Zachary Prichard had only been in Eugene for one week when a white Toyota Scion pulled up next to him at a red light at the intersection of East 18th Avenue and Chambers Street. Perched on his bicycle to the right of the car, he couldn’t see through its tinted windows. The light turned green. He and the Scion moved forward. Yet, without signalling, the car turned into him, throwing him over the vehicle and destroying his bike in the process.
He was wearing a helmet but sustained injury to his dominant left hand, his shoulder and his right leg in addition to multiple abrasions on his arms and deep-muscle bruising.
That was in September 2011. Prichard, now a fourth-year University of Oregon student, had to postpone his graduation until this fall when his recovery from the collision made it impossible for him to attend classes for a term.
“One mistake has changed my life,” the Clatsop Community College transfer student said.
The swarms of bicyclists on Eugene roads are an expected sight for experienced commuters. The art of sharing the road is one appreciated by most travelers, from drivers to pedestrians and bicyclists. But collisions are inevitable, and with the dedicated community of bicyclists based in town, the odds of those collisions involving a biker are greater than you might expect — and the repercussions for post-collision bikers are something not considered until the accident occurs.
Eugene has 81 miles of bike lanes running alongside roadways. Bicycle and motor vehicle collisions made up less than two percent of traffic crashes (PDF) in Oregon in 2011 (the most recent set of data available). Though the number of accidents involving bicycles increased 5.71 percent since 2010, only 1.5 percent of these collisions were fatal to the bicyclist.
They suffered injury, however, in 95 percent of 2011 car-bike collisions, and these injuries — caused by a split-second event — may take years to overcome.
Prichard hasn’t been able to settle with insurance yet; he’s still waiting on an MRI and x-rays to check his shoulder. It still pops when he extends it a certain way, causing pain and making it impossible for him to complete some tasks.
“One of the reasons I’m afraid for all these people around me who bike everywhere, who rely on that as their main mode of transportation,” he said, “is that they don’t respect it — they don’t know how precious it is to be able to ride alongside a car and have that mutual safety.”
According to him, the car came away from the incident with a coin-sized dent.
“I had a month of recovery,” he said. “I have a screwed up shoulder. My bike was destroyed. They have a dent.”
Bicyclists and drivers alike are able to share the road through cautiousness, attentiveness and obeying the laws. This allows thousands of Eugene residents to get safely to their destinations every day. But a single error can change an individual’s life.
According to the Oregon Department of Transportation (PDF), the most common reasons for a collision between bikers and drivers are failure to yield right-of-way and disregarding traffic signals. Inattention and improper change of traffic lanes are also culprits on the driver’s part, while riding on the wrong side of the road leads bicyclists to their collision statistics.
When the UO Health Center deals with victims of traffic accidents, Shannon Millington said she deals most often with bicyclist/car collisions. As manager of the Physical Therapy/Sports Medicine Department, she estimates the health center sees 10 to 20 car-versus-bike incidents a year, a number greater than any place she has worked at in the past; she has been a physical therapist for 12 years, while at the UO for eight.
She suspects the reason for this is the sheer number of bicyclists in such a concentrated area on and around the UO campus. The injuries she sees from these cases range from minor bruising to serious fractures and breaks requiring long-term recovery.
“What’s going to make those injuries worse is velocity,” she said. “If you get more momentum, that’s going to have a bigger potential for injury. And, of course, was the cyclist wearing a helmet?”
UO admissions operations manager and Eugene Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee member Susan Stumpf, was wearing a helmet when she was struck by an SUV on East 15th Avenue and High Street in March 2010. When the car did not yield right-of-way, she ended up on the pavement with a concussion and a full-body sprain. Paramedics let her leave the scene, though she had to have her concussion diagnosed a few days later. She was unable to work for three weeks after that, but the recovery period was much longer — she only started having consistent pain-free days last fall.
“I probably would have been dead if I hadn’t worn my helmet,” she said.
She has been using her bike as her primary mode of transportation for 10 years, but she admits this incident has made her more cautious on the road.
“I pretend that I can’t be seen,” she said. “My number one advice is to be predictable.”
Some instinctual reactions before and during a collision can help lessen the level of injury, according to Millington: slowing down as much as possible, going limp upon impact and moving with the momentum of the accident to absorb some of the force.
“You’re the vulnerable person,” she said. “Even if you’re following all the rules and doing everything right, the physical vulnerability of not being protected by a car, a vehicle — you’re going to lose in that incident. When that car hits you, you’re the one that’s going to suffer.”
Such was the case when senior Brian Wells was hit by a car earlier this month as he headed home on Alder Street on his bike around 9:30 p.m. He took as much precaution as he could as a cyclist riding at night in the rain: He wore a helmet, headlight, tail light and bright clothes when a driver failed to yield right-of-way at an intersection, and he ran into the side of the car. The car, driver and bike were unharmed, but Wells suffered from a sprained knee and required crutches for two days after.
He doesn’t see the incident as one to lament, however.
“These experiences don’t have to be negative experiences,” he said.
The driver gave him a ride home after the collision and delivered his bike back to him, contacting him the next day to wish him well.
“It could have been so much worse,” he said. “It was an honest mistake, and honest mistakes can still hurt people, but it was as good as it could have been.”
Still, this experience has solidified for Wells his personal code of safety while riding a bike.
“Be very clear in your intentions — drivers can’t read your mind,” he said. “Don’t abuse your right-of-way, and be nice to drivers. If you’re driving, you would want a bicyclist to do those things for you. It’s the Golden Rule.”
All modes of transportation hold individual dangers, but drivers and bicyclists alike might have trouble grasping the seriousness of an accident until after becoming a victim of one.
Prichard has seen doctors and specialists for his injuries about 10 times so far and anticipates several more in his future. His recovery, even after 19 months, is an ongoing process.
“Every day, my shoulder pops and cracks a bit,” he said. “(The accident) took me out of my education for a whole term. This is not the future I wanted to go down. It has changed what’s going to be happening in my life.”