Police Investigating Crash Between Cyclist and Van

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by RestonNow.com May 9, 2018 at 4:14 pm 55 Comments

Fairfax County police are investigating what caused a crash between a cyclist and a van near the W&OD Trail at Sunrise Valley Road Tuesday evening around 6:30 p.m.

Police said it is not yet clear whether the cyclist or the driver of the van was at fault in the accident, which caused damage to the van and sent the cyclist to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Anyone who may have seen the collision is asked to call Fairfax County Police at 703-691-2131 or 1-866-411-TIPS (8477), or text “TIP187” plus the message to CRIMES (274637).

Chuck Morningwood

My wishes for a quick and full recovery to both the cyclist and the van.
YourLaneIsMyLane

We will have clearer outcomes (unfortunately) when Fairfax County installs unprotected bike lanes all over Reston. It will be testament to vans and bikes running in parallel, I mean it was the intersection that was the problem.
30yearsinreston

another Hudgins fiasco

Her total disregard regard for reasonable road upgrades is the root cause
- Willie Reston
  
  Cut her some slack on the absences of better crossings; don’t you know it takes 15 years to get such things built around here!
  
  /s
OneReally

I’m voting cyclist.
- Adam Goldberg
  
  I’m voting you have no idea what you are talking about
NiceNeighbor22

Since I have moved to this neighborhood, I have seen 2 flight for life cycling accidents and this is the second major one at this poorly marked crossing. Why can’t we get lighted Bicycle
- The Constitutionalist
  
  They make lights for bicycles.
NiceNeighbor22

Part 2: Why can’t Reston get lighted Bicycle crossing signs like they have in Herndon and Reston? It would save lives and money.
- Willie Reston
  
  Huh? Did you forget to have your coffee this morning? 😉
  - The Constitutionalist
    
    Willie, you mother isn’t responding to my Mother’s Day date requests.
    
    Can you walk upstairs and see if she’s getting my texts? We had a great time last year.
- Holly Koppel
  
  Only if you aren’t sensitive to flashing lights, otherwise you have an epileptic seizure. Maybe the bikers could try actually stopping at their stop sign instead of just sailing into traffic expecting everyone to stop for them.
  - The Constitutionalist
    
    Uhm… excuse me, Holly, but maybe you should keep your head on a swivel more as you destroy the environment with your dinosaur burning steel box, especially when there are those who choose to use the superior method of travel about.
    
    We cyclists are not required to stop for you or a “stop sign,” (whatever that is) just as a sailboat is not required to stop for a motorized boat.
    
    For too long the county has catered to you and your bigoted and antiquated travel methods. The time is now for us cyclists to come out in force and say, “no more!”
    
    We will send this message by riding extremely slowly and not letting you pass, and just when you think you’ll get an opportunity to pass us at the red light just ahead, HA, we’ll just ignore it!
    
    Joke’s on you!
    - Chuck Morningwood
      
      Having rode a motorcycle for years, that’s a recipe for a trip in ambulance — and that would not be for the cage driver.
      - The Constitutionalist
        
        That is what this article is about, after all.
      - Why do you bother?
        
        ridden…
    - Why do you bother?
      
      Bicyclists ARE required to obey ALL traffic laws, including stop signs per the Virginia DMV:
      https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/safety/#programs/bicycle/index.asp
      - Mike M
        
        Tune your sarcasm detector.
      - Why do you bother?
        
        Reread what he said. It wasn’t sarcasm.
      - Mike M
        
        Lordy. Read his body of comments. It was sarcasm. For your birthday, I shall buy you a Sarcasmeter 2020. You can simply strap it to the side of your head. You are long overdue for an upgrade.
      - The Constitutionalist
        
        What do they say about that again? I can’t remember if sarcasm is supposed to be the lowest form of wit or the highest.
        
        You decide.
      - The Constitutionalist
        
        Required IS a strong WORD. Who REQUIRES it? The LAW? I think I’ve MADE myself clear on that ISSUE, we will just IGNORE it.
        
        https://archives.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/07/30/this-is-what-happened-when-bicyclists-obeyed-traffic-laws-along-the-wiggle-yesterday
      - JQPublic
        
        So are motorists and probably have a great responsibility to the vulnerable …..
      - Why do you bother?
        
