[Macomb-Cycling] [S-Smith7 at wiu.edu: cyclist hit in Macomb this weekend]

[Jeffrey R. Calhoun]

This email came in this morning to the bike club website email address.
I thought you should all be aware of it.  Note - I responded to and thanked
Scott for the email and have placed a call in to the Macomb Police
Department to see if I can get more details.  I will try to keep you all
updated as I find more info.

Thanks,

-jeff

----- Forwarded message from Scott Smith <S-Smith7 at wiu.edu> -----

Delivery-Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:04:05 -0500
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:02:58 -0500 (CDT)
From: Scott Smith <S-Smith7 at wiu.edu>
To: mabc at macomb.com

Normally I support our law enforcement personnel but the story I heard from the cyclist who was hit makes me angry. Basically the cyclist was stopped at a 4 way stop waiting her turn to proceed through the intersection when she was bump from behind by a car. Thankfully the car was not traveling fast enough to injure the cyclist but injury was mainly avoided because she was able to get off the bike before it went under the vehicle. The bike was damaged (frame and wheels were bent) and could not be ridden from the scene. What make me angry is that the Macomb police did not want to write up the incident. The cyclist had to insist upon the police doing their job. To make matters worse, MPD apologized to the car driver for having to write him a ticket for hitting a bicyclist. As a cyclist myself, this is not an attitude I want from local law enforcement. There will be more and more cyclists around with gas prices rising and maybe the officers need a session or two to become familiarized with the cycling world a bit. A TREK bike is not some trinket that can be replace everyday. Giving prominent Macomb citizens a by just because it was a bicyclist they hit is not right either. Just thought the bicyclists of Macomb should be aware. 

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
Jeffrey R. Calhoun                     McDonough Telephone Cooperative
jeff at mdtc.net                          Infobahn Outfitters
jeff at outfitters.com                    P.O. Box 248
(309) 836-3706                         Macomb, IL 61455