10 Year Old Cyclist Hit by Van in Point Loma and another in El Cerrito
Posted By Sam Ollinger on November 30, 2011
A reader wrote in about a collision that happened yesterday morning at Catalina and Wilcox in Point Loma.
Catalina and Wilcox - Location of the collision
A 10 year old cyclist was hit at Catalina and Wilcox. According to our reader,
the cyclist was hit when the van turned left across traffic hitting cyclist coming in opposite direction. Cyclist was hurt but was told she would be ok. That is all I know. Be careful on Catalina at all times!
Photo of the downed bicycle at Catalina and Wilcox. Photo by BikeSD reader
According to our source, the cyclist that was hit was an aspiring youth cyclist who was just 10 years old. The young cyclist was taken to the hospital. The cyclist’s father was also riding with his daughter when the collision happened. He declined help offered by fellow cyclists. I can only imagine that the father must have been terribly shaken by the incident.
The other source reporting this collision states that the “cyclist suffered from fractured leg and collar bone, which police said were not life-threatening.”
Our source stated that the Chevy van responsible for the collision was a government issued van driven by a Navy enlisted man. From the looks of van in the above photo, it is a miracle that the young girl is even alive.
A second cyclist was hit near SDSU campus yesterday when a Hyundai driver struck the bicyclist as he tried to pass her,
The 23-year-old woman sustained non-life-threatening facial fractures
If you have any additional information about either of these two collisions, please do leave a comment or email admin@bikesd.org
We send the both cyclists and their families our thoughts and wishes for a speedy recovery.
[...] nice to see a ghost bike has been installed in his honor and heartbreaking that it was necessary. A 10-year old San Diego bike rider is injured in a left cross, while another cyclist is seriously injured after getting Jerry Browned [...]
This sucks! Wish there was a more eloquent way to put it, but there isn’t. The sad thing is, what do you do with the van driver? Stone or pillory him? No, surely it was not intentional and unless he isn’t human I’m sure he felt horrible about it, seeing a little girl’s broken body on the ground.
Even though this was daytime it reminds me of an incident in OB the other night. As I approached an intersection to turn left I stopped to allow a van turning left from my right. Another more “casual” cyclist was going straight, he merely slowed and had to stop when the van cut across him. After cursing the van, he seemed to look to me for some support but I just waved and smiled.
The idiot had no lights whatsoever, was wearing dark clothes, and never yielded for the van’s due right of way. (I ride with 2 outboard 100 lumen “running lights” on the bar ends and a 2500 lumen 3 xm-l in the center, and a taillight BTW, and had a white sweatshirt on)
It’s relevance here? It’s a two party effort in safety. This van driver surely did not intend to hit this girl and you could legislate the death penalty for such a mistake and it will STILL happen. Serious cyclists know visibility is an important factor, perhaps activism could be directed not just at stiffer penalties for negligent drivers but also educating casual cyclists that if you can’t be seen you are likely going to get run down. Something tells me this girl was not wearing an orange reflective vest. That’s a bit extreme and I don’t even wear one, but if she HAD I bet we wouldn’t be seeing this story.
I started wearing a helmet a dozen years ago to set a good example for my neighbor’s kids who thought they weren’t “cool”. Now nearly everyone wears them, and all the time. Perhaps we should start making safety vests “cool”?