        Context, JQ – was responding to “cyclists don’t have to obey the traffic laws” comment.
    - Mike M
      
      LOL! Got ’em nailed, Const!
    - JQPublic
      
      Nice try. The C and Mike M are not cyclists. They are trolling and don’t even have the common courtesy to say I hope those hurt are ok. That is telling
      
      As far as whose at fault, it seems per the witness, the motorist failed to yield. Where they even paying attention?
      - The Constitutionalist
        
        We don’t know if they failed to yield or weren’t paying attention. No information has been given about who’s to blame.
        
        Why do you place the requirement on someone who doesn’t know anyone involved to make a public statement on the internet saying they “hope those hurt are ok?”
        
        That’s telling.
        
        Hoping doesn’t do anything for anyone any more than trying to get a few more likes on a FB post so Jesus will come down and save little billy from his terminal illness.
      - JQPublic
        
        Of course we know they didn’t yield as they hit the cyclist. Why they failed to yield is the question? Perhaps not paying attention? Perhaps as a result of reading all your comments about bicycling?
        
        No requirement to say something about those injured’s welfare, but it’s called common decency. However very quick to instead launch into the trolling of cyclists. You guys lack emotional intelligence. It’s sad they invented the comments section of online newspapers. What would you do, just yell at the TV.
        
        And the spin is immediate into some new rabbit hole about FB and Jesus and little billy? WTH?
      - Edward Calvert
        
        Old man yells at cloud. No, but seriously, this argument seems semantic.
      - Greg
        
        Whining about trolling and what are you doing? Trolling.
        
        #doomed.
      - The Constitutionalist
        
        Maybe it was the biker who didn’t yield? Why did the biker fail to yield, hmm? Perhaps not paying attention? Perhaps too busy spitting granola at a passing pedestrian for not hearing, “ON YOUR LEFT!”
        
        What is so commonly decent about making a statement about one’s health in passing about someone you’ve never met or will never meet, and to a person who will never hear or read it?
        
        You’re pretty new here if you think these recent comments are just me being quick to launch into the trolling of cyclists. I’ve been doing it for a while, it’s sort of what I do.
        
        A long time ago I traded my emotional intelligence for actual intelligence, best decision ever.
        
        I can’t really tell if that part about the TV was a question or a statement, care to rephrase?
        
        It’s not my fault you can’t see the connection between sitting at your computer typing that you hope someone will get better and sitting at your computer and skipping the typing part by pressing the thumbs up icon on the same article.
        
        Both do nothing except make you feel like they do. Really, it’s just a psychological way to reward yourself for having “emotional intelligence.”
      - JQPublic
        
        Are you yelling at your computer ?
      - Adam Goldberg
        
        He’s yelling at his computer… in his mom’s basement where he does nothing but post on RN.
  - Adam Goldberg
    
    Or maybe drivers could try actually looking up from their cell phones and stopping when there is someone in the crosswalk
- Greg
  
  Here are the signs on Sunrise Valley Drive (not road, editor). I count two on the pavement, four bright yellow ones pointing right at the crossing and four more before the bike crossing.
  
  Harder to see, but at least two stop signs on the path itself and two more square signs. Stop means stop, no?
  
  How much is enough? Too much?
  
  https://goo.gl/maps/QWkw8wwQWH82
  - JQPublic
    
    And there is a sign on the right that says yield to pedestrians in crosswalk.
    - Greg
      
      Those signs are ubiquitous in Fairfax County, as are the $200 fines they threaten to impose. Very often ignored.
      
      If the fine was $200,000 or $2,000,000 do you think they would work better?
      - JQPublic
        
        You raised the number of signs. I was pointing out the Yield one which you failed to point out. Yield means Yield.
      - Greg
        
        And you, dear troller, failed to get the point.
      - JQPublic
        
        Now that’s a good one. Your point was signs but you missed one.
    - The Constitutionalist
      
      JQ, care to remind the audience what a cyclist is and when, a vehicle which has to obey traffic laws, or a pedestrian?
      - JQPublic
        
        Yes I will. VA laws states a cyclist when in a cross walk has the same rights as a pedestrian. 46.2-800
      - The Constitutionalist
        
        46.2-024
        
        No pedestrian shall enter or cross an intersection in disregard of approaching traffic.
      - JQPublic
        
        My bad: § 46.2-904. Use of roller skates and skateboards on sidewalks and shared-use paths; operation of bicycles and certain motorized and electric items and devices on sidewalks, crosswalks, and shared-use paths
        
        And the important paragraph (note it even gives the rights to a drone in last sentence): A person riding a bicycle, electric personal assistive mobility device, motorized skateboard or foot-scooter, motor-driven cycle, or electric power-assisted bicycle on a sidewalk or shared-use path or across a roadway on a crosswalk shall have all the rights and duties of a pedestrian under the same circumstances. An electric personal delivery device operated on a sidewalk or shared-use path or across a roadway on a crosswalk shall have all the rights and duties of a pedestrian under the same circumstances.
        
