I went up Sunday night and they had a nice lively crowd for dinner. After the business of the Club was out of the way I was able to talk a bit.

When I was asked to speak I explained that I had a 3 hour Legal Ed class which I sometimes shrunk to 2 hours. I could cram it into 1 hour but it was tight… they said “Best we can do is 20 minutes…”

I re-tweaked my thinking and talked about how I had crammed “The DNA of the Cycling Advocate” into this old Brooks bag…

Nobody could quite guess what was inside… Even with a hint [something from the 90s] nobody figured it out…so I pulled out a 1st edition of the LAW’s Ohio Division Handbook… published in Cincinnati in EIGHTEEN 92. I guess I could have added THAT tidbit to the hint…

To me, the DNA of the cycling advocate started when people started organizing – the LAW [League of American Wheelmen, now the League of American Bicyclists] was started by a bike maker & his lawyer in 1880. Ohio, a hotbed of cycling activity, had a number of clubs pop up at the same time, including the Cincinnati Cycling Club, founded in 1880 as well.

By 1892 the LAW & Ohio clubs were able to publish this little book which had a page for each of Ohio’s 88 counties complete with a map of the best cycling roads and route recommendations, restaurant and hotel listings, warnings about bad roads and mean dogs, and more.

PASSION fueled that book project – a Passion to Ride – can you imagine what it took in 1892 to gather the data from 88 counties and put it together into a book? The book was published in Cincinnati and widely distributed. The 1st edition I have a bit worn, it looks like it traveled with its owner as he or she tested out the roads around the state.

The LAW helped combine that Passion to Ride with a PASSION to PROTECT our right to ride. The LAW was at the forefront of many of the big legal battles involving cyclists. In that period – the end of the Victorian era – cycling took over the world! It dominated the society pages, sports pages, and more. Cycling had a huge influence on women…and even women’s fashion as men challenged a woman’s right to wear what she wanted when riding her bike!

By 1895 enough litigation had occurred involving cyclists that a Wisconsin Bike Lawyer, George Burr Clementson, was able to publish the 1st Bike Law case book. I have a 1st edition of that epic tome in the bag as well. The RIGHT to use the roads on a bike was not well established until lawyers throughout the country took up cases for cyclists and generated decisions protecting that right. Traffic cases, criminal cases, civil cases… Clementson cataloged them all in a small case book, which fit perfectly in the Brooks bag.

Also in the bag – a ruby pin – a prize from an early 1900s LAW sponsored event. LAW controlled Racing and promoted riding throughout the country.

I also added a glass negative from a photo taken in the early 1900s of a group of cyclists at a parade or memorial event – the theme was REMEMBER THE MAINE -with one fellow in his best Teddy Roosevelt costume… a reminder that cycling and POLITICS were intermingled early on. I found the glass negative on eBay & had it printed on metal.

I had that old negative cleaned up and printed, on metal, by a fantastical local printing company and I brought the big print as well.

The LAW was very powerful during this late Victorian era. In my old hometown of Mansfield, OH the LAW held an big event in 1887! I was able to acquire a very cool photo from that era along with some “ephemera” from the event. This stuff is cool to me – it makes it so much more REAL than looking at a picture book… real people were riding bikes and organizing massive events because of their PASSION for CYCLING.

As we tend to do today, the 1887 riders gathered for a group photo. In 1887 they gathered at the house of U.S. Senator John Sherman. When I was growing up in Mansfield in the late 60s/early 70s everybody knew where the old Sherman House was but it took several more decades to understand that John Sherman was a FORCE… the younger brother of Union Civil War hero Gen. Sherman he was a lawyer who went to Washington and became a Senator, Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury! His name adorns “The Sherman Act” as the primary author.

By 1887 you can begin to see the changes in cycling gear in this photo… the move from the PennyFarthing to the Safety bike began around 1880…I’m sure some of the folks, mostly stubborn older men, were hanging on to their Old School big wheels while the young hip crowd began riding the Safeties… HA

These cycling changes in the 1880-1900 time frame were critical to the advancement of cycling. Cycling went from something crazy – flying along high atop a 60″ wheel – to something easy and fun – sitting astride a Safety. Mark Twain wrote about learning how to ride a wheel – in his essay “Taming The Bicycle” it was “not quite a full-grown bicycle, but only a cold – a fifty-inch, with pedals shortened to forty-eight — and skittish, like any other colt.” Twain wrote about his trials and tribulations – and his MANY falls, including while trying to simply dismount… “Try as you may, you don’t get down as you would from a horse, you get down as you would from a house afire!”

Twain’s parting words are teh stuff of modern memes galore: “Get a Bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.”

WOMEN

Women were, and are, very smart. They look at these newfangled things- they assess – they perform a careful risk analysis and, generally, women in the 1880s were content to NOT ride the BIG wheelers as they watched men topple and crash. Rather, when the Safety Bicycle was developed for the masses Women went for the bike in a BIG way.

Here, finally, was something useful for women. Something anyone could ride safely. You could move about your community, or to over to the next town, aboard this metal steed that required no food, no water, no potty breaks and no clean up!

The Safety was… well… safer… Once you got the knack of it, off you went! Women flocked to the bike – Women’s FASHION was impacted because the typical Victorian Era garb was NOT suitable for riding – so Women started a movement – maybe the Bloomer Movement isn’t quite right but they started riding in clothing that made sense for the BIKE. And at times the Men decidedly did not like it.

Cases were brought over … BLOOMERS… in 1885 Mrs. Noe’s Bloomers were VINDICATED in Little Rock.

In 1895 a Kansas representative introduced a bill to PROHIBIT women from wearing bloomers on their bikes. Men, including physicians, argued that cycling “destroys the health of women” and “unfits them for the important and sacred duties of motherhood…”

Women, of course, were not having any of it. They kept on buying their bloomers and cycling specific clothing and kept on riding. It became quite a “thing” this damnation of the Bike by politicians and physicians and pastors in the pulpit! The argument that cycling was a vice which would lead to smoking and drinking and all sorts of other vices was not unpopular among certain folks in society. Pastors would preach that cycling would take you straight down the road to Hell!

In the 1894 Oberlin College Yearbook there are many ads for all the cool hip toys that the kids were asking for… Typewriters… Cameras… and BIKES

However, it took some years for the image of cyclists, particularly women on bikes, to become…socially acceptable…

And… of course… women persisted… they continued to ride in bigger and bigger numbers…

In this political cartoon on Equal Electoral Rights for Men and Women from New Zealand the hip cool woman on her safety bike was teasing the old Grandpa on his old fashioned, by then, big wheel

the makers of bike stuff took notice and soon women could buy their specially tailored bike suits, some complete with Pistol Pockets, for help on the road!

Makers of bike stuff made women’s bikes and special cycling shoes for women too. In deed, the impact was recognized an 1896 article in The Cycling World Illustrated!

Women rode for pleasure and fun and fitness and even… for work. Belva Lockwood was among the first women to practice law in D.C. and the first to appear before the Supreme Court. She saw other lawyers, men, using the bicycle to move about the city more efficiently and she took up The Wheel – in her case a Tricycle to accommodate her long black velvet garb. Belva’s riding supposedly caused SUCH a stir that the President issued an edict that none of the wives of his Cabinet officers were permitted to ride.

Women formed and joined cycling clubs. The Ohio Handbook has many such clubs listed. In this shot, from Oberlin, you might recognize the sister of the world’s most famous bicycle mechanics…

GOOD ROADS MOVEMENT

I also talked about The Good Roads Movement- a political movement that saw cyclists and farmers and commercial enterprises promoting candidates who promised to pave the roads. I’ve picked up several old copies of Good Roads, published by the LAW in the 1880s. Gotta love that promotional piece in the upper right corner… If people “…have no roads they are savages for the road is the creation of man and a type of civilized society…” Cyclists were BIG in the Good Roads Movement as they fought to get old muddy ruts paved for smooth riding.

So the DNA of the Cycline Advocate is made of the FUN and EXCITEMENT one experiences on the bike and the PASSION for Riding and PROTECTING our Right to Ride legally & politically… Today we continue that fight to protect YOUR right to use the roads every day here in Ohio!

I do a number of speaking gigs each year. Sometimes I talk to community groups, like we did in Springboro last month. Sometimes it is a club dinner – big or small. Sometimes it’s a Bicycle Summit – The Oklahoma bike folks flew us out to Tulsa to speak at the Oklahoma Bike Summit. Sometimes there is a regional or national event involved, like the Tandem Group I spoke with a few years ago… I was expecting, eh, 30-40 people and …. WHOA there were 300+ in a huge room!

Sometimes I talk to lawyers. I’ve been giving a Continuing Legal Education seminar for lawyers and judges in Ohio for many years now: we call it BIKE LAW 101.

I’ve done an abbreviated 1 hour version of the seminar but typically we go 2 or 3 hours and cover everything from a little history lesson to laws governing riding, issues on sidewalks and trails, hot button issues the other side tries to raise, insurance issues, who to sue, how to get around “Release” forms, how to interview a cyclist & evaluate the case, how to gather data, WHAT data you need… we talk about specialized experts who can reconstruct a bicycle/car crash, and experts who can forensically extract and interpret GPS data, or data from a watch or phone… We talk about using TEXT data from the motorist…using DOORBELL cam or security cam data… there are MANY things we see in our typical bike crash cases that are VERY different from the stuff you find in typical “personal injury” cases most lawyers handle.

