This is a little more info about the ride around Share Shore Drive Day on
July 11. I can testify to the truth of what Bill is saying here. In King
George about 4 years ago, I was riding my bicycle home from the Citizens
Center on Rt. 3 after a Pilates Class. I was wearing a florescent ORANGE
shirt with a flashing red light on my back. I was side-swiped by a little
old lady who failed to see me because she was following the vehicle in front
of her too closely. She was charged with nothing; I woke up in Fairfax with
a broken ankle; mild concussion and cuts and bruises. Did I mention that
she was charged with nothing? She ran over a legally operated vehicle; put
the operator in the hospital and the Commonwealth did not charge her with a
single vehicular infraction. I lived, Dan Hersh did not. The crime here is
the failure of the Commonwealth to protect its citizens equally.

vty,
dj

-----Original Message-----
From: tenniscpa7@... [mailto:tenniscpa7@...]
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 12:54 PM
To: Davej1s@...; kgvaba@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Fwd: VAcycling: Important info about Dan Hersh's death

Dave and All: I thought you would like to read all the e-mails about
why the driver in the Dan Hersh was not charged with anything. If you
claim that you did not see the pedestrian or cyclist, you get off, as long
as you are not drinking, speeding, texting, or otherwise disobeying the law.
In this case, this is bad, because the cyclist had lights, reflective
clothing, and all the right things. The law needs to be changed so that the
driver is charged, if he or she should have seen the pedestrian or cyclist.
This law is particularly bad for riders in the King George area, because
many of you ride solo a lot.
Hence, as the law reads now, if someone hits you as a cyclist or pedestrian
and are doing nothing else explicitly illegal, they will not get charged
with anything, if they claim they did not see you. This is
a horrible, horrible law. Dave, do what you can at Bike Walk, since
this affects both pedestrians and cyclists. Hope to see everyone July
11 for Share Shore Drive Day in Va Beach. Bill Hart


-----Original Message-----
From: Wesley Cheney <friendwes@...>
To: Bruce Drees <bwd-vb@...>
Cc: Bill Hart <tenniscpa7@...>
Sent: Sun, 17 May 2009 8:13 am
Subject: Re: VAcycling: Important info about Dan Hersh's death









"It's a small world after all!"



I'm procrastinating right now on drafting the agenda for the Friends
Business Meeting, Bruce. Your email got filtered into my Quaker Smart
Mailbox, so I got sidetracked...It's too funny that you know Whit Peace as
well. My term as Clerk of the Friends Meeting ends next month- so I'm
joining the board of the Virginia Bicycle Federation.







I agree that changing the law sounds like the next step. Here are a few
random thoughts-




1) Are you aware of laws in other states which we could use as models?

2) Should we take an omnibus approach, or keep it simple? I ask this
because:

A) There are a number of other antiquated bicycling laws on the books
(I'm 90% sure that VA has a rear coaster brake law) that need to be
changed, but

B) The state legislature is in session for such a short period of
time that it may not be effective to push multiple changes through at
the same time.

3) How can we best work with other groups in this regard?







Wes














Wes Cheney

friendwes@...

************


fotobywes.blogspot.com

www.wescheneyweddings.com





"Keep the rubber side down,

and take the lane."






On May 16, 2009, at 4:19 PM, Bruce Drees wrote:




I had not seen it Wes, thanks for sending along. It sounds like we need
to work on getting the law changed.



On another note, I ran into Whit Peace today on a bike ride that I
co-sponsored with Karen Forget and Lynnhaven River Now which toured the
Bayside area. Sounds like you guys go back a ways through the Quakers.
One of our daughters attended VB Friends School for high school and
Karen was a wonderful senior sponsor for her.



Bruce





From: Wesley Cheney [mailto:friendwes@...]
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2009 8:44 AM
To: Mark Hardman; Tim Solanic
Cc: Bruce Drees
Subject: Fwd: VAcycling: Important info about Dan Hersh's death





Hey Guys-






I don't know if you subscribe to the listserv below, but the post below
is the best explanation I've heard to date for why criminal charges
were not brought against Dan Hersh's killer.







