman left her East Village home on the morning of September 3rd. It was warm and sunny as she checked out a Divvy bike from a station near her home.  She planned a leisurely ride to her office on Michigan Avenue where she worked as a financial planner.  She learned the day before that she was pregnant with her and her husband's second child.  She felt great.

A driver with the Illinois Department of Transportation spoiled her serenity when he slammed his truck into her.  The woman was hit as she pedaled east on West Augusta Boulevard in the intersection with North Ashland Avenue.  She had been riding in dedicated bicycle lane on Augusta.  Just after she crossed into the intersection, the traffic light controlling eastbound traffic turned from green to yellow. She entered the intersection legally.  She pedaled across Ashland's two southbound lanes.  In most Chicago intersections it takes three seconds for a traffic signal to go from yellow to red.  After she crossed the center line, the northbound driver, who had not stopped at the intersection, crashed into her right side, throwing her several feet.  

The bicyclist was knocked unconscious by the impact and suffered deep wounds to her face and other parts of her body.  Her right foot was fractured.  An ambulance arrived quickly and rushed her to Resurrection Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center nearby.  Numerous tests thankfully ruled out a major head injury. The helmet she was wearing probably had something to do with that. Also, her pregnancy, thus far, seems unaffected, though the fear and anxiety she is experiencing cannot be understated.

The Divvy bike was demolished.

Our law firm has been retained to represent the bicyclist.

Investigation Continues Into the Attack On Chicago Cyclist, Jana Kinsman

The media fury has died down, but the affects of being attacked by persons in an SUV while biking in the Logan Square neighborhood linger for Chicago cyclist, Jana Kinsman.  The 27 year old owner of Bike A Bee was the victim of what police are calling an aggravated battery as she rode her bike north, near the intersection of North Kimball Avenue and West Wrightwood Avenue , just after midnight on August 20th. 

The driver and passengers that attacked Jana are still being sought.  The vehicle involved was a maroon colored Chevy Tahoe, or similar vehicle.  A witness at the scene identified the vehicle as a Tahoe specifically. There are a lot a maroon Tahoes in Chicago (start looking for them and you'll notice).  However, the vehicle involved as some distinguishing characteristics.  It has thin, gold pin striping just under the side windows.  It does not have a roof rack.  It has four doors.  Its vintage is not known, but it appears to have rounded features, suggesting that it is not a very old vehicle.  Here are stills taken from two known videos of the SUV:

The maroon SUV at the intersection of Kimball, Diversey
and Milwaukee shortly after the attack.

The vehicle just north of Kimball and Wrightwood fleeing the
scene, courtesy DNAInfo

The bottom photograph is from video taken by a security camera attached to the outside of a pre-school at the intersection where the attack occurred.  Jana was pulled to the ground by a passenger in the rear of the truck who had grabbed her messenger bag as she rode north on the right side of Kimball.  The top photograph is a still from video shot by the red light camera several block north.  In it, the vehicle is seen making a right turn onto either West Diversey Avenue or North Milwaukee Avenue.  Because it did not run the red light at that intersection, the red light camera did not photograph the vehicle's license plate.  Jana has confirmed that the vehicle shown in both screen captures above are the vehicle involved in the attack.

Chicago police seem to be taking this matter seriously.  They are treating this matter as an aggravated battery rather than a simple hit and run.  As a result, the CPD has assigned two detectives to investigate the matter. Jana and I met with them on August 23rd.  We looked at the red light camera footage together.  After Jana identified the vehicle in the video, the detectives told us they would obtain additional footage from other cameras, essentially following the vehicle through the city to the driver's eventual destination.  The hope is that once the vehicle is found, we will have the driver.

A few days after the incident, we thought we had identified and located the driver.  A friend of Jana's photographed a maroon Tahoe parked near the site.  We ran the plates and obtained the name and address of the vehicle's owner.  Police questioned the man and ruled him out as a suspect.  Also, his vehicle had a roof rack, a feature which appears to be absent on the vehicle involved.

Many people have sent us emails inquiring about the possibility that there is a link between the attack on Jana and a hit and run fatality that took place in the Rogers Park neighborhood several hours earlier.  On August 19th at around 6:20 p.m. an 83 year old man was struck and killed by the driver of a maroon SUV which may have been a Chevy Tahoe or Suburban.  The driver fled the scene and has not yet been located.  There is no reason I am aware of to believe that the two incidents involved the same vehicle or driver other than the fact that both vehicles involved were maroon SUVs.  Here is a photo of that vehicle taken from a red light camera near Rockwell Street and Peterson Avenue:

Photo of the vehicle involved in the Rogers Park incident.
Courtesy The Chicago Tribune

While we would appreciate any tips that can be offered by the general public, please bear in mind that the persons responsible for the attack on Jana may be dangerous.  Do not put yourself at risk.  If you have a tip, we can be reached at 312.629.1901 or via email at brendan@fklawillinois.com.