Talking about GPS usage has changed considerably over the years. But it can provide VERY strong data to help us prove what our client did and why she/he did it. IT can help prove that there was no “sudden” movement – no “Suicide Swerve” into a passing car. It can prove that yes, the cyclist DID stop at the stop sign. It can prove that No, the cyclist was NOT going 45 mph… We’ve learned that analyzing this data and using it in a trial or hearing requires a lot of WORK, and some specialized expert testimony.

In one recent case we combined GPS points with witness testimony and had our expert create an animation of a crash overlaid on a map, using things true to scale, that showed, in real time, that the car seeking to pass the cyclist had PLENTY OF TIME to see that the cyclist was moving right to left, aiming at a left turn, and to react to avoid a crash. Instead the motorist chose to SPEED UP, exceed the limit, then proclaim surprise when he whacked, and severely, catastrophically, injured the rider. This was helpful in getting the Simply Fabulous insurance company to from ZERO to more than TWO MILLION DOLLARS during the course of the Mediation.

Whenever I speak I bring along this nice Brooks bag. I am not sure what it is designed for today, but it looks like a bag that cyclists could been used back in the 80s/90s [the EIGHTEEN 80s/90s] to carry around some books relating to cycling.

One of these is a book published by the Ohio Chapter of the League of American Wheelmen in 1892. The other is the first published “Bike Law” book which came out in 1895.

The LAW book is fascinating as it lists all the clubs and big wigs of Ohio cycling in the 1890s. It goes through the national and Ohio bylaws and such, but then has a page or 2 for just about all of Ohio’s 88 counties… someone from the county provided a map and wrote up a piece about cycling in the county- good roads, finished roads, nice places to eat and stay and other fun details. I found an original 1st edition of this book at an Olde Book website.

Such a tremendous find. I found a better/cleaner original some years later which I donated to the Bicycle Museum of America, located in New Bremen, Ohio.
A page discussing Stark County gives you a sense of the detail provided by this book way back in 1892!

The BIKE LAW book is also fascinating. It was prepared by George Burr Clementson, a somewhat distant relative of Aaron Burr and an early “Bike Lawyer” from Wisconsin. Like today’s case books, Mr. Clementson catalogs and organizes case law relating to riding on the roads. This is also a first edition from 1895. It’s always been fascinating to me that by 1895 there were enough BICYCLE cases that made it to the appellate system that a lawyer could find and organize them into a book! Mr. Clementson was certainly one of the very first BIKELAWYERS around.

A BIG issue then was whether a cyclist had the RIGHT to use the public roads… courts held unanimously that they did. In the 1890s there was not much in teh way of “traffic laws” and cyclists shared the roads with horses, buggies and pedestrians… leading to all the same type of complications we see today and folks ran into each other and got hurt, or fought for their space on the public ways. Cases arose against municipalities for failing to keep roads safe, and against businesses who used cyclists to deliver products. A fascinating look at the dangers of riding on the roads in the late 1800s

The Legal Maxims for the Rider at the back of the Bike Law Book are also very interesting… and topical today…

1 -Ignorantia facti excusat, ignorantia juris non excusat. A man may be pardoned for making mistakes, but not for mistaking the law

2-Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas. Make such use of your own property as to not injure another’s. Be cautious and prudent in propelling your bike… Volenti Non Fit Injuria – one who is the author of his own hurt has not right to complain

3 – Ex Dolo Malo Non Oritur Actio – No cause of action can grow out of a questionable transaction… when you engage in “Sunday spins” in places where such are outlawed remember you have disregarded teh law and the law may retaliate and disregard you. You’ll have to pay your own medical bills, fix your own bike and won’t be able to sue the town or an individual for your damages or injury…

4. Actus Dei Gemini Facit Injurius – The act of God does no man injury. If you are injured and negligence is imputable to no one, you will have no claim.

5. Qui Sentit Commodum, Sentire Debet Et ONus – Benefit and Burden ought to go hand in hand. Every right involves a corresponding duty. Do unto others as you have them do unto you. There is no such thing as a monopoly of rights.

6. Ubi Jus, Ibi Femedium – Where there is a right there is a remedy. BUT… De Minimus Non Curat Lex. The Law does not regard Trifles…

7. Qui Facit Per Alium Facit Per Se – He who does a thing by another does it himself – When you are acting on behalf of someone else, a city, an employer, you AND the other are liable. But “… don’t expect to recover from any one for an injury sustained by you while riding your wheel without touching the handlebars and flirting with a milk-maid in a red sun-bonnet on the other side of the fence…” [You KNOW who you are!]

Finally when you crash due to someone else’s negligence…

“The thing to do in such a case is, first, get a doctor, second get well; third –> RETAIN AN ATTORNEY TO SUE SOMEONE WHO HAD A REAL AND CAUSAL CONNECTION WITH THE INJURY, or don’t sue at all…”

Good Words to remember despite having been written 130 years ago!

So how BIKE-Y is Ohio? Well, the LAW was founded in 1880, as was the Cincinnati Cycle Club! By 1892 there were MANY clubs throughout the state – Men’s clubs and Women’s clubs. Check out this list:

I’m not sure what the number means in the 1st column…. but my GUESS is that as each club became a “League Club” with the LAW they were likely assigned a number. I know the Cincinnati Cycle Club was founded in 1880, when LAW was founded, so it makes sense that it has a very low number – 14. In just Cincinnati in addition to the Cincinnati Bicycle Club we see the Porkopolis Wheelmen [Cincinnati was know as Porkopolis due to its significant pig slaughterhouse market], the Athletic Cycle Club, the Brightonn Bicycle Club and the Cincinnati Century Club.

The Brighton Club is very interesting. This group was founded by the sons of a couple of Cincinnati’s original “Beer Barons” – Windisch & Mulhauser. In addition to pork, Cincinnati was well known for its many beer makers and breweries back in The Day. You can read about the Brighton Club here – The Leaders of the club are portrayed in this clever drawing.

I connected with one of the descendants of the founders of the Brighton Club and he sent me several scans of photographs the “boys” took… Being the son of a beer baron didi have its perks, like owning one of those newfangled Camera-thing-a-ma-bobs… The Brighton Club had a very cool clubhouse.

They used to ride a lot in Butler County, which is the county north of Cincinnati. I wondered about that for a long time & a few years ago I ran across an article in a BEER publication of all things that explained it. The early beer barons were into “locally sourced” ingredients long before that became a cool thing to do in the 2020s… Both the Windisch and Mulhauser families owned large farms in Butler County where they could grow their own barley & hops. The Club used to ride out to The Farm.

Of course, they would also visit a nice Beer Garden from time to time…

All in all, the Brighton Club was not much different than the social cycling clubs of today… they likely had the most modern of wheels, enjoyed the social aspects of riding as much as teh physical and liked to record their events for posterity…

The Brighton Club also used to race. Here’s a shot from The Brighton Road Race right before the start in Glendale, Ohio.

From the website above comes this story:

People were riding all over Ohio in the 1890s. So many people were participating in the sport, both by riding but by joining the LAW and working on ADVOCACY issues, that the LAW published an entire book featuring all the great riding throughout Ohio… To ME, that makes Ohio pretty darn BIKE-Y!

The crash happened on a 2 way city street – a very WIDE and unusual street, as discussed below.

The 18 yr old Jeep driver tried to pass the cyclist and struck him at, probably, 40+mph. You can see the point of impact next to the headlight and the subsequent points of contact on the front fender, mirror, rear door… there’s also a big dent in the A pillar from, probably, the client’s helmeted head, which led to a significant TBI – the rider suffered catastrophic injuries here….

On top of that, Jake at the Simply Fabulous Insurance Company advised us that they were DENYING the claim on Day 3, while the client was still in a coma.

Why?

Well, the police decided upon 5 minutes or so of their arrival that …!!TA DA!!… the cyclist was at fault for a “suicide swerve” during a “U-Turn” – this came from an “eye witness” who was 150+ feet away, coming in the opposite direction, around a blind curve… but … I digress…

After the impact, the Kid in the Jeep went left of center, hopped a curb and slammed the Jeep into some short concrete steps in the front yard of a house.

When the Kid got out and came back to where the cyclist was lying in the road a witness indicated he said “What happened?” But, after the crash, while the police were milling around, the witness huddled up with the Kid and …!!TA DA!!… when the kid told police his story it matched the witness… suicide swerve/U-turn… How about that?

However, the Kid also told police that he had sped up to pass, exceeding the 35 mph speed limit… which was helpful in the end. He also admitted the pass attempt occurred in an intersection – a No No under state traffic law… As for Ohio’s the three foot law, he was kind of stuck… was he giving the rider 3′ and the rider “suddenly swerved” to the left MORE than 3 feet? That seemed a bit far fetched… but the cops didn’t really inquire – they took the word of the “eye witness” that there was some kind of suicide swerve & wrote it up that way.

Police DID map the scene using the Total Station. The Total Station is like a laser-guided surveying device. Once it is properly set up police will take measurements of different critical pieces of a scene to generate data that can be used to prepare a scale replica. This takes the scene image from the old school “NOT TO SCALE” pen/straight edge to the 21st century where you have a laser-measured scale drawing.