Wes













Wes Cheney



friendwes@...



************




fotobywes.blogspot.com



www.wescheneyweddings.com








"Keep the rubber side down,



and take the lane."









Begin forwarded message:







From: tv4caster@...



Date: May 15, 2009 6:17:53 PM EDT



To: tv4caster@...



Cc: jhelmboldt@..., vacycling@googlegroups.com



Subject: VAcycling: Important info about Dan Hersh's death



Reply-To: tv4caster@...






Sorry for the repeat email but I forgot the put the proper subject line
in my previous attempt and I wanted to make sure people didn't miss
this because of the incorrect subject line.


May 15, 2009 05:15:35 PM, tv4caster@... wrote:

Today VCA president Bill Collins, avid cyclist Dr. Dan Darby, and I met
with Va. Beach Commonwealth's Attorney Harvey Bryant about the death of
Daniel Hersh. We also addressed the issue of overall cycling safety and
ways to address the concerns that we have as cyclists who frequently
feel that we don't get a fair shake by authorities.

After spending 2 hours meeting with Mr. Bryant I can safely say that
none of us like what we heard but we are all in agreement with his
assessment that no charges could be brought against the driver that
killed Mr. Hersh. Both reckless driving and involuntary manslaughter
charges require "willful intent". Bryant showed us case law and
explained what constitutes willful intent. For example, someone that
tries to run a red light and kills someone DOES meet the definition of
willful intent while someone who runs a red light that they didn't see
does NOT meet the definition. If someone falls asleep at the wheel and
causes a death they cannot be charged with involuntary manslaughter or
reckless driving unless it can be proven they knew they were tired and
willfully intended to drive anyway (eg pulling over and taking a nap
then later hitting someone, or taking a caffeine pill).

In a lot of the emails and letters to the editor over the past few
weeks a lot of people have been angered by Mr. Bryant's statement that
the driver who killed Dan wasn't drinking, texting, smoking, doing her
nails etc when she hit him and wondered why that would matter.
Unfortunately those are indeed required in cases where the driver
claims they didn't see the person, whether the victim was a cyclist,
pedestrian, or whomever.

If a driver does see a person and hits them then everything changes and
they can more easily be charged. That is why in a case like this where
there is no proof of distracted driving it becomes vital to have either
an eyewitness or have some sort of proof that the driver saw the person
that they hit. In this case there was only one witness and their
statement actually corroborated the driver's statement that she didn't
see Dan. She said that she didn't see him and didn't even know she had
hit anyone until she saw him on the ground. The witness said that they
came upon the scene as the driver was getting out of the car and that
she was looking around perplexed and looking under the car trying to
see what is was she had hit and that they had to point to the other
side of the car to let her know that Dan was lying there.

We then asked about lesser charges like the obvious fact that she
didn't give him the necessary 2 foot clearance but, again, the law
requires that you have to see something to give it a clearance.

So, the bottom line is that without evidence of willful intent or
distracted driving there was no way to charge the driver with anything,
especially since she claimed she didn't see him. I would also add that
in the re-enactment that the police reconstruction team did there was a
significant glare from the rising sun at the spot where she hit Dan
although I thought from the news reports that the accident happened
just before sunrise.

One final thought about this case before I get into some other issues
that we discussed: Mr. Bryant's only son is a triathlete and rountinely
trains out on the roads like we do. Bryant also says he spent hours
explaining to his wife why he couldn't charge the driver because as the
mother of a cyclist she was upset.

On the subject of general cycling safety a number of issues were raised
and I think some headway was made on possible solutions. Instead of
writing them in this email I think it would be better to address them
in a separate email since there might be a significant number of people
that missed reading this missive because they weren't from VB, didn't
care about the case, or didn't know what the meeting with the VB CA was
about.

So look for another email soon.

Jeff Lawson
VP Va. Cycling Association










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