10 Year Old Peoria Boy With Head and Facial Injuries After Being Struck By Driver While Riding His Bicycle

A 10 year old Peoria boy was in serious condition yesterday afternoon after being struck by a pickup truck while riding his bicycle on a residential road, according to The Peoria Journal Star.  The incident occurred around 3:35 p.m. yesterday in the 800 North of North Dechman Avenue in Peoria.  The boy was reportedly hit while attempting to cross the narrow street after exiting an alley, according to the Journal Star.  His injuries are apparently not life threatening, though a "chunk of skin near the boy's lip was missing and his face was covered in blood from a gash on his head," noted the Journal Star.

Police are still investigating the matter.  It is not clear how the crash occurred.

Clarity Spreads: All Illinois Bicyclists May Pass Slower Vehicles On The Right

Governor Pat Quinn has signed a bill that that makes it clear that all Illinois bicyclists may pass stopped or slow moving vehicles on the right.  The bill was signed on August 16th and goes into effect on January 1, 2014.  It sailed through the Illinois House and Senate and made it to the governor's desk thanks to the strong backing it had from the Active Transportation Alliance and its sponsors, State Representative Laura Fine of Glenview and Senator Thomas Cullerton of Villa Park.

The bill, a one sentence fix added to a portion of the Illinois Vehicle Code, was proposed and written by me after one of our clients was ticketed by Chicago police after she was doored by a vehicle passenger as she passed the car on the right.  She was pregnant at the time of the crash.  Though she was riding causiously she received a citation due to confusion over the law on the part of the officer that wrote the ticket. Her case was brought to the public's attention thanks to a post by Ken Griffith at Chi.StreetsBlog.Org:

Lilly was lying in the trauma unit at Northwestern Memorial. (For anonymity, she that asked we only use her nickname.) She’d been doored on Lincoln Avenue on her morning bike commute, and now doctors were swarming around her, trying to determine if her pregnancy, then five months along, was at risk. 

That’s when the police officer who had responded at the crash scene walked in to drop off the incident report and to let Lilly, 30, know that — by the way — she was at fault for the crash. Her heart-rate monitor began beeping furiously — how could she be at fault? She’d been riding in the shared [bike] lane on Lincoln, passing between the line of stopped traffic and the line of parked cars, when a passenger in one of the cars idling in the traffic lane swung his door open straight into her bike, sending her spinning into the pavement.

The new legislative fix clears up the confusion over whether a section of the Illinois Motor Vehicle Code, allowing for right-sided passing only when eight feet of space is available in which to do so, applied to bicyclists. Rarely will there be eight feet available between slowed and standing motor vehicle traffic and vehicles parallel parked along the right curb, at least in urban areas.  Thus the law as it was seemed to bar passing on the right in many if not most circumstances available to the urban  and in-town bicyclist; a prohibition that would likely make travel by bike nearly as much of a teeth grinding slog as is driving a car in traffic.  The statute at issue was Section 11-704(b) of the Illinois Vehicle Code which stated:

The driver of a 2 wheeled vehicle may not pass upon the right of any other vehicle proceeding in the same direction unless the unobstructed pavement to the right of the vehicle being passed is of a width of not less than 8 feet.  625 ILCS 5/11-704(b)

It may have seemed reasonable at first to consider a bicycle a "2 wheeled vehicle."  After all, in many instances the Vehicle Code treats the bicycle as just another vehicle.  Section 11-1502 states that, "Every person riding a bicycle upon a highway shall be granted all of the rights and shall be subject to all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle by this Code..."  

Unfortunately, however, some had ended their analysis of the law there, creating confusion that lead to Lilly getting a ticket.  Our Vehicle Code may grant bicyclists many of the same rights as drivers, but it explicitly distinguishes what is a "vehicle" and what is not. The Code defines the term "vehicle" in Section 1-217 as, "Every device, in, upon or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a highway or requiring a certificate of title. . ., except devices moved by human power. . ." (emphasis added).  Further, Section 1-106 defines a "bicycle" as, "Every device propelled by human power upon which any person may ride, having two tandem wheels except scooters and similar devices."  A bicycle, therefore, is not - and never was - a vehicle under the Code.  Hence, Section 11-704(b)'s "eight foot rule" could only have applied to motorized two wheeled devices, motorcycles, scooters, mopeds and the like.  There was legal precedent for this reading of the law as I documented in a post about this issue earlier this year.  But a simple clarification to be added to Section 11-704(b) seemed like the best and most practical solution to ensure that no other injured bicyclists would be ticketed unnecessarily.