The client’s brother had been in a bad bike crash down in Georgia some years earlier &, while the client was still in a coma, the client’s wife got a referral from the Georgia bike lawyer to… !!TA DA!! us here at the Ohio Bike Lawyer’s World HQ high atop Mt. BikeMore –

I brought in Chris Carville, the Kentucky Bike Lawyer – we co-counseled this case.

Since SF denied the claim they also denied us the opportunity to inspect the car so we sued immediately & obtained a TRO – Temp Restraining Order – prohibiting any work on the Jeep until our expert could inspect it.

We also had our expert examine the bike and, more importantly, the client’s GPS, which police…!!TA DA!! … IGNORED…

The Garmin was a Gold Mine…

We spent two years aggressively litigating this case. We sued the driver, the Kid, and his mom, who owned the car. We also sued the client’s UM carrier, which ended up being the same company that insured the vehicle. The case was… vigorously… defended by defense counsel with whom we were quite familiar. This is helpful, I think. They knew us, we knew them. They knew we knew what we were doing on this bike stuff and we knew they knew how to defend and work a case.

Extracting phone data is complex and we eventually negotiated a protocol to obtain the Kid’s phone data which was… also a Gold Mine. The data showed… !!TA DA!!… the Kid was TEXTING HIS GF right around the time of the crash…

We also obtained 40+ hours of cruiser/body cam footage. This proved to be extremely helpful for unexpected reasons.

Because police decided early on that this was NOT going to be a situation leading to any criminal “charges” we believe they were far more lackadaisical in their data/evidence collection than if they were thinking about felony traffic charges. We found critical witnesses on the body cam who were not even mentioned in the 50 page crash report. One Key witness, for us, was simply … !!TA DA!! … completely IGNORED by police. He was questioned for less than 20 seconds – gave his name and told police he was coming the opposite direction from the cyclist & Jeep. He said he was near/next to the crash scene when he HEARD the big impact. He looked in his mirror and saw our client flying in the air!

He stopped his car, got out & ran back. Meanwhile, the Kid had gone left of center and crashed the Jeep into a couple concrete steps in the front yard of a house 100+ feet down the road from the point of impact. The Kid came back to where our client was lying in the street [about where the helmet is placed in the photo] and said “what happened?” -He didn’t know what had happened…

In the photo above you can see how far down the Jeep ended up. You can also see the van-type vehicle sitting first in line. This was the “eye witness” – a word I keep putting in quotes because we came to seriously question what exactly the eyes of this witness could have possibly seen. As you can see by the line of traffic, the road bends around under the overpass. The van was coming out from under the overpass before the crash – the driver said he stopped where the van is shown as the Kid drove the Jeep into his lane. The Jeep hopped the curb and hit the steps. So how much of the critical seconds leading up to the crash could the driver of the van have seen? Virtually nothing.

After the crash, while the police were milling about, the Kid huddled up with the witness who said the cyclist “swerved” into the car during a “U-turn.” They were talking several minutes. One of the officers noticed this and pointed it out. She felt the two could be cooking up a story, and the body cam picked up her concerns – but the officer in charge didn’t seem concerned…they had already decided it was the cyclist’s fault and when they finally asked the Kid what happened … -suddenly the kid said the same thing as the guy in the van – the rider did a suicide swerve in a U-turn… !!TA DA!! See… Kid’s OK, Cyclist is at Fault…

As we dug into the police video we saw that one Cruiser cam angle also showed, in the background, the Kid’s dad getting 2 big dogs out of the car.

As the case developed we learned what the Kid had been doing that day through depositions, and a review of his phone data. The Kid was a senior in high school and this had been an off day so he was at home. Dad had gone to his shop/office with the 2 dogs. Dad called the Kid & asked him to come to the shop to A/pick up the dogs and B/pick up some tax forms to take to the CPA. Because much of this was set up through text messages we have a pretty good timeline.

The Kid had picked the dogs up from Dad a few minutes before the crash along w some papers he was taking to a CPA. From Dad’s shop to the crash site was less than 5 minutes. The crash time, on the police report, was listed at 1345. This ended up be a VERY important data point.

The Kid had a map app open on his phone to help him get to the CPA office. His phone was likely mounted in a cradle that was stuck to the top of the dash, further blocking his view of the right side of the lane ahead, where the cyclist was riding.

In a deposition 2 years after the crash the Kid initially said he thought the dogs were in the back end of the Jeep, but … we had a photo from police showing the back was filled w golf clubs and sports gear & he had to admit the dogs were closer. In fact, the cruiser cam video showed one of the dogs getting out of the FRONT seat.

Combining the phone data and time stamps with the GPS data, 911 calls and police officer’s laser mapping [confirmed by our expert’s own laser mapping] along with the testimony of our newly witness about the car in the opposite lane & the Kid’s admission of speeding and passing in an intersection, we were able to put an animation together for Mediation showing how easily the kid in the Jeep could have AVOIDED the crash by…gasp… paying attention and slowing down.

The video shows the path of the car, at different speeds, and the path of the BIKE mapped out through GPS coordinates. It shows them meeting at the spot that our expert determined was the point of impact.

The geography of the area also came into play here. As noted above, the street here was both “wide & unique.” The street had 20 FOOT lane width on both sides- highly unusual for a city street… However, this street was unique in that the eastbound lane, where the Jeep and bike was traveling, actually ENDED and the road turned into an on-ramp for a higher speed limited access highway where bikes are not permitted. The west bound lane actually started at the end of an OFF ramp from the same limited access highway.

This aerial shows in red path of the witness, the client on the bike and the Jeep. The witness coming from the offramp. The bike’s path was right to left towards a left turn into the side street. The Jeep’s path was coming from behind the bike. The length of the lines represent the approximate distance traveled by each vehicle in the final FOUR SECONDS before impact.

Clearly, the client’s intent was NOT to go up onto the limited access highway where bikes were banned. The client’s right-to-left movement on the bicycle during that final four seconds was consistent his lawfully riding “to the right” initially and then preparing for a left turn across the oncoming lane and into the small, short dead-end side street shown in the video. In fact, the client’s GPS had mapped out MANY prior rides over this same route where the client had made a left turn into the side street to turn around and go back the other way.

The client had no memory of the crash or his intent or actions. His only memory was of the bicycle suddenly being shoved out from underneath him & him being in the air… His next memory is several days later… without the high tech bike GPS data providing us with a window into his movement we very well may have struck out in this case.

However, with all the data we accumulated, we were able to retain experts to powerfully show that the Kid was likely distracted- he had the 2 big dogs- he was reading texts FROM his girlfriend – his last text TO her prior to the crash said “Have dogs in the car with me wanted to show” -this text was sent at 1:45 – the exact time listed as the time of the crash in the police report. We argued that he was clearly lining up a selfie with the dogs, or preparing a video call or some other way of “showing” her the dogs. He was likely on the very wide street where the crash occurred when he sent that last text and may have been surprised to realize:
– Hey there’s a cyclist
– Hey there’s a car coming in the opposite direction
– Hey I have to EXIT up here so the lane next to me is going to go away
– Hey that cyclist is moving right to left
– Hey, I’d better speed up and pass, but I can’t go over too far to the left because there’s a car coming but I have to get by quickly and get back in my lane to get up on the on ramp so I’ll just squeeze between this cyclist & the oncoming car…

So he speeds up – to a speed exceeding the speed limit – and he clobbers the cyclist, who has the right of way and the right to make his left turn after the oncoming car goes by.

Had the Kid simply realized a couple seconds EARLIER in the traffic game what he was facing ahead he could have slowed down…for a SECOND OF TWO… and passed safely – There was 15-20 feet of wide open space to the RIGHT of our client at that point, but the Kid was negligently committed to passing… Had the Kid been paying attention our client would NOT have suffered life changing, catastrophic injuries…

Combined with the speeding admission, passing in an intersection, failing to give 3 feet of clearance, having 2 bigs dogs running free, and other admissions of careless behavior, we were able to make a very strong argument that the kid was negligent… & that our client was NOT!

We also aggressively worked up the Damages side of the case, retaining experts to review the medical side of the head to toe neurological and orthopedic injuries… we had animations put together using the 3-D imagery done during MRI and CT scans at the hospital – amazing stuff that showed how very badly the client’s hip, shoulder & scapula were permanently maimed in this crash…

In the end we mediated the case and SF went from “We Ain’t Payin'” to “How Much…” and a significant figure was paid to resolve the claim.

The local public TV news folks at WCET reached out to me as they are doing a piece on pedestrian & bike safety so I’m doing an interview with them this afternoon – should be interesting!

Statistically Ohio remains a SAFE place, generally, to ride a bike and walk around compared to other bigger states …but… we want MORE… and…

Ohio is also mirroring the national trends – MORE crashes and MORE deaths of cyclists and riders… a trend that started back around 2009 for ALL vulnerable road users, including motorcyclists…

VULNERABLE USERS
What do we mean by “vulnerable users” of the roadways? Basically anyone NOT encased in 2 tons of steel. People walking around, riding bikes or scooters, people on motorcycles… In some areas that would include folks on horseback…

Vulnerable Users have been far more at risk over the past decade and a half than in the several previous decades. Motorcyclists, Pedestrians and Cyclists have seen worsening numbers – more and MORE road violence fatalities, over the past 15 or so years.

