Charlotte Injury Lawyers Blog
Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” If an incident report was filled out, do I have a right to receive a copy?”
Scenes and outtakes from countless television shows and movies have shown cyclists speeding past people jogging or skating alongside the sands of Southern California beaches. Many of these have featured the twenty-or-so mile paved Marvin Braude Bicycle Path that runs from Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles south to Torrance.
Cyclists may enjoy a relative safety on the seaside paths, but inland things have gotten downright tragic for bicycle riders. California saw 338 cyclists killed in collisions with motor vehicles between 2010 and 2012, according to a report issued Monday by the Governors Highway Safety Association. Florida lagged not far behind Golden State, reporting 329 cyclists killed in collisions with motor vehicles in the same period.
Bicyclist deaths nationwide increased by 16-percent between 2010 and 2012, according to the report, but Florida and California reported the largest increases in deaths.
Allen Williams, a scientist who worked at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, compiled the report. He observed what he described as “remarkable changes” in the profile of those killed in crashes involving bicycles and cars. Adult males accounted for 74-percent of bicyclists killed in 2012. In 1975, by comparison, only 21-percent of bicyclists killed were adults of either gender.
Two-thirds of bicyclists killed in 2012 were not wearing helmets, while nearly a third of those killed registered a blood-alcohol content of .08 or more.