Accident on eastern parkway last night?

If we are talking about the same incident (around 1 AM, Sunday morning) it was Taxi vs bicyclist. Bicyclist died.

RNN picked it up right after the incident, when the details were still sketchy:

Pedestrian Struck

BROOKLYN: *PEDESTRIAN STRUCK* EASTERN PKWY & WASHINGTON AVE, EMS REMOVED THE AIDED TO METHODIST HOSP IN TRAUMATIC ARREST, REQ CIS TO LOC (c) [MNS463]

Eastern Pkwy & Washington Ave

Brooklyn, NY

5/19/2013 2:01 a.m.

This morning, Patch is reporting it was a fatality

http://prospectheights.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/taxi-hits-kills-bicyclist-on-eastern-parkway

So sad. Despite the new bike lane there are still a good number of cyclists going East on the Parkway. I woke up & saw activity in front of the museum at 1:44 (I thought?) when I heard a car crash. There were already four or five cop cars & traffic had been stopped in both directions. I wonder if it was a 2nd car crash? A lot of cops standing around & not doing much. And maybe 45 minutes later an ambulance came. And there was still an event at the Museum, a limo & a bus & people in tuxs standing near the scene. It all seemed bizarre.

Of course The Post says it was the cyclists fault. As far as the post is concerned cars can't kill cyclists. Only cyclists kill cyclists. And of course the driver wasn't charged. I'm really freaking sick of the NYPD's inability to actually make arrests and the DA's refusal to prosecute murders.

While I'm willing to admit it's possible the cyclists is at fault especially since he wasn't in the bike lane. But I've had so many close calls with those livery cabs. So I'm more likely to believe that the cab was zooming around over the speed limit and failed to slow down in time.

That bike lane is horrible! Whoever designed seems to have never biked in a city before breaking out the drafting paper. It forces pedestrians into the lane and in close proximity with bikes. Hence many cyclists try to avoid it. Some, lime myself go well north out of our way. While others just take their chances on Eastern.

I just think tragedies like this could be avoided with better enforcement and road design.

That bike lane isn't the best (especially the manhole with poles right in the middle of it) but it's a lot better than Eastern Parkway. It's rarely too busy with pedestrians, in my experience. The stones might be a bit slippery when wet, but Eastern Parkway is an awful place to ride, full of aggro speeding idiots. A speed camera would be a big lifesaver there, if Marty Golden from Bay Ridge weren't so devoted to sacrificing New Yorkers' lives to get cops more OT.

I think a lot of people just established riding in the road (or on the sidewalk on the Museum side) as a habit while the pathway was under construction.

Homeowner the bike lanes sucks to ride on in the rain. Not only as ehgee says the stones are slippery but not as bad as the metal. Wet metal is extremely slippery and your more likely to go skidding then to actually stop if you try to brake on it. The problem is that your only allowed to ride on the north side of the pedestrian mall until Washington and then your supposed to go across and ride on the south side. Which is then in theory a separate bike lane.

eghee and homeowner a lot of people just don't want to bother with the above or mistakenly feel their safe in traffic then having numerous near misses with pedestrians. I believe the best thing to do is to go and bike up on one of the side streets north of the Eastern Parkway.

Whynot, While I know it is unsafe to bike in that section. I wish the officer had spent his or her time ticking drivers on Eastern Parkway. But then again I'm positive this was done only for safety reasons and not as an easy way to meet a ticket quota.

whynot_31 said:

Actually, he had just ticketed a driver and was walking back to his patrol car (RMP) when he told the biker to stop.

It was an easy two for one deal.

Color me very surprised!

Streetblog's write up the tragic event. Scroll down about half way for it. http://www.streetsblog.org/2013/05/20/motorist-havoc-two-dead-five-hurt-kids-in-critical-condition-no-charges/

I'm going to keep an eye out. It is distressing that the NYPD refuses to actually patrol Easter but would appear to set up traps to meet their quotas.

ehgee said:

We need speed cameras. It's a lot harder to kill someone at 30mph, the speed limit on all city streets. Simple as that.

And I don't believe a word about a bicyclist "swerving in front of a car", especially if it's coming from the person who killed said bicyclist and looking to rationalize/justify it. Perhaps the driver just rear-ended the cyclist, or perhaps the bicyclist moved a couple feet to the side to avoid a pothole while the livery cab attempted to pass them too closely.

You sir or madam are right on the money!

I'm going to venture a guess that alcohol was involved, given the number of errors in judgment made by the cyclist.

You'd have to be either nuts or seriously impaired to bicycle on a dark and rainy Eastern Parkway after midnight.

ehgee said:

It can feel pretty awesome to bike on big empty streets in the middle of the night. It feels like all the city is yours.

I have no doubt this is true. I just don't think that doing so in the pouring rain is smart.