Let’s go back a bit – say 50 years ago…

The WORST year for cyclist fatalities [before the past couple] was way back in 1975 [the year I graduated high school] when 1002 cyclists were killed on the road… but if you dig into those numbers as I have you see that …well… life was different in 1975… FAR more children rode bikes and FAR more children were KILLED on bikes… as the years rolled on Adults caught the Bike Bug in a big way- adults returned to riding bikes – racing got more popular – these crazy Ironman contests sprung up – Triathletes of all ages began training – touring made a come back – off road and mountain bike riding took off…

This data is from the IIHS Bicycle Safety Page… in 1975 64% of all cyclists killed were under the age of 20… and digging deeper we find MANY of those were younger kids darting out into the street. The bottom half of the data shows 2015 – 2023 and we see that kids are less 10% while adult men make up 80% of the cyclists killed on the roads today

As we morphed into a more Car Centric society, KIDS started riding less and started being shipped by CAR from play date to violin lessons to soccer practice to math tutoring and so on…

These societal changes are reflected in the crash stats… fewer and fewer children were being killed while riding bikes each year [YAY] but more and more adults were being killed… In 1975 over 600 KIDS/boys were killed compared to 200 adult men. By 1990 the numbers evened out [women and girls have always been the smallest percentage of fatal crashes]. Today 80+% of those killed on bikes each year are adult men… with an average age of the rider up over 40…

When we look back we see that the TOTAL number of cycling fatalities dropped significantly in the 80s from the high numbers of the 70s, and then dropped more in the 90s and kept dropping in the 2000s… until…

2009 or so…

And since 2009 or so the numbers…in Ohio and nationally … have gone up DRAMATICALLY as far as the. number of people killed who were riding bicycles or motorcycles or who were just walking around…

A total of 1,155 bicyclists were killed in crashes with motor vehicles in 2023, the highest number EVER RECORDED. Overall, bicyclist deaths have increased 15% since 1975 [1002 to 1155], but… critically have INCREASED 86% since reaching their lowest point in 2010 [629 – 1155!].

Most bicyclist deaths in 2023 (90%) were among people age 20 and older. Deaths among bicyclists younger than 20 have declined 88% since 1975, while deaths among bicyclists 20 and older have increased almost fivefold. In every year since 1975, many more male than female bicyclists were killed in crashes with motor vehicles.

Why?

Why are more cyclists being killed on thE roads today than EVER BEFORE?

Have cyclists simply forgotten how to ride? Are they doing Suicide Swerves into cars at a really high rate?

or… perhaps…

Have motorists gotten impatient- distracted – aggressive -are motorists in more of a HURRY today – are there many many more motorists than before, but not so much more road space?

Maybe the fact that cars and trucks have gotten GINORMOUS plays a role?

Look at that magic date in the timeline – 2009 – it’s a VERY bright line – fatality numbers went down for decades for cyclists…and pedestrians.. .and motorcyclists… since then they have gone up to record highs

Yet… Car/Truck OCCUPANTS started dying LESS frequently…

Per FARS data, from 1994 – 2007

1994 – 2007 – 14 years 
AVERAGE NUMBER OF 
TOTAL DEATHS – 42,155
Car Occupant Deaths – 33,007
Cyclist Deaths – 745
Pedestrian Deaths – 5025
Motorcyclist Deaths- 3235

2008-2023 = 16 years
AVERAGE NUMBER OF 
TOTAL DEATHS – 36,625
Car Occupant Deaths – 24,666
Cyclist Deaths – 826
Pedestrian Deaths – 5689
Motorcyclist Deaths- 5201

This image is from a spreadsheet using the FARS data from 1997 – 2023. I added the number of fatalities in these categories and then simply averaged them over the time span… WHAT is going ON?

Serious, significant and dramatic changes – More and More DEATHS of Vulnerable Users and Fewer and Fewer Deaths for those in steel cages

What else was happening in society in that tight little timeline around 2007-2009 that MIGHT contribute to a decrease in road safety for the most vulnerable road users but improve safety for those in cars???

Hmmm… well… look at the user trends for say… Facebook/Twitter/Instagram and the sharp increase in users from millions to billions… then look at the sales of the magical devices that you can hold in your hand to look stuff up, download movies and photos, take photos, text, receive faxes and…oh yea… talk to others in a phone call… the use/trend of magic Smart Phones mirrors the use/trend of social media and the trend of fatalities … up up UP…

Perhaps, while looking at phones, people started driving just a bit slower…slow enough to kill fewer people in cars and trucks but fast enough to kill even MORE vulnerable users who become INVISIBLE to those driving with, in essence, a paper bag over their heads?

This data relates to only those KILLED on the road…not crashes, injuries, etc… I’ve certainly not studied this with any sort of academic rigor – rather, I am tossing this out there and looking for an explanation… and some HELP in trying to figure out the policies and changes that need to be put into place to KILL FEWER VULNERABLE USERS… I think there is a PhD dissertation waiting to be written…

No 1 WORST for WALKING? From this article that title goes to…Ta Da… Albuquerque, NM, based on 9.24 fatalities per 100,000 people.

The rest of the list is a bit surprising… After Albuquerque there is Memphis, Baton Rouge, Miami and Lexington, KY?

The “rate” of fatal crashes is what they look at, not the total number. For total numbers, Florida leads the league… by a LOT – and has for many years. There are still Florida cities within The Most Dangerous – Miami is no. 4 on the walking list… Lexington is there because it had 49 car crash fatalities, which is not a big number, but 22 of those were pedestrians! Lexington’s fatality rate for pedestrians is 3x the national average

In Ohio, Cincinnati was the “worst” as it ranked 37th nationally with a rate of 3.55 deaths per 100,000 people. Next was Cleveland at 3.27 and then Columbus at 2.65. Nationally, the US Rate 2.21 deaths per 100,000 people so all 3 Ohio cities were worse than the national average!

The article also looks at Cycling Fatalities and ranks US cities. For cycling the article says the 5 Worst are:

5. Tucson

4. Sacramento

3. Tampa

2. New Orleans

1. Stockton, CA

Other FL cities ranking poorly are Orlando [7] and St. Petersburg [9]

In Ohio:

Cincinnati was rated 37th for Pedestrian Risk and 81st for Cyclist Risk

Cleveland was 45th for Pedestrian Risk and 81st for Cyclist Risk

Columbus was 58th for Pedestrian Risk and 52nd for Cyclist Risk

The “81st” ranking is a little misleading as there was a 19-way tie for 81st because 19 of the top 100 cities had ZERO cycling deaths, including Cincinnati and Cleveland. Columbus had a rate of 0.33 deaths per 100,000, slightly BELOW the national rate of 0.35.

Ranking cities for cyclist risk is tough because very few cities have more than 1 or 2 cyclist fatalities and if a city DOES have a bad year and has 1 or 2 its “score” can change dramatically… Here, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus all typically have 0 or 1 or 2 fatal cycling crashes each year. Trying to “rank” cities based on relatively small numbers can means that 1 or 2 bits of data can skew the results dramatically. To me, it’s better to look at regions, or states when comparing these numbers.\

Ohio is the 7th largest state – people forget how big Ohio is because we don’t have an NYC or LA with millions and millions of people but we have several metropolitan areas that are fairly large – Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo Dayton, etc… Ohio has 11.8 million people and millions of regular cyclists who use roads, paths, sidewalks every day.

CA has almost 40M people.

TX – 31.9M

FL – 23.8M

NY – 20M

PA.- 13.1M

IL – 12.7M

OH – 11.9 M

GA – 11.2M

NC – 10.7M

MI – 10.0M

When you compare Ohio’s safety record to other big states we always fare pretty well. In July 2025 NHTSA released some data from 2023. They revealed a VERY large number of cyclist fatalities in the US – 1,166 – which was 2.9% of ALL traffic deaths.

Almost 50,000 cyclists were injured in traffic crashes in the US.

This data confirms the continuation of a very lousy trend UPWARD in the number of cycling [and pedestrian] fatalities since the 2008-2009 time frame. Prior to that cycling deaths had dropped dramatically each DECADE since the 70s. Since then…up up UP

NOTE how the chart of annual BICYCLIST fatalities mirrors teh chart of annual PEDESTRIAN fatalities at the top of the page. That is no accident – deaths of the most VULNERABLE road users has been on the rise – dramatically- with motorcyclists also in that group.

The “rate” of fatal crashes – i.e., Number of Fatal/100KPopulation – is a measure NHTSA looks at to compare “safety” in states/cities. Nationally, the “rate” of fatal crashes was 0.35 per 100,000, or 3.5 cyclists killed per million people. So if a city/state has 1M people you would expect 3-4 cycling fatalities if the area was on par with the national average. When looking at these “rates” the lower the number the “safer”/better for cycling…

For the top 10 largest states the rates of fatal cycling crashes for each state are:

CA – 0.37

FL – 1.03

NY – 0.25

PA – 0.22

IL – 0.33

OH – 0.19

GA – 0.22

NC – 0.42

MI – 0.24

Not only was Ohio’s rate of Fatal Cycling Crashes WELL below the average at 0.19, but Ohio has the LOWEST rate of the Top 10 largest states in the US! This was true even though Ohio had what was historically a very BAD year for Ohio in 2023 with 22 fatalities… usually we have 15-20! So our rate of fatal crashes is usually LOWER/BETTER than this…

And WHAT is going on in Florida? As I said, Florida leads the league in DANGER for all vulnerable road users. Florida’s population is roughly 2x that of Ohio. When ranking states by AREA, Florida is the 22nd largest state with almost 66,000 square miles of land. Ohio is 34th with almost 45,000 square miles. When ranking states by miles of ROADS, Florida is 7th with 275,000+ miles. Ohio is 9th with 262,000 miles.

