Thursday 18 March 2010

Doored in New York

The Bronx will be getting another ghost bike: This morning an unidentified woman was run over by a BX 17 bus heading southbound on Crotona Avenue just before 8:30 a.m. Witnesses say the 57-year-old cyclist, whose name is being withheld for now, rode into the path of the bus after getting doored or swerving to avoid a car door.

But NY1, in a report headlined "Cyclist Dies After Striking City Bus," hears that the cyclist "was thrown into the traffic after a motorist opened a car door into the bike." NY1's choice of words has Transportation Alternatives spokesman Wiley Norvell shaking his head; he tells us, "So according to NY1, a cyclist who was knocked into traffic by a car door 'struck' a bus? Note the tense of this verb.
A 25,000 lb vehicle collides with a 57 year-old woman on a bike, and she is somehow the one who does the striking?"