Austin Cyclist dies after being hit by car--Police say alcohol was contributing factor

Deja vu...

Cyclist dies after being hit by car
Police say alcohol was contributing factor

By Tony Plohetski

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Austin police today are investigating an overnight accident that killed a
man riding a bicycle near downtown.

Police said the man was riding westbound in the 1400 block of West Sixth
Street near Lamar Boulevard when he was struck by a four-door Honda Civic
that was also traveling west. The man, whose name has not been released
pending family notification, died at Brackenridge Hospital a short time
after the 3 a.m. incident.

The driver, Omer B. Sen, 26, left the scene, drove to MoPac Boulevard (Loop
1) and 35th Street and called 911 to report that he had possibly struck
someone on Sixth Street, police said. Officers already had responded based
on information from another 911 caller, police said.

Sen is in custody, and detectives anticipate charging him, police said.
Alcohol is believed to be a contributing factor.

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 01:23:19 GMT, "ie" wrote:

Deja vu...

Cyclist dies after being hit by car
Police say alcohol was contributing factor

By Tony Plohetski

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Austin police today are investigating an overnight accident that killed a
man riding a bicycle near downtown.

Police said the man was riding westbound in the 1400 block of West Sixth
Street near Lamar Boulevard when he was struck by a four-door Honda Civic
that was also traveling west. The man, whose name has not been released
pending family notification, died at Brackenridge Hospital a short time
after the 3 a.m. incident.

The driver, Omer B. Sen, 26, left the scene, drove to MoPac Boulevard (Loop
1) and 35th Street and called 911 to report that he had possibly struck
someone on Sixth Street, police said. Officers already had responded based
on information from another 911 caller, police said.

Sen is in custody, and detectives anticipate charging him, police said.
Alcohol is believed to be a contributing factor.

He wasn't killed by a -car- he was murdered by a drunk driver who couldn't
even be bothered to taking the man to a hospital. I love the way they use
euphemysms instead of calling it what it is. This man's life will be traded
for two month's community service and a slap on the wrist and the drunk
will live on to do it again.

jj

He wasn't killed by a -car- he was murdered by a drunk driver who
couldn't
even be bothered to taking the man to a hospital. I love the way they use
euphemysms instead of calling it what it is. This man's life will be
traded
for two month's community service and a slap on the wrist and the drunk
will live on to do it again.

jj

If that....maybe nothing at all...we have a history in this town. It wasn't
until Lance pushed the envelope in 1998 and took a guy to court see:
http://bicycleaustin.info/justice/whynojustice.html

" On my radio show in late 1998, I asked, "What does it take for a
cyclist to be able to have action taken against a hostile motorist? Well, if
recent news is any indication, it takes being local cycling celebrity Lance
Armstrong." After Michael Carter ran Lance and his buddies off the road,
Carter was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon that same
day.

But Armstrong's celebrity was not enough to keep Carter in jail for long.
District Judge Jon Wisser honored the request of Carter's lawyer to lower
his bail by 90% (from $300,000 to $30,000), despite the fact that when
Carter attacked the cyclists, he was already out on bail for tying up,
beating, and raping his wife. Wisser noted of the attack on the cyclists,
"No one was actually injured in the incident. In the scheme of things around
here, it was not as serious an offense." If Judge Wisser really feels that
way, we'd like to see him get his ass on a bike riding around Austin and see
how he feels when some lunatic runs him off the road with a deadly weapon.
Incidentally, Wisser is the judge who will hear the case against the
motorist who ran a red light and killed cyclist Ben Clough in 1998. [Update:
Since this article was first written, prosecutors offered a plea bargain to
the motorist of community service. So for running a red light and killing
Ben, she was never arrested, served no jail time, didn't pay any fine, and
didn't even get a traffic ticket for running the red light.] "

and

"Michael Memon was drunk when he killed Tom Churchill on S. Lamar. His blood
alcohol level tested at 0.08, which is just shy of the threshold for
illegally drunk, though the test reportedly wasn't administered until at
least half an hour after the crash (giving time for his alcohol level to go
down). In addition, 0.08 will soon be the new legal limit as the laws are
currently being changed. It's clear that Memon was drunk, even though
there's a chance he wasn't legally drunk under the laws at the time.