But when it comes to KILLING PEOPLE on the Roads… Florida is way off the charts! The rate of fatal bike crashes is more than FIVE TIMES HIGHER in Florida [1.03] than in Ohio [0.19]. That makes no sense. People in CARS are KILLING people who are NOT in cars at ridiculous levels in Florida.

Part of that MIGHT be attributed to “weather” – maybe? Florida’s weather is more conducive to folks riding bikes, or walking, or motorcycling outside for more days of the year than, say, Ohio? Part of that MIGHT be attributed to Florida being home to more older drivers?

I think a better answer revolves around Florida’s “plan” for roads, which appears to have been to make them long and straight and wide and fast. SPEED KILLS people. Speed Kills. And Florida’s roads are set up for SPEED. If you are driving under 40mph on most FL roads you’ll get run off the road by NASCAR-wannabe pick up drivers all day long!

While there seems to be a lot of Gloom and Doom in this post, remember this… When I speak to groups about cycling, Bike Law, and safety I start with this point – CYCLING IS SAFE – in general millions of people go out, take a bike ride, have fun and come home safely every single day… every once in a great while something bad happens… the world I live/work in involves dealing with those tragedies but I find it helpful to remember that these are the shipwrecks, the plane crashes, which tend to get a lot more attention than the fact that ships rarely wreck and planes rarely crash…

Stay Safe!

[also…if you get this reference, you’re probably due for another colonoscopy…]

Some [bad] numbers about driving in the US…
Car crashes now kill OVER 40,000 people every year in America – car crashes have become one of the leading causes of death in this country. There are some 6,000,000 car crashes every year that result in injuries and property damage (and we wonder why auto insurance costs so much).

CRASH DATA FROM FARS/NHTSA:
~ 19,937 motor vehicle crashes occur every day in the United States.
– There are around 118 deaths caused by auto accidents each and every day. Imagine a 120 seat airplane crashing…due to negligent pilot behavior… every day

Injuries: An estimated 6,849 injuries happen each day due to car accidents.

In 2022, a total of 42,514 fatal car accidents occurred on roadways across the United States. Another 1,664,598 crashes resulted in injuries and 4,226,677 caused property damage. In all, the number of police-reported crashes that year hit 5,930,496. – Forbes

From 2018 to 2022, the number of deadly accidents in the United States increased by more than 16% — from 36,835 fatal car crashes in 2018 to 42,795 fatal car crashes in 2022. 41,000 people were killed in US car crashes last year (2023). – USA Today

NHTSA has now published 2023 FARS data and the numbers are NOT any better. In the 30 years from 1994-2023 a total of 1,176,187 people have been KILLED on US Roads. That many people would be the 10th largest city in the US…

Ohio is seeing comparable problems – 1100 people are killed on Ohio roads each year. There are 250,000 car crashes involving over 500,000 people.

Traffic Deaths bottomed out in the US around 2010, dipping just slightly below 33,000 for a couple years and then started climbing, and climbing and CLIMBING. From 32,479 in 2011 to 42,471 in 2022. 9,992 more deaths today than in 2011 a whopping THIRTY PERCENT INCREASE in a decade

Why?

That’s worth studying – social media started, and blew up in this time period… as did the development & sale of phones capable of doing a lot more than making phone calls. Suddenly, from your car, you could receive & review a fax or spreadsheet, search the World Wide Web, go online to look at a menu, watch TV or a Movie, take a photo or video, download data, upload to any of the dozens of media pages… all while “DRIVING”… and did car makers take steps to stop this? Ummm… NO… the InfoTainment systems that used to just play music now have screens the size of large iPads and have become CRASHerTainment systems…

The bottom line is that people SUCK at driving cars – they run into buildings – poles- curbs- other cars and people on bikes or motorcycles, as well as people just walking around – People in the US drive their cars so poorly that they are killing others in record numbers… it’s more than an issue, it is a public health problem.
What’s the answer?
I’m not “carceral” per se, but I think if people knew there would be STIFF punishments for careless driving they’d be more…careful… but that’s just me…

In some places there is so much concern for E-BIKES that they are passing local laws prohibiting them, or allowing forfeiture/impoundment… I’m really NOT against that…for cars…

Perhaps just having in the law the ability of LEOs or the Courts so simply lock up their cars for a time will slow folks down – I dunno – SPEED is clearly the problem. Speed KILLS… and the current “system” of safety by ticketing is failing everyone…and the answer is NOT “get everyone ELSE off the roads so cars can go even faster” – the answer is slowing down traffic so motorists kill and maim fewer people – if allowing the government to impound cars for a specified term gets that job done, I’m all for it…

While I was in DC many years ago for the National Bike Summit I met Eleanor McMahon, a Canadian visitor who tagged along with the Ohio contingent. Her story was a very sad one. Her husband was a cyclist, and police officer, who was killed while riding [off duty] on the road. The motorist was not licensed. He had over 5 license suspensions – and multiple crashes. She did some research that showed an extraordinary percentage of people drive on suspended licenses. She developed a bill called Greg’s Law, after her husband. This bill substantially upped the penalties for repeat offenders – fines up to $50,000 – and imposed a 7-day Impoundment of the offender’s vehicle. Sort of a cooling off period, which has been effective. Eleanor was a very effective advocate for us in DC and for her constituents later when she was elected to government in Canada!

But a trend soon started… I was part of that trend. I grew up riding bikes in the late 60s/early 70s and was 18 in 1975. Like MANY adults, I just kept on riding and riding and RIDING the bike. Overall we know that adults started riding more and more. In the 1980s Triathlons and FITNESS became popular for adults while kids started riding less and less and started getting driven around to Play Dates. As time marched on, Adults rode more, Kids rode LESS and while fatalities overall declined, the data shifted in the 80s from Kids being the majority of those killed on the roads to adults, mostly men.

For DECADES following the very dangerous 70s the data skewed DOWN. On average, fewer riders were killed in the 80s than the 70s. Fewer riders were killed in the 90s than the 80s. Fewer riders were killed in the early 2000s than the 90s.

By 2010 we had gone from a high of 1002 fatalities in 1975 to a low of 621 in 2010.

The same Trend is seen in both pedestrian data and motorcycle data – fewer and fewer walkers killed on the streets – fewer and fewer motorcycle riders died.

Then… something happened. Something dramatic… like “the Earth was struck by meteor” dramatic

I’m not quite sure WHAT it was but there was an extreme SHIFT right around 2010 …

Since then …
The roads have become a LOT more dangerous for the most vulnerable road users

Since then …
the decades long decline in cycling/pedestrian fatalities didn’t just flatten out, the number of people killed riding bicycles [and walking around] jumped up, up UP significantly!!

After that low of 621 riders killed in 2010 the numbers increased to the point that in 2022 there were 1084 cyclists killed. More than the 1002 in 1975 and The MOST EVER recorded in one year in the USA. Today 90% of cyclists killed on the roads are adults [80% adult men, 10% adult women, 8+% boys, 1+% girls]

The same dramatic decline/RISE pattern is seen in pedestrian deaths… and motorcyclist deaths. Basically, the most vulnerable users of the roadway are being run down and killed in greater and greater numbers each year over the past decade and a half.

As a math person I understand that Correlation Does NOT Imply Causation… cum hoc ergo propter hoc

…but…

The charts below would seem to create at least prima facie evidence, as we lawyers say, for opening a discussion on a national level about distraction and whether the increased use since 2010 of cell phones and social media by motorists is “A” cause of so many more people being killed on the roads in the past decade and a half…

I mean, did people just get worse at riding a bike, and walking around, and operating a motorcycle… all at the same time – right around 2010… so that people in each of these 3 very distinct groups of vulnerable road users just happened to put themselves in harms way in greater numbers starting in 2010 than they did in the previous 4 decades???

…or maybe, just maybe, do people driving cars SUCK a lot more at driving cars than they did before 2010?

It seems to me that something else going on that needs to be studied in DEPTH..

Here at the BikeLawyer’s World Headquarters We track data. We look for hotspots- roads/intersections where crashes involving cyclists keep happening. We will work with local cycling groups and/or local/state/national groups to improve infrastructure, roads, bike lanes, trails… we will work to improve safety & reduce risk – we will work to STOP THE KILLING of cyclists & pedestrians and motorcyclists on our nation’s roadways…

As Sgt Phil Esterhaus used to say on Hill Street Blues – ” LET’S BE CAREFUL OUT THERE”

The 1st shot below is from the Late 1980s – Pre-Dawn on the Saturday before Mother’s Day… getting ready to depart Columbus with 4 or 5,000 other early risers…

IYKYK – If you have ridden bikes in Ohio for any significant time you probably know… TOSRV is the GrandDaddy of all the Acronym Rides… the Tour of the Scioto River Valley – 105 miles from Columbus to Portsmouth on Saturday and 105 miles back to Columbus on Sunday, Mother’s Day… a classic early season weekend!