        Now couple this with: § 46.2-924. Drivers to stop for pedestrians; installation of certain signs; penalty.
        
        And the key paragraph:
        A. The driver of any vehicle on a highway shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian crossing such highway:
        1. At any clearly marked crosswalk, whether at mid-block or at the end of any block;
        
        Now couple this with the eye witness comment – it would not take a rocket scientist or a web troll to come to the conclusion the bicyclist was in the right and the motorist was not. One car seemed to understand the law??
        
        So § 46.2-903. Riding or driving vehicles other than bicycles, electric power-assisted bicycles, or electric personal assistive mobility devices on sidewalks. Ummm….your point? It basically says you can’t drive a car on a sidewalk.
        
        Good try. Then again, you guys will do anything to pin it on bicycles as evil/wrong/etc and lack of compassion for someone injured is pretty telling.
        
        I’ll wait the comment of ‘get off my lawn’.
      - The Constitutionalist
        
        Yeah, I misread 46-903, but I’ll admit it.
        
        I suppose we’ll have to then debate common sense. Is it common sense to run out into the road because the cars are required to yield to your right-of-way? No, even more applicable to this specific scenario, is it common sense to run out into the road because one of two cars has stopped for you but the other is still coming full speed, but the law states he must stop so you should proceed?
        
        Of course it does, you’re right.
        
        Seems to me…
        
        46.2-024 No pedestrian (since we’ve since came to an agreement that the cyclist is a pedestrian in this case) shall enter or cross an intersection in disregard of approaching traffic.
        
        Still applies.
        
        But then again maybe not, because an eye witness said one of two cars stopped for the cyclist so clearly, the common sense thing to do was proceed anyways.
        
        I suppose for a cyclist, death is preferable to yielding because cyclists don’t have to, cars do. The law says so, or they pay $50.
      - JQPublic
        
        No cyclist or pedestrian just “uns out into the road” because some law passed in Richmond is protecting them.
        
        And…I didn’t agree with you, you agreed with the law re: cyclist is a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
        
        Again….eye witness below said, car was stopped, bikes were stopped. Bikes proceeded. No doubt they did so carefully given they were stopped. Somebody wasn’t paying attention…..was it the stopped car, the stopped bikes who then proceeded given it looked clear or the car who didn’t see any of this and hit those in a crosswalk whilst ignoring all those yellow signs someone pointed out.
        
        So let’s look at this another way. Assume we all proceed cautiously in driving, riding or walking. We look, we wait, we anticipate and then we go assuming all is safe and good. But the other guy isn’t looking, isn’t waiting, isn’t anticipating and just go’s. Whose fault is it? Is it the person who being careful but still gets hit or the person who isn’t and does the hitting?
        
        Again – peds and cyclists do not do the things you think they do. But we all see motorist do things we wish they wouldn’t daily.
    - Greg
      
      Think you nailed it there, JQ: sign says yield to pedestrians, not cyclists.
  - Erica Chatfield
    
    The driver didn’t even slow down
    - Greg
      
      As another poster pointed out, bicyclists always lose when encountering vehicles that don’t stop, yield, or slow down.
Greg

“The cyclists always lose in a battle with steel.”

Which is why cyclists, regardless of signs; lights; markings; good, bad, or dangerous designs, or anything else, must always pay triple attention and not even attempt to cross until the cyclists have a perfectly clear view of all lanes and are absolutely certain nothing will hit them.
- JQPublic
  
  So the motorist is without fault? Please. Your hatred of anything with two wheels is so old.
- Adam Goldberg
  
  So the driver was at fault (as they usually are) and you blame the victim? The fact that someone is in the hospital as a result of something that wasn’t their fault doesn’t seem to enter your mind?
  - Greg
    
    Where did I blame the victim?
    
    And where was the driver faulted?
    
    Which court made that judgment?
Rational Reston

Sadly this happens a lot, I’m surprised that disaster doesn’t strike more often. One lane stops and the other lane continues. Drivers and cyclists need to remain aware and suspicious of that other lane of traffic.
Adam Goldberg

A discussion about cycling…… cue the whining comments from Greg, MikeM and the Constitutionalist. Three people who sit in their mothers’ basements and do nothing but monitor for cycling-related articles and spew hateful comments about something about which they are ignorant.

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