Ron Burke and Max Muller, Active Trans' executive director and director of government relations, respectively, and I discussed how to fix the law.  We decided on a single sentence:  "This subsection does not apply to devices propelled by human power."  Simple, we all agreed, would be best.  There would be no need to reference other parts of the Code or reach for legislature intent.  The language succinctly spoke for itself.

Earlier this summer, Chicago passed an ordinance that similarly clarified application of the eight-foot-rule within the City's borders.  Now, as Max wrote in a blog post yesterday, all "Illinoisans riding bicycles may confidently pass slow-moving cars on the right side of the road and know that they are on solid ground legally."

As for Lilly's case, it is ongoing.  The driver's insurance company rejected her claim because she was ticketed in the crash.  A lawsuit has been filed and we intend to take the matter to trial if necessary.

Chicago's Dearborn Bike Lane: More of This, Less of That

I hate it when cyclists run red lights.

That statement may seem strange coming from someone who advocates for a change in the law, permitting bicyclists to treat stop as yield.  I have admitted publicly to being selective when it comes to halting at traffic control devices.  Like many cyclists, I make my choices based on traffic conditions, and usually when I stop and another cyclist chooses to go, I do not cast aspersions.  Riding in Chicago traffic is tricky and despite advances, most of the roadway infrastructure was not built and is not maintained with us in mind.  The individual bicyclist must make choices based upon his or her experience and the conditions at a given moment, notwithstanding what the law is.  (Warning:  Though I may not get all judgy about your conduct, if you get hit by a car while violating the law, you may be screwed when it comes to receiving compensation later.)

However, there is one place in the city where I find myself getting pissed-off when I see a cyclist running a red light, the Dearborn Bike Lane.  That is one bit of road that was built for us and actually feels like it, so let's be good boys and girls when riding in it.  It separates bikes from motor vehicle traffic and provides cyclists with two lanes so it can be used to go north and south.  Its location is great, right in the heart of The Loop so you can use it to get somewhere you really need to go, like work.  Its location does not feel like a scrap thrown at cyclists; like, Here's a mile of bike lane in a commercial dead zone.  To me, it has come to represent a real commitment by our city to change our infrastructure for the better.  Most of all, I love the traffic lights at the streets that intersect the lane.  They are designed and timed for cyclists.  A little green bicycle illuminates indicating that it is okay to proceed, while red arrows warn motorists that turning across the bike lane is a no-no.  It all makes sense, and that is important.  Because the design feels right I never feel the slightest urge to pedal through a red light.  Apparently, many of my fellow cyclists feel the same way.  Earlier in the summer The Chicago Tribune reported that since installation of the Dearborn Bike Lane's bike friendly traffic lights, the number of cyclists obeying the traffic signals increased by 161%.  In the piece, Chicago Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein observed that, "Cyclists will really abide by a signal if they have one."  Lee Crandell of the Active Transportaion Alliance added that, "It's important to have infrastructure that speaks to people who are biking. Otherwise, they feel the roadway was not designed for them."

Yes.

The Dearborn Bike Lane is not the only new infrastructure in Chicago created for cyclists.  There are other protected bikes lanes.  But some of those lanes, or parts of them, do not make sense.  As a result I often see bicyclists who use them break the law, or, worse, get hit by a car while following the law.  For example, in the Kinzie protected bike lane there is a stop sign attached to the outer wall of the Merchandise Mart's parking structure at the T-intersection with North Franklin. Under the law, cyclists must stop at that sign.  None do, and none ever will.  There is no pedestrian crossing there and no reason for a motor vehicle to ever cross the Kinzie bike lane at that location. The sign is a vestigial appendage from before the bike lane was installed.  It should be removed. Every time a bicyclist runs it - which is often - nearby motorists likely view that cyclist as an outlaw.  That is not good for the growth and image of cycling in Chicago.  Another example of bike specific infrastructure design that does not make sense is in the protected bike lane at 18th Street and Wentworth.  That intersection is completely uncontrolled, but should be in order to protect cyclists.  A lot of motor vehicle traffic crosses the 18th Street bike lane at that location. Crashes and near crashes are apparently prevalent there.  Cyclists using the lane have reason to feel that at least that portion of the lane was not created with their safety in mind.  A bike friendly traffic light at that location, a la Dearborn, would go a long way toward fixing that problem.

Dearborn is not perfect.  There are problems that need to be fixed.  The pavement is chewed up in places and tends to accumulate water and, in the winter, ice.  Pedestrians still tend to wander aimlessly into the path of cyclists there.  A more permanent barrier between cars and bikes is needed to provide greater protection from motor vehicles that may wander into the lane.  Such fixtures may also provide greater awareness to pedestrians that a bike lane exists there.  The City is aware of these needs and has expressed a commitment to address them.  But despite the warts, Dearborn just feels like our place, a stretch of road - real road, not a path - for bikes.  So fellow cyclists, please do not run the lights there.  To the City:  More please!