For those of you that have been following the recent news from April
9th of a Jennifer Wilson that struck several bicyclists on Martin
Luther King Blvd, one of which was left in critical condition, I
have more news. When the story first broke the news (WEAR TV3)
reported that Wilson had been drinking, fell asleep at the wheel,
struck the bicyclists, and would be charged with 4 counts of DUI.
Being a bicyclist myself, and having the good fortune to work at the
courthouse, I've been following the case. I have found that she's
only been charged with "Failure to Maintain Lane". I don't know
about the rest of you, but this made me quite furious. I did some
digging and Wilson has a history of Careless Driving, Driving While
License Suspended, and Speeding. So did the State's Attorney drop
the ball or what?

Additionally, I found another case that occured recently involving a
car driving over a bicyclist(who had the right of way and was IN a
crosswalk and who also had to be air-lifted to the hospital). The
man driving the vehicle was found not guilty despite the bicyclist
clearly having the right of way.

I got curious about whether or not any of these drivers are being
punished or if they're all getting a slap on the wrist, so I thought
that I would try to compile some statistics (at least from Okaloosa
County) on how many accidents involved bicyclists and how many times
charges were pressed and made to stick on offending drivers, but it
appears that our computer system doesn't have any parameters set in
place for me to do this type of search without going physically
through the files one by one. The problem being that accidents
involving bicycles are listed as "vehicles" and not "bicycles".
Needless to say my primary job makes it impossible for me to do
this.

What I have decided to do is start keeping copies of the ones I do
happen across, or, if I can get information on specific accidents
that pop up around the area I can follow it. I think what my
ultimate goal is, if it turns out that my hunch is right about
drivers getting off light after running over bicyclists, I'd like to
perhaps get the help of a bicycle safety group to help shed some
light on the problem and maybe get some stiffer penalties in place
for those guys that get to just run us over and go on with their
daily lives.

Nerissa