Chris Kalani reports:
We were upstairs at Laszlo last night when we saw a motorcycle skid out of control and crash into the back of a parked truck. It wasn’t until a crowd of people gathered in the street that we realized someone had been hit.
Read on for more photos and the rest of the story.
I added more of a description btw.
Obviously there isn’t enough information to know what happened in this scenario, but I will say that there are way too many jaywalkers on Mission. It’s a four lane street. Use the crosswalk when the little white man is lit. I know you learned that shit in kindergarten. I stopped taking my bike down Mission after almost hitting a jaywalker who was just moseying across the street without a care in the world. Afterward, the asshole flipped me off and yelled, “Fuck you!” I guess he had the moral high ground because he was walking and I wasn’t.
I’m not surprised at all. These guys on their motorcycles (and the cars aren’t any better) blast down the streets all time. They don’t seem to understand that you can’t accelerate to 50+ mph when you don’t even have a quarter of block visibility. You can tell by the look on his face that he doesn’t care at all.
The driver looks fine. The motorcycle looks fine. He wasn’t going 50+, probably under the speed limit. Jaywalking is one thing, drunk jaywalking is another.
Even a drunk jaywalker has the right of way..
According to the law, not the laws of physics. If somebody bolts out in front of you, you may not have time to stop. Sucks this guy got hit, and we don’t know the whole story here so it’s pointless to make guesses, but don’t assume that the motorcycler was riding out of control or acting crazy.
Is the upstairs any better than the downstairs?
Tumblr effed up the original post so I had to repost: http://chriskalani.com/post/7989182128
Well we don’t know the situation so let’s not assign blame. Could be that the victim or the rider or both had been drinking. Could be that the victim ran into the street, could be that the rider was going too fast, who knows. I think the lesson to be learned is that Valencia is a very busy street and to be cautious when you’re on it, either on foot, or on a bicycle, motorcycle, in a car, whatever.
Since it happened on Mission, I’m not sure we learned anything about Valencia!
Good catch
I was just about to get all don’t-tread-on-me (pun intended) and say that pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way, when I figured I’d just look it up here:
http://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/hdbk/right_of_way.htm
That’s when I found (spare you the read) that the only mention of pedestrians having the right of way is when they’re in crosswalks.
I’ll spare you actually looking up the law, and i’ll post it below. Pedestrians outside of crosswalks are supposed to yield to the right-of-way for traffic.. However drivers have a burden of always exercising due care for the safety of pedestrians.. in a crosswalk or not.. i.e. you have the right of way.. but if you hit a pedestrian in general it’s your fault. Basically don’t ever hit a pedestrian, and don’t hit the rear of any car.. you will always be ruled at fault because you are the one in control of the vehicle.
21954(a) CVC – Pedestrians Outside Crosswalk – Every pedestrian upon a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles upon the roadway so near as to constitute an immediate hazard. (b) The provisions of this section shall not relieve the driver of a vehicle from the duty to exercise due care for the safety of any pedestrian upon a roadway.
This statute in no way implies right of way for pedestrians at all times. What it says is that drivers must execute due care. Due care is basically acting in the manner in which a reasonably prudent driver would act under the circumstances. Any person performing any action has a similar duty to exercise due care. For example: pedestrians. While a driver’s duty may be slightly increased because of the inherently dangerous nature of the activity in which he or she is engaging, pedestrians are not relieved of their duty to execute due care when walking near traffic. And further, the reasonableness of a pedestrian who chooses to cross a four lane city street illegally in the middle of the block should be a serious question for any jury (except maybe in Berkeley). Every day I see pedestrians doing shit that would give a defense attorney a solid argument that he or she was not acting like a reasonably prudent person under the circumstances.
It’s not accurate to say that pedestrians always have the right of way. Regardless of how we feel about cars, they will continue to drive on our streets. Taking a morally superior posture and crossing the street in any way you choose, under the assumption that you’re protected by the law, might cause you a lot of pain with no legal remedy.
Accidents happen. When did the world start passing out safety guarantees?
more words of wisdom please, captain obvious
Well, you can clearly see that this is not in a crosswalk.
It looks like the driver who doesn’t seem to care much is wearing a Google SRE jacket ..
i was there that night and saw it happen from the balcony of foreign cinema bar. how did he end up? very sad. be careful ya’ll.
OMG