Shawn Bradley paralyzed after car hits him on bike ride

Riding a bike is still extremely dangerous even with all of your precautions. As long as you recognize the risk, it's fine by me. My problem is that people hugely underestimate the danger of riding a bicycle in America. I work at a level 1 trauma center and lost track of the numbwr of cyclists I've seen killed a long time ago. Most of these don't make the news, in case you're wondering why you don't hear about it.

For the record I've seen exactly 2 runners killed by cars. 1 was completely his fault. He was wearing headphones and crossed a moderately busy road without even looking. He ran right in front of a car going 35. Left behind a wife and 4 kids.

The other was a total freak accident. Middle aged lady running on the sidewalk at 5am on a small residential road. There was a 10 foot greenway between the sidewalk and road. It was a weekday. A drunk driver plowed over the greenway and pinned her against a wall. Nothing she could have done. That one scares me.

Harambe wrote:

States should be more harsh on drivers who injure others on the road.

Suspend licenses for long, long times, if not permanently.

Driving isn't a right -- put the burden of safety on the person in the 4000 lb box going 60 mph.

I don't understand why there aren't harsher penalties for aggressive driving in general. I can't even go to the grocery store without some jackalope tailgating me. Forget the interstates these days. Everyone loves to brag about how fast they drive until they kill someone.

This actually happened 8 weeks ago.

bike rider wrote:

Note, the language. Car stuck him from behind ... as if the car was self driving. Might as well also say victim was shot by a gun.

No, someone ran him over. Tired of this type of sloppy reporting as if cars fall from the sky and land on cyclists.

The bicyclist could have been hit head on or from either his left or right side, right?

JMysterio wrote:

Who was that really good American runner that was hit by a car and badly injured. Was that Doug Padilla?

I can recall Henry, and know of others far less accomplished that have died while biking. Hard to stay safe now days with texting being such a common cause of accidents. I now prefer biking against traffic.

Ward Cleaver wrote:

JMysterio wrote:

Who was that really good American runner that was hit by a car and badly injured. Was that Doug Padilla?

I can recall Henry, and know of others far less accomplished that have died while biking. Hard to stay safe now days with texting being such a common cause of accidents. I now prefer biking against traffic.

https://archive.jsonline.com/news/crime/bicyclists-death-puts-owi-law-in-spotlight-b9966392z1-218316911.html/

Yes Doug Padilla. He still has quality of life from what I understand, but still has some disability. He works in admin for BYU track and field.

There is an article about him running a single mile years after the accident. Sad but inspiring:

runnER/DR wrote:

What kind of driver is so terrible they can't see SHAWN BRADLEY? They must feel like a complete idiot. It was in a residential neighborhood a block from his home. Hopefully they do some jail time.

Also...there's a strong possibility the reason he had such a severe injury is because of his height. Someone that tall falls very hard.

The kind of driver who looks at his phone while he or she drives, maybe.

STEVE THE ADDICT^^^^^^ wrote:

It's disturbing how many people choose to be on their cell phone driving. Some do it nearly all the time. They get a text, they grab their phone and read it while still driving then send a reply back while still driving. I wish undercover cops would look for this more, its everywhere. I look over and a driver's beside me on his/her phone. Need stiffer penalties to deter it. So many bad drivers and idiots on the road who the cops just ignore and instead pull over someone going 10 miles over speed.

Do we know if the car driver was at fault here, or just an educated guess/assumption?

Anyway, no need for undercover cops. Here in Sydney, Australia, we have 'mobile phone cameras'. They are extremely accurate, and the locations can be changed. Drive past one of them with your phone in hand or on lap even, and expect a fine and demerit points.

Its starting to bring down accident numbers.

bike rider wrote:

Note, the language. Car stuck him from behind ... as if the car was self driving. Might as well also say victim was shot by a gun.

No, someone ran him over. Tired of this type of sloppy reporting as if cars fall from the sky and land on cyclists.

Dude, sometimes an accident is really just an accident. Bad stuff happens in life and sometimes it’s nobody’s fault.

I live in one of, if not the most, cycle friendly places in the world. Commute 8 miles a day to and from work, designated bike lanes, cycles get a 5 sec leap start at lights, way more cyclist than cars- probably about 30x the cyclists, and I still almost have been run over a few times. I once witnessed a crash at an intersection where the biker went on red (fairly common tbh) and a car hit him that had the green light going at least 40 mph. You literally heard his pelvis/ hip break as he was struck. The sound made me almost puke. He flew at least 6 ft into the air as well. Probably the most gruesome thing I have witnessed. And his screams afterwards were horrendous. Luckily there happened to be an ambulance at the stop light.

America is not set up well for cycling commute. And even in places where everyone cycles, it is still extremely dangerous. I would often run red lights at small intersections if there were no cars around but I stopped after that. Once mistake and you kill yourself. And one mistake on a drivers part and it’s the same outcome. Scary.

