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“He is fighting for his life.” In Memphis a retired pastor is in critical condition after getting hit by a driver. The story, clearly not written by a cub reporter, is odd in how it accepts the crash as an act of god, heroizing those who stopped to help. https://dailymemphian.com/article/15812/retired-pastor-stephen-montgomery-critical-condition-bike-accident
Here is the part of the story where the writer regurgitates the narrative from the police that they regurgitated from the driver without thinking about it, without questioning the driver's actions or poor road design.
The story says the pastor was traveling in the bike lane but Google maps shows a wide right lane with no paint. This story presents the old chestnut of the veteran bike rider who gets creamed after making the unanticipated death swerve in front of an innocent driver. I say BS.
As someone who's ridden 150,000+ miles and driven maybe 750,000 miles, I'll tell you what likely happened. The road was poorly designed so folks drive too fast. The man driving was inattentive or going too fast and was unable to react when he realized the pastor was turning. Bam.
If you want to think about how deep this problem goes, look at the bio of the writer who reported this deeply flawed piece.
Here's the email I wrote the journalist/J-school teacher. I would say the odds of a constructive response are 15-1.
OK, two more thoughts. Thanks to Google maps, I was able to quickly figure out the posted speed limit on this stretch Perkins Road is 40mph. I would bet $1 million that speeds over 50mph are typical. Bike riders are forced to ride this kind of dangerous street in every US city.