There I was – a young 30-something newbie lawyer in my Bike Nashbar shorts and big Bell helmet. Mesh gloves – Beta? brand cycling shoes. Riding a Schwinn Le Tour Luxe…

My riding buddy Terry was a high school classmate who was living Cincinnati at the time. Terry rode a LOT and was/is a STRONG rider- I was…not…

Terry had done TOSRV many times & put me in the loop for the process. Back then you had to ask them to send you the entry materials ahead of time. There was a magic date [in February maybe?] when they were mailed out. You had to open your mail, fill out the forms, write your check, stick everything in an envelope, put the right postage on it, and mail it back THE SAME DAY YOU RECEIVED IT or you most likely would get closed out! TOSRV in the late 1980s was drawing 6-7000 riders!

Terry & I got in that year… he & I did some weekend riding together to prep for the 210-mile TOSRV weekend, including a very memorable long hilly ride from Cincinnati to Hueston Woods where I developed one of Magas’s Bike Rules to Live By… which is “Be WARY of any unfamiliar road that has the word “HILL” in the name…”

T & I got lost on our way north into Butler County and ended up on US 27, where you do NOT want to be on a bike – we were searching for a route on our [paper] map and saw that “Bunker Hill Woods Road” was close & was pretty much a straight shot parallel to 27 that should get us close to where we wanted to go- it started off nice enough but… whoa… Up we went –

I’m sure, in retrospect, that it wasn’t THAT bad and I was just tired and stressed, but I vaguely recall teetering along at 6-7mph moving back and forth in a snaky S-pattern using my Granny Gear to climb up and up … whew…

TOSRV weather was good that year – mostly sunny & warm but a bit of a headwind both days- in early May in Ohio you never know what you’re going to get- sun, rain, hail, thunder… it even SNOWED on my birthday [5/21] one year while I was pitching in a high school baseball game… For TOSRV that year the 100 miles down to Portsmouth were pretty smooth- at one point we tucked in behind two dudes on a tandem who were MOVING … we called one Tree Trunks based on what we saw of his calves… The way back was tougher for me … I ran out of water 10-15 miles from the end and it was a hot headwind kind of day – I was drained at the end but felt really good that I did it-

I rode my bike all over as a kid – When I was about 5 we lived in Cleveland on Mohican Drive, a fairly quiet street off E. 185th. Dad got me a bike – I practiced with training wheels a bit & then he took off the training wheels, gave me a shove, and off I went…down the street a short distance and then right into a tree!

That tree isn’t there on Mohican Ave any more, so I drew it in for you…

Thankfully, I improved my bike handling. When we moved to Euclid, a Cleveland suburb, my brother and I both rode bikes and Dad would lead us on sidewalk rides out of our neighborhood and out a few miles and back… what a BLAST of FREEDOM that was… my first real experience of “touring” – going to places unknown…

We didn’t have a lot of extra money to buy multiple cars so even at 16+ I rode my bike a good bit – I had a big, heavy black bike with 3-speed Sturmey Archer gears. It had “paper boy” metal baskets on the back. I used that as a young teen, riding up to Prospect Park every day in the summer to play baseball with my best buddy, Danny Shaban. We take turns hitting balls to each other, sometimes in the infield and sometimes trying to hit the ball over the tall fence that shielded the tennis courts from the baseballs… often leaping up to make spectacular catches… well… so we thought…

I started working for my Dad’s buddy, Charlie Baldridge, who ran a sporting goods store aimed primarily at bowlers. My job was to drill holes in marble he used for bowling trophies using this monstrous drill press I had no business operating. I got a penny a hole and saved up my pennies [literally]. After 10,000 or so holes I was able to purchase a Schwinn Continental was I was 16 or so! I rode that bike all over Mansfield, Ohio… I didn’t really need it [or have a place to store it] while I was in college from 1975-79- there was no riding around the very hilly UC campus – but I used it a LOT during the summers…

Around 1977 my best high school buddy, Jim Black, and I decided it would be cool to ride our bikes in freaking CANADA… The next few photos below are from this trip -we mapped out a route that had us take the Pelee Islander across Lake Erie and we spent several days hanging out on those Southern Canadian beaches… what a trip- I told the long version of this story to Jim’s family at his funeral in December…

I took my bike to law school and rode to classes from 1979-82, which saved on parking costs for sure at Ohio State! It was far quicker to ride a few miles & lock the bike next to the entrance than to drive a couple miles in heavy traffic and then fight to find parking and walk… I was getting to be very Bike-Oriented back then…

My old Schwinn Continental got stolen during my 3rd year of law school – by then I had bought my very first car- an orange Gremlin – and I didn’t replace the Bike for some years…

After law school I started my career by working with the Twelfth Appellate District of Ohio for the Honorable Judge Richard N. Koehler. I drove an hour or so to Middletown every day- put 36,000 miles on a new car. After my clerkship I found a job with a small suburban law firm on Cincinnati’s west side. Once I had my 1st “real” job at a law firm I decided to get back into cycling and bought a Puch road bike. I started riding with the Cincinnati Cycle Club in the early-mid1980s…

A short time into my Cycle Club experience I received the [paper] newsletter in the mail & there was a blurb from the Board…”HELP- We need a lawyer- we lost our corporate charter and need help getting it back!!!”

I was a trial lawyer, not a business lawyer, and I really didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I called in to help. Turns out the Club did not do the one thing all Non-profits have to do in Ohio… file a “Statement of Continuing Existence” which is a 1-page form you file with the state to, well, let the state know that your non-profit is still in existence… after 5 years of not filing the form, the State of Ohio canceled the CCC’s charter…

I called the Secretary of State’s office to see about getting it back..what do we have to do? Pay a fine? Fill out some forms? No, they said… the Cincinnati MOTORcycle Club was now out there & their name was too close to ours …soooo… if we wanted to be the Cincinnati CYCLE club we now had to get their permission to use our own name!

I did some digging … turns out the Cincinnati Motorcycle Club typically hung out at a bar in Cheviot called Stormy’s … it was just a few miles from my office and I drove by it every day. It was one of those prototypical Biker Bars…where the Harleys are lined up out front all day and night… there was a sign on the door that said NO COLORS…which seemed a bit, odd… but I learned that this mean no BIKER GANG colors were to be flown inside…

And that’s how Baby Lawyer Steve ended up stopping by Stormy’s in his new 3-piece blue wool suit and his shiny new briefcase one day for a meeting with the President of the Motorcycle gang…er…Club… I had the forms ready for his signature stating it was OK for us to keep our name… he gave me a hard time but signed … and that was that… The CCC had its name back- a name that was taken when the Club was founded back in ’80… that would be EIGHTEEN EIGHTY – 1880!

After this I started looking at some bicycle LAW issues… one club member had gotten a ticket for drunk driving on his BIKE… he hired me … but not to fight the ticket, he pleaded No Contest to that…rather he hired me because the State of Ohio had assessed SIX POINTS to his DRIVER’s license for an infraction on his bicycle…

That didn’t seem fair, but there wasn’t a lot, or any, law on this… I did some digging then filed a Motion with the trial judge asking for an order that would require the BMV to remove the points. The court agreed and signed the order. I served it on the BMV in Columbus and the points came off.

I wrote about this situation in the club newsletter and started writing a regular monthly column on bike law stuff – then got a few more calls, more about crashes and injuries… I handled a few cases – took a few to trial or arbitration – wrote a little more – then got a wrongful death case involving a young 15 yr old boy.

This was a tricky case. The boy had been riding with a younger buddy on a rural road. Our boy was to the left while his younger friend was riding on the white line. A car came up from behind that was driven by an older high school boy who recognized our client’s son from the football team…he came up fast and then HONKED the horn at the last minute, apparently because he thought it would be fun to try to scare the 2 younger boys… it worked – they moved to split up – the surviving boy went right, into the ditch, and our boy went left…where he was hit by the car and killed…

The driver wasn’t really all that forthcoming about the details to police as he was when we deposed him a few years later. A State Trooper investigating the crash took the bike and lined it up perpendicular to the car- he told Mom that the bike’s damage lined up perfectly with damage on the car and “therefore” he concluded that our boy was riding directly across the lane when he got hit, blaming the crash entirely on the dead boy… Mom didn’t think this seemed right – I forget how she ended up coming to me but several attorneys had turned her down…

By this time I had written a good bit about bike law and bike crash cases – I had handled quite a few injury cases and was now well versed on the Bike law. I had tried some cases to verdict, but never a death case. I hired an expert, a bicycle crash reconstruction expert from North Carolina. He was an Ironman rider and engineer who specialized then, and now, in reconstructing bicycle crash cases. He took one look at the rear wheel and concluded the boy had been struck from behind – the bike had been at a slight angle to the front of the car and at impact it had slapped around very quickly due to the high speed of the car – and that impact had left those marks on the hood and the bike which the State Trooper saw… and misinterpreted.