This is Terrible wrote:

Harambe wrote:

States should be more harsh on drivers who injure others on the road.

Suspend licenses for long, long times, if not permanently.

Driving isn't a right -- put the burden of safety on the person in the 4000 lb box going 60 mph.

I don't understand why there aren't harsher penalties for aggressive driving in general. I can't even go to the grocery store without some jackalope tailgating me. Forget the interstates these days. Everyone loves to brag about how fast they drive until they kill someone.

Yes, yes, yes. And WHY are people so unafraid to drive recklessly/dangerously/aggressively, putting others at risk? Because.....cops are rarely out there looking for them. I find it amazing how rarely I come across cops when I'm driving. Basically, it's not that big a risk (as far as getting a ticket) to drive like a complete idiot and risk others lives. We need to make it so that one likely gets caught when driving dangerously.

I 100% support cameras everywhere on highways tracking speeders/dangerous drivers. It would save countless lives. And for the "Privacy!" "Big Brother" crowd, sorry, I've got news for you, every house and business (not to mention person with a phone) has a camera, and whenever crimes are committed those are looked at. So....cameras are part of our lives. Let's put them to better use, and track drivers BEFORE they kill people. Could easily be computer monitored for catching dangerous speeds and actions. For that matter, I wish we all would have cameras on our cars recording the actions of other drivers and be able to send that to police as evidence. I am sure it happens to some extent, but wish it would be much more prevalent. If these above actions were taken, people would not get away with and develop dangerous driving habits, and instead would quickly find that they can't get away with it, and need to stop/change or lose their licenses. Many tragedies could be averted.

That sounds horrible. And it only takes 1 car and 1 second and your life as you know it is over.

Like other have said, sometimes bad things just happen.. there are things that are accidents.. not anyone's fault... just an accident.. maybe the biker hits loose gravel and wreaks into traffic.. whatever...

I keep my bike on a designated bike path and away from public roads, at worst maybe I wreck and break my arm but at least I'm not getting hit by a dump truck at 50 mph.

This is one of the reasons I don't like Australia. Talk about Big Brother surveillance in many aspects of life. I was there 8 years ago and I thought it was crazy over the top then. I do, in fact, like 'mah freedoms'.

STEVE THE ADDICT^^^^^^ wrote:

When you think about it, 1 in 80-90 people will die in a car accident in their life. So that means about 1 in 100 people have hit and killed someone with their vehicle. Some aren't even affected by that fact that they killed someone, minimal remorse from them except maybe faking it in the court room.

Actually, when you think about it, you completely made those numbers up

US cops are often among the worst when it comes to reckless driving. One officer vehicles almost always drive distracted some of the time.

In my city the last kill by an on-duty cop was by driving through a disabled person in his motor chair at an intersection. Cop obviously was distracted; it was not released if cop was on radio call. I may have met and talked to the victim several years before.

bike rider 2 wrote:

bike rider wrote:

Note, the language. Car stuck him from behind ... as if the car was self driving. Might as well also say victim was shot by a gun.

No, someone ran him over. Tired of this type of sloppy reporting as if cars fall from the sky and land on cyclists.

Dude, sometimes an accident is really just an accident. Bad stuff happens in life and sometimes it’s nobody’s fault.

Years ago I met an accident investigator. He convinced me there are no accidents. Humans are involved in some way either with poor decision making at the time or not doing something (like proper maintenance).

With car electronics nowadays, you could easily rig up a sensor that detects cell use and maybe some kind of kill switch. It's an issue as much of civility, though. A lot of people get in cars and don't drive in safe ways, tailgating, speeding in residential areas, weaving through traffic. Every time you change lanes, especially without a signal like most people around here, you increase chances of an accident a lot. The penalties for hitting cyclists, runners, pedestrians, are minimal. Safe streets designs cut down on this a lot. Probably a third of my runs, maybe a half, see some close call for me.

Much better to design separated bike paths and running paths where you can go for miles without crossing intersections, through bridges, tunnels, etc. And then you can't just have bike lanes next to car lanes. In Germany, they have bigger sidewalks with designated one way bike lanes, which reduce accidents a lot.

runnER/DR wrote:

Ward Cleaver wrote:

I can recall Henry, and know of others far less accomplished that have died while biking. Hard to stay safe now days with texting being such a common cause of accidents. I now prefer biking against traffic.

https://archive.jsonline.com/news/crime/bicyclists-death-puts-owi-law-in-spotlight-b9966392z1-218316911.html/

Yes Doug Padilla. He still has quality of life from what I understand, but still has some disability. He works in admin for BYU track and field.

There is an article about him running a single mile years after the accident. Sad but inspiring:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.deseret.com/platform/amp/2000/2/2/19488825/and-the-winner-is-doug-padilla-br-former-world-class-runner-runs-again-after-31-2-years-of-pain

That was a crazy read. Much respect to him for pulling through all of that.

Bradley is 7’6”. That must of been a massive bike.