Tom was riding on the right-hand side of the road and was wearing a helmet
when Memon hit him. It's likely that Memon was going too fast, since in a
30mph zone he should have had plenty of time to slow down after seeing Tom,
and you generally don't flip your vehicle at such a low speed. Despite all
of this, the grand jury decided not to indict Memon. Why? We can't know for
sure, because grand juries don't write out the reasons for their decision
(just like trial juries, which say only "Guilty" or "Not Guilty" with no
explanation). But we can speculate. What else could it be, besides a feeling
that the cyclist shouldn't have been on the road in the first place? "

It is the land of the red pickuptruck....

ie wrote:
Deja vu...

Cyclist dies after being hit by car
Police say alcohol was contributing factor

By Tony Plohetski

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Austin police today are investigating an overnight accident that killed a
man riding a bicycle near downtown.

Police said the man was riding westbound in the 1400 block of West Sixth
Street near Lamar Boulevard when he was struck by a four-door Honda Civic
that was also traveling west. The man, whose name has not been released
pending family notification, died at Brackenridge Hospital a short time
after the 3 a.m. incident.

Others here have already concluded that the driver was certainly at
fault and likely drunk to boot. Be that as it may, I have a few
questions. The answers would not exonerate the driver ("I *think* I hit
something"? Yeah, right.) but when someone on a bike is hit by a car at
3:00 AM, I have to wonder:

What was the *deceased's* blood alcohol?
What's the nature of the roadway
What kind of roadway lighting was present?
Was the bike equipped with lights?

Regards,
Bob Hunt

On 11 Aug 2005 20:44:17 -0700, "Bob" wrote:


ie wrote:
Deja vu...

Cyclist dies after being hit by car
Police say alcohol was contributing factor

By Tony Plohetski

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Austin police today are investigating an overnight accident that killed a
man riding a bicycle near downtown.

Police said the man was riding westbound in the 1400 block of West Sixth
Street near Lamar Boulevard when he was struck by a four-door Honda Civic
that was also traveling west. The man, whose name has not been released
pending family notification, died at Brackenridge Hospital a short time
after the 3 a.m. incident.

Others here have already concluded that the driver was certainly at
fault and likely drunk to boot. Be that as it may, I have a few
questions. The answers would not exonerate the driver ("I *think* I hit
something"? Yeah, right.) but when someone on a bike is hit by a car at
3:00 AM, I have to wonder:

What was the *deceased's* blood alcohol?
What's the nature of the roadway
What kind of roadway lighting was present?
Was the bike equipped with lights?

Regards,
Bob Hunt

And what if it was a pedestrian drunk as a skunk, standing on the sidewalk
waiting for a taxi and the drunk ran up the curb and ran him over -
contributory negligance on the part of the pedestrian?

What if the bikerider was sober as a judge and lit up like a christmas tree
going to deliver life saving medicine to hospitalized Nuns? Will that
strengthen his case against the guy driving drunk? Nope - he'll still get
off when his lawyer says 'My client said he didn't see the guy'.

jj

writes:

He wasn't killed by a -car- he was murdered by a drunk driver who
couldn't even be bothered to taking the man to a hospital.

You don't know that--the article merely says that alcohol is believed to
have been a contributing factor. For all we know, the cyclist was drunk
and swerved in front of the car.

This man's life will be traded for two month's community service and a
slap on the wrist and the drunk will live on to do it again.

Doubtful. So far as I know, no major metropolitan area gives mere slaps
on the wrist to drunk drivers, even without and injury or fatality.

--
Robert Uhl http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only
exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves
largess out of the public treasury. --Alexander Tytler

On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 22:23:02 -0600, Robert Uhl
wrote:

writes:

He wasn't killed by a -car- he was murdered by a drunk driver who
couldn't even be bothered to taking the man to a hospital.

You don't know that--the article merely says that alcohol is believed to
have been a contributing factor. For all we know, the cyclist was drunk
and swerved in front of the car.

Learn to read:

"The driver, Omer B. Sen, 26, left the scene..."

"Sen is in custody, and detectives anticipate charging him, police said.
Alcohol is believed to be a contributing factor."