On cross examination at trial, the State Trooper actually conceded that our expert was probably right… that was about as close to a Perry Mason moment as I’ve gotten during cross examination in the middle of a trial – shortly after, 2+ weeks into the trial, we got the case settled… from there I’ve gone on to handle 100s of bike crash cases ranging from mild to wild -» slight injuries to brain damage and death cases … but those early decisions to buy a bike and start riding as a baby lawyer and to help out the cycle club and to start writing about bike stuff was the beginning of the Turning Point in my Bike Law career…

By the time Terry & I were riding TOSRV in the late 1980s I was pretty well established in the Bicycle Law community – a couple years later, in January 1992, I bought my very first computer [356 SX with a HUGE 100MB hard drive] from an ad in Computer Shopper, the yellow pages of computer shopping – I signed on to AOL and had to pick a screen name/email address…I picked “BikeLawyer@aol.com” and it was ON… that would be MY internet moniker until I switched to BikeLawyer@ME.com and finally Steve@OhioBikeLawyer.com in 2024.

I started sending my monthly Bike Law 101 columns to other cycling clubs around the state. Eventually I was asked to write for BIKE OHIO, a monthly newspaper type publication that was in every bike shop in the state. My Column eventually got picked up by BIKE USA, the LAW’s national publication. I wrote every other month for BIKE USA and also for Adventure Cycling’s annual Yellow Pages –

Oddly enough AOL turned out to be a big cycling collaborator as the AOL Bike rooms were extremely active! There was, and IS today, a large segment of the “serious” cycling community that is very tech and computer savvy. I made a lot of connections to other riders, lawyers and experts from around the country during those early computer days of waiting for a 2400 baud modem to connect… I wrote about one situation where a high school kid in California wrote an anti-cycling piece in the school newspaper which circulated through the BIKE room because teh Dad of another kid at the school had seen it. Within a day or so the school received emails and letters from all over the WORLD chastising it for publishing such trash… I wrote about this incident as it was an early lesson on the Power of the InterWebs!!

Eventually I was asked to contribute to a couple of Bike Law books. In 2006 or so I contributed multiple chapters to Bob Mionske’s book “Bicycle Law & Practice” – this book remains, to me, the VERY BEST bike law book available for riders and lawyers alike! I’m trying to talk Bob into publishing a new edition… the Forward by Lance didn’t…age … well…

I worked for a few different firms along my legal career path- a small suburban firm – a statewide “Back of the Yellow Pages” aggressive Plaintiff’s firm – in-house trial counsel for an insurance company – insurance defense lawyer for an aggressive insurance defense law firm. All the while I kept quietly working on the bike cases…

In the early 2000s I got more involved with LAW, which then became LAB, and I attended a few National Bike Summits in DC. These are fascinating events when cyclists from all over the USA show up in DC wearing our Bike pins and descending on Capitol Hill to TALK BIKE with national legislators. I HIGHLY recommend attending if you can!

One of the photos taken during the big Photo Shoots on Capitol Hill during The National Bike Summit ended up as a book cover for “Pedal Power” by Peter Wray – great book – highly recommend!

Finally, in 2009, after I had been practicing for some 37 years, and had been handling bike cases every year for about 30, I opened my own Solo office. I had my own website – www.OhioBikeLawyer.com – and focused on the 2 wheeled stuff almost exclusively … it has morphed into a Solo/Virtual office these days. We maintain an office presence for meetings but 90% of thew work can be done via Zoom and the InterBlogs. I STILL love getting out and meeting folks though… this past week I spoke at a Bike Swap Meet up in Columbus… they had some 300+ people attend… what a BLAST!

I have continued writing but also started speaking to LAWYERS and JUDGES a decade ago or so- I developed my own bike seminar which I call BIKE LAW 101 – I’ve given this class in Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati and over the INterWeb & into ZOOM Land… it has morphed into a 3 hour class that is STILL not quite long enough… we are adding some new stuff this year based on a couple cases we worked on over the past few years… using GPS/Garmin data to develop a recreation of a crash – tapping into Phone data- Security footage- Ring Doorbell cams – city cameras- anything to PROVE what happened…

Today about 85% of my work is BIKE cases all over the state. I’ve been called in to help on cases in Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania as well as locally in Kentucky and Indiana. While we do other types of cases – legal malpractice, typical car crash stuff, general litigation – our bread and butter is representing CYCLISTS – protecting the rights of those who ride –

I’ve done over 500 bike crash cases – right now we have bike cases percolating in something like a dozen different counties in Ohio – from Toledo to Cleveland to Youngstown to Mansfield to Columbus to Cincinnati to Bellefontaine to Marietta… we been to more than 40 of Ohio’s 88 counties on bike cases… and it is the most rewarding work I’ve done!

So there you go -from getting pushed away from training wheels at age 5 in Cleveland to riding around Mansfield as a kid – to bike touring in College – riding for transportation throughout law school – riding TOSRV as a young professional – and riding for LIFE today… my life has revolved around cycling… [oh I see what you did there]

You can ALWAYS reach out to TALK BIKE any time – call me at 513-484-BIKE/2453

Send me an email at Steve@OhioBikeLawyer.com

Or send me a nice handwritten letter to the Bike Lawyer’s World Headquarters at 7850 Five Mile Road, Cincinnati, OH 45230.

We will get back to you immediately!

Ride LEGAL – Ride Safe – and RIDE THE BIKE!

Hold on a sec… Maybe you should refill the coffee, this might take me a bit…

Well, it was ANOTHER BAD YEAR in Ohio… 24 cyclists were killed on Ohio Roads… because this is preliminary data, there may be more from later in the year that did not make it into the ODPS database yet…

We look, first and foremost, at the PEOPLE, not the numbers. Each of these 24 riders was a human being who was snatched from this life while riding a bicycle along the roadway… before we look at the why or the how or the Who was AT Fault, we grieve for the family and friends of the folks riding the bike… The PEOPLE include 2 kids- 9 and 12 yr old boys.

In the crash below, 2 riders were hit from behind in broad daylight- 9 year old Tide Bartlett was killed and his 10 year old riding buddy, was severely injured.

The police report is very cold – very dry – but leaves a lot to the imagination when trying to figure out exactly what happened…

We look at DATA to see what happened and why – to learn lessons from each crash – to search for common problems – problem areas of the roadway – common mistakes made – common investigative tactics and common misunderstandings… But we also order up ALL the public records for each case to try to figure out for ourselves exactly what happened in these cases, and why…

In the crash that killed 9 year old Tide Bartlett multiple news reports indicate that the area of the crash has been reported as DANGEROUS for YEARS… One resident noted that while there is a 25 mph speed limit almost nobody actually goes 25… Another recent story indicates that several people were recently appointed to a dormant BAC, Bicycle Action Committee… we’ll see what comes out of that as well…

SOME BIG PICTURE DATA ITEMS

24 killed – 2 Women & 22 men [This is pretty typical and reflects national data showing 90% of cyclists killed are male.]

AGE RANGE

The cyclists who died on Ohio’s roads in 2024 ranged in age from 9 to 78 – 2 of the riders killed were 12 and under [9, 12 yr old boys] while TWELVE/12 were 50+

[Again somewhat typical of national data as IIHS tells us that some 90% or so of all cyclists killed nationally are over the age of 20. ]

CYCLIST Average Age
48 = Average Age of the cyclist killed
49 = MEDIAN 12 below/12 Above

MOTORIST Average Age
34 = Average Age of the Motorist

This is somewhat unusual. The OLDEST motorist who killed a cyclist was 55. This contradicts the narrative that older drivers are causing carnage… at least so far as hitting cyclists is concerned. My suspicion would be that in the CRASH stats we’ll see a lot more older motorists but MAYBE the older drivers are driving slower, so while they will HIT people, maybe they are not driving fast enough to KILL people? Or maybe this was just a weird year… we’ll dig into that at some point…

LIGHT v DARK
10 crashes occurred in the dark – 14 daylight

WHEN?
Jan -2
Feb -1
Apr -3
May -4
Jun -4
Jul -1
Aug -3
Sep -1
Oct -5

[Again, Nov/Dec crashes MIGHT have occurred but not yet have been added to the ODPS data set]

LOCATION – 24 crashes
COUNTIES WHERE FATAL BIKE CRASHES OCCURRED
Cuyahoga-4,
Franklin-3,
Summit/Wood/Montgomery -2 each, and
Ashland, Athens, Clermont, Hancock, Knox, Lorain, Lucas, Medina, Richland, Stark and Tuscarawas – 1 each

So 9 in Northeast Ohio, which is a lot…

[NOTE: NONE in Hamilton County/Cincinnati.]

HIT/RUN – 5
2 in Franklin
1 each in Athens, Montgomery, Lucas
3 of the 5 have been solved

URBAN v RURAL
Ohio’s fatal bicycle crashes are spread across urban, suburban and rural landscapes. This is somewhat contrary to national data. Per IIHS stats, for 2022 [the most recent data they have posted] over 80% of the fatal crashes nationally are in URBAN areas… perhaps places like NYC, LA, Chicago and several FL cities skew the data in this direction.

Florida continues to be the WORST state for bicycle fatalities. The BIG 3 of CA, FL, TX have almost 1/3 of the entire population of the US – over 100,000,000 people.

