Blind Runner's Horror- I Was Hit By 35mph bike

[FamousNYLover]

Since bicycle count as motorvehicle, so I put in this section.

Have anyone read today's Daily News?

Source:

http://www.nydailyne...ticle-1.1137413

 

After Daily News exposes Central Park bike chaos, blind marathon runner Richard Bernstein is struck by speeding cyclist

 

Visually impaired victim, wearing bright shirt and using reflective white cane, takes a direct hit from rider doing 35 miles per hour

Comments (22)

BY LARRY MCSHANE AND KERRY BURKE/ NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

 

PUBLISHED: THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 2012, 3:00 AM

 

UPDATED: THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 2012, 3:00 AM

SUSAN WATTS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

 

 

Richard Bernstein shows the flourescent shirt he was wearing when he was mowed down by a cyclist in Central Park. The accident dashed the visually-impaired lawyer's hopes of competing in the New York City Marathon later this year. He said he has no hard feelings and no plans to sue despite his nasty injuries.

 

 

 

Richard Bernstein's fluorescent yellow shirt and bright blue sneakers couldn’t protect him from an inattentive bicyclist speeding through Central Park.

Neither could the blind man’s reflective white cane.

“I got destroyed,” the lawyer and triathlete told the Daily News in his Manhattan hospital room. “It was a direct hit. I was just walking. And then I was on the ground, my face in the asphalt.”

Less than a week after a Daily News investigation on the dangers of leadfooted bicyclists, Bernstein was crushed Monday morning by a rider doing 35 mph — 10 miles over the limit in the Manhattan oasis.

The 38-year-old Bernstein was in the city to train for his eighth New York City Marathon when he went for a stroll in the park above E. 90th St. around 10 a.m.

It took The News just 35 minutes last week to find 16 cyclists breaking the 25 mph speed limit in Central Park.

 

Over the past seven years, the Michigan native has spent endless hours in the park, memorizing “every crevice and turn.” But there was nowhere to hide before the bone-breaking collision with Omar Shakir’s black mountain bike.

Bernstein was in the pedestrian lane when his body went flying and his life flipped upside down.

“He hit me right in my back,” said Bernstein, a longtime advocate for the rights of the disabled. “I was really out of it. I was on the ground bleeding.”

Bernstein suffered a fractured pelvis and hip, and lost some teeth. Sitting his his room at Mount Sinai Medical Center — a stone’s throw from the park — he winces in pain at every little movement.

Stitches are visible in a cut on his lip and a nasty gash on the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t get out of his hospital bed for two days after getting mowed down.

His sense of humor survived, though.

“I should have said to the guy, ‘Are you blind?’ ” Bernstein cracked.

Bernstein, while lying on the pavement waiting for an ambulance, heard the bicyclist take blame for the accident. Bernstein said he also heard a cop saying the bicyclist was cruising down the slope near E. 95th St. at 35 mph.

“The city needs to make this a priority,” he said, adding that Central Park is “like a crash derby.”

It took The News just 35 minutes last week to find 16 cyclists breaking the 25-mph speed limit in the park.

Bernstein said when he arrived Monday morning at Mount Sinai, he was already the day’s second victim of a pedestrian-bike crash in Central Park.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Bernstein. “The bikes and pedestrians are too close together. What if it had been a stroller? The child would have been killed.”

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After Daily News exposes Central Park bike chaos, blind marathon runner Richard Bernstein is struck by speeding cyclist

 

 

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Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, who last week said the speeding bikes were not a “huge problem,” was unavailable Wednesday night. His office said the commissioner could have a response to the incident Thursday.

Shakir, 30, a video editor who said he was commuting to work at the time, was apologetic and distressed when he spoke with The News.

“I was coming around a hairpin turn, my gear caught and I accidently hit a walker,” he recalled. “I didn’t see him until the last minute.”

Asked about his speed, cited by cops, he replied, “I don’t know how they got that number.”

Bernstein was born blind — but never considered his disability as an impediment. He taught political science classes at Michigan, and joined the board of governors at Wayne State University.

Bernstein was also inducted into the Athletes With Disabilities Hall of Fame in 2006. He runs with the New York chapter of Achilles International, a nonprofit group that assists athletes with disabilities, providing seeing runners to race alongside blind competitors and give them verbal directions on the course.

His legal efforts on behalf of the disabled forced the City of Detroit to repair broken wheelchair lifts on its buses and gained national attention with a lawsuit for disabled fliers.

Police said the cyclist wasn’t issued a citation.

Bernstein’s hopes of running in this year’s New York City Marathon — his all-time best is 4 hours, 30 minutes — were dashed. But he holds no hard feelings and has no plans to sue.

“All I want is my life back,” he said. “On Monday, I was an Ironman. Now I’m totally immobile.”

lmcshane@nydailynews.com

BRITTANY SOMERSET

 

The site in Central Park where Bernstein was plowed over by a speeding cyclist.

[Quill Depot]

Stupid people. Just wating to win there race. Don't they understand that 35 on a shared roadway is dangerous first of all.

[FamousNYLover]

I knew this going to happen someday.

 

Here in Jackson Heights and Nassau County, cyclists they don't care about risking lives of pedestrians.

 

1. One time there was one crazy Spanish cyclist DRIVE THROUGH BUSY LANDUARYMAT in Jackson Heightswhere children were playing.

 

2. When I was at Long Beach Station, another cyclist drove through station to deli as treated it like DRIVE IN DELI.

 

Cyclists in Jackson Heights and Nassau County they do reckless and they don't care about children, baby, people walking dog, etc.