This man's life will be traded for two month's community service and a
slap on the wrist and the drunk will live on to do it again.

Doubtful. So far as I know, no major metropolitan area gives mere slaps
on the wrist to drunk drivers, even without and injury or fatality.

Get real. Happens ALL the time.

jj

writes:

He wasn't killed by a -car- he was murdered by a drunk driver who
couldn't even be bothered to taking the man to a hospital.

You don't know that--the article merely says that alcohol is believed
to have been a contributing factor. For all we know, the cyclist was
drunk and swerved in front of the car.

Learn to read:

"The driver, Omer B. Sen, 26, left the scene..."

"Sen is in custody, and detectives anticipate charging him, police said.
Alcohol is believed to be a contributing factor."

Considering that I've repeatedly gotten perfect scores on reading
comprehension tests, from childhood on, I don't think that it's _I_ who
needs to learn to read. Neither of those passages conclusively
indicates that the driver was drinking, or is suspected of doing so.

As for the first passage, it's not at all unlikely that a sober driver
might be struck by a drunken cyclist yet not be certain, and so leave
the scene--and yet call the police to say that he thought he might have
been hit.

As for the second, it merely says that charges are anticipated, and that
alcohol is believed to have contributed to the incident--it says nothing
about on whose part alcohol contributed. If you knew much about
accident statistics, 'alcohol-related car crash' includes a perfectly
sober driver striking a drunk who leapt off the kerb in front of him.
If you knew much about auto accidents in general, you would know that
it's quite common for fault to be assigned on a percentage basis. That
is, the driver could be charged and yet not have the majority of blame.
Heck, they could just be charging him with leaving the scene of an
accident which was 100% the cyclist's fault.

Now, I happen to agree that it's almost certainly a case of a drunken
driver, and I'd give even odds that the cyclist was drunk as well.
Really, I'm playing devil's advocate more than anything else. While my
gut instinct is to figure that the cyclist is completely innocent and
the driver is completely guilty, I've seen too many other cyclists on my
morning commute ploughing through red lights and stop signs to believe
that it's always the driver at fault.

My point is simply this: we don't know enough from the article to pass
judgement. We can make our guesses, of course, but we don't know all
the circumstances.

--
Robert Uhl http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl
My favourite movie is They Live And Let Die Hard Rain Man Without A
Face/Office Space Jam. --Hogwash McFly

"Bob" wrote in message
oups.com...

ie wrote:
Deja vu...

Cyclist dies after being hit by car
Police say alcohol was contributing factor

By Tony Plohetski

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Austin police today are investigating an overnight accident that killed
a
man riding a bicycle near downtown.

Police said the man was riding westbound in the 1400 block of West Sixth
Street near Lamar Boulevard when he was struck by a four-door Honda
Civic
that was also traveling west. The man, whose name has not been released
pending family notification, died at Brackenridge Hospital a short time
after the 3 a.m. incident.

Others here have already concluded that the driver was certainly at
fault and likely drunk to boot. Be that as it may, I have a few
questions. The answers would not exonerate the driver ("I *think* I hit
something"? Yeah, right.) but when someone on a bike is hit by a car at
3:00 AM, I have to wonder:

What was the *deceased's* blood alcohol?
What's the nature of the roadway
What kind of roadway lighting was present?
Was the bike equipped with lights?

Regards,
Bob Hunt

We average 1 or 2 "DUI cyclist" deaths per year around here. The typical
accident scenario is a guy riding on a darkened stretch of semi-rural road,
late at night, on a Wally World bike with no lights, reflectors, or helmet.

The last one killed like this was a well-known transient and burglar who was
killed by a hit and run drunk driver around 3 am. Given the tools found on
the deceased, the detectives theorized that he was high on meth, and out
cruising for something to steal (can you say, "Karma"?).

Just because it's a cyclist that gets injured or killed doesn't mean that
they aren't liable.

GG

On 11 Aug 2005 20:44:17 -0700 in rec.bicycles.misc, "Bob"
wrote:

when someone on a bike is hit by a car at
3:00 AM, I have to wonder:

What was the *deceased's* blood alcohol?

most folks i've seen biking at that time were poor folks going to
their early shift jobs.