Ohio’s population of 11.8M puts us at No. 7, behind NY, PA and IL and ahead of GA, NC and MI in the Top 10.

BUT

In 2022, the most recent data available from NHTSA, we see that Ohio’s RATE of fatal crashes [fatal bike crashes/100,000 people] is 0.07, which is WAY below the US Average of 0.33 and 1/10 the rate of FL which is 1.0. What this RATE tells us is that Ohio is, comparatively, a FAR safer place to ride a bike than MOST states in the US.

Now, 2022 was WEIRD as Ohio only had EIGHT fatal bike crashes… an anomaly during this time when we’ve been averaging more than 20. That rate of 0.7 for 8 crashes becomes 3x higher at 0.21 if we factor in Ohio’s 24 fatal crashes in 2024.

Nonetheless, even at THAT 3x higher rate, Ohio is STILL safer than MOST US states as the NATIONAL AVERAGE is 0.33… by Comparison

FL =1.0

TX =0.30.

CA=0.4

GA=0.49.

MI=0.36

IL =0.23

So, even using a more reliable data point and a much higher fatality rate, Ohio compares very favorably to the rest of the US as far a safe cycling data ….

Here’s a few more bits of data from just the spreadsheet results…

MOTORIST PreCrash Actions
Straight Ahead – 18
Making LEFT turn – 3
Making RIGHT turn -1
Negotiating a Curve -1
Other/Unknown -1

MOTORIST Contributing Circumstances
NONE- 10
ACDA/Follow too close -7
Unsafe Speed -2
Failure to Yield -3
Other Improper Action -2

CYCLIST Pre-Crash Actions
Entering Traffic Lane -3
Maklng LEFT turn -1
OTHER -9
Slowing/Stopped – 1
Straight Ahead- 10

CYCLIST Contributing Circumstances
NONE-8
Improper Crossing -2
Ran Stop Sign -2
Ran Red Light-2
Failure to Yield – 2
Defective Equipment [light] -1
Other Improper Acton 6
Lying In Roadway -1

ALCOHOL
Motorist – 1
Cyclists – 1

This seems… off… to me… usually we’ll see more drug/ alcohol involvement by motorists in fatal bike crashes.

HELMET Use
Stats show only 2 riders had helmets and 1 had “Reflective clothing” – We’ll dig deeper into that once get the full reports plus photos and such …that seems like a fairly low number for helmets among the 24 cyclists killed … we’ll also have data for ALL bike crashes to look at.

Traffic deaths in Ohio, overall, have exceeded 1000 motorists/cyclists/pedestrians each year for the past several years. This is an awful trend… Some 500,000+ people are are involved in 250,000+/- car crashes each year in Ohio… A SMALL fraction of those involve bicycles…

Cycling fatalities make up 1.5-2% of those. Cycling fatalities are climbing, nationally and in Ohio, and have been since the introduction of the Double Distraction Whammy of Smart Phones + Social Media back in the 2008 time frame. Pedestrian fatalities have tracked along with cycling deaths… up up UP…

This makes me suspect that the problem is NOT that cyclists & pedestrians are riding and walking more dangerously but rather that motorists are motoring more dangerously… more to come on THAT as well once we have a chance to look at the BIG numbers in detail…

For now, we look at this introductory data- we are ordering ALL of the public records for each of the 24 fatal crashes… the photos, video, crash reconstruction, forensics, witness interviews, autopsy reports, toxicology and more… we’ll have a full review of each crash later this year once we have received, and reviewed, all the data.

Bottom Line- A LOUSY year in Ohio but…still… statistically MUCH better than MOST other states, including most of the bigger states…

One thing we do here at The BIkeLawyer’s World Headquarters is keep an eye on the BIG Picture as well as handling individual cases throughout the State of Ohio. We also try to keep track of particularly egregious crashes to see how they were investigated by police and pursued by prosecutors. Sometimes we find cycling crash cases getting shoved aside and sometimes they are very aggressively handled…

To help us look at Ohio data we often start at the Ohio Bicycle Federation’s website- www.OhioBike.org. I have been an OBF Board Member for many years. We developed a spot on the website to allow folks to take a look at some crash data.

If you go to the website there is a dropdown menu for “COLLISION DATA” – Once there you’ll see tabs for BIKE MAP and PEDESTRIAN MAP.

Clicking the BIKE MAP tab will bring up a map of Ohio. Each bike crash that occurs on the road is marked with a DOT. These dots come from data found in the Ohio Crash Reports gathered by the Ohio Department of Public Safety. This means there is typically motor vehicle involved. Today, the crash reports include GPS coordinates and our Bike Crash Map pulls the location data and sets out the dot. When you open the big map you can choose to see the data 1 year at a time or have data from many years shown at once.

Here’s a visual view of where crashes happened statewide in Ohio from 2020-2024.

The COLOR of each dot tells you a little bit about the crash . The key is found in the panel to the left to the left:

While you can show 1 year or several, you cannot limit the data to show just the fatal or just the serious crashes. We average around 1500 investigated bike crashes each year in Ohio – with around 20+ fatal crashes.

Each dot, regardless of the level of the crash, is “loaded” with data however. When you click any dot you pull up all the “‘”Crash Report”‘” data relating to that crash in a panel to the left of the screen!

Here’s one I randomly chose – a black dot, so a fatal crash, near Bowling Green Ohio. Just looking at the dot only tells you that it was a fatal crash, and shows the location, but tells you nothing of the details. However, when you click the dot it opens a panel filled with data.

When I clicked the random black dot I chose I can see in the panel that the crash happened on July 2023, at 1611, military time for 2:11 pm – so basically broad daylight in July. The dot looks like it isn’t even on the “road” but on the sidewalk.

When I slide the data panel down a bit I can see the “narrative” for the crash from the crash report, which is enlightening in this one…

Here, we see that the cyclist, Unit 1, was on the sidewalk. The motorist, Unit 2, was driving south on Main when almost hit a car. The motorist then drove off the road. The cyclist tried to get out of the way, per a witness, but was struck by the car and killed.

With THAT information in hand, I did a quick google search and found media reports on the crash. After reviewing that report I realized that I remembered this crash very well as I heard about it when it happened. It was such a SENSELESS, horrific crash – a guy loses control of his motor vehicle on a nice Saturday afternoon in a small town and slams into a cyclist on the sidewalk, killing him? How does that even happen? How does that make ANY sense?

We also learn from the media report that the driver was charged fairly aggressively and that police clearly suspected alcohol or drugs.

What these dots and data do NOT tell you is the toll these violent acts take on the family and friends of the victim. Here, the family was also trying to make sense of the crash – in this article they note that Mr. Szabo lived in Columbus but used to come back to Bowling Green each weekend to visit with his mother, who had health issues. He would do some shopping for Hern and visit with her. He had just bought the bike a few weeks before the crash – and was riding on the sidewalk a couple just blocks from home. Mr. Szabo was 60 years old when he was killed so violently.

In doing a little more follow up digging, I used the data in the left panel to find the “Document Number” – 20238114596 – which corresponds with the police report. I then plugged that information into the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s crash report database here – There I was able to tap into the basic short version of the crash report.

If we were handling the case we would obtain a full copy, typically 50+ pages, to get the entire investigation. We would also obtain cruiser and body cam imagery, photos, forensic reports, toxicology reports, the autopsy details … EVERYTHING we could find.

A little more digging reveals that the motorist, James Lindsay, was charged with multiple crimes and eventually pleaded guilty to Aggravated Vehicular Homicide, Operating a Vehicle Under the Influence of Alcohol and attempted Failure to Stop after an Accident. So I checked out the criminal file online in the Wood County Clerk’s office – I located the file & from there I could scroll through the digital docket to find the Sentencing Order of 12/5/23.

After reviewing the case, the pre-sentence report and other factors the judge issued a ruling on Mr. Lindsay’s sentence:

From there I went to the Ohio Inmate Locator page and found that Mr. Lindsay was indeed serving his time at the Marion Correctional Institution. He will be eligible for consideration for parole on June 28, 2035

This one black dot on the map represents a human being whose life was taken violently by the drunken acts of man behind the wheel of a two ton bowling ball – a life taken on a nice quiet Saturday afternoon in a small town in northwest Ohio. That black dot represents a grieving family – a mother who lost her loving son – friends mourning the loss of a good man. Mr.Lindsay’s reprehensible actions set off a series of shock waves that will reverberate for this family, for Mr. Szabo’s friends, for this community, for years…decades… to come…

As legal advocates we fight for justice for the families of our clients … as CYCLING advocates we fight for safer roads, thorough investigations, aggressive prosecutions, and stiffer sentencing. We fight to keep folks like Mr. Lindsay off the road. We fight to make roads safer for ALL cyclists.

As HUMANS we should all be upset at the number of “DOTS” on this map… and remember, Ohio is one of the SAFER STATES… given our population, the number of bike crashes and rate of bike fatalities in our State is actually lower than the national average…

Each one of these dots represents a PERSON on a bicycle who was involved in a crash with a car. Some were at fault – some were not – some were fine – some got hurt a little bit – some received serious injuries – some were killed – But EACH encounter that makes it on this map is probably going to be one of the most violent events in that person’s life… as ADVOCATES we will continue our fight to cut down the number of dots!