• grue@lemmy.worldOP
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      13 days ago

      My intention is definitely “fuck cars.” The fucked-up thing here is that even ambulance drivers, who should know better more so than almost anybody, are incompetently right-hooking cyclists. Billing him for it is merely the icing on the shit-cake.

      • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        Ahhh okay, but you’re not trying to argue that paramedics should be on bicycles or taking public transit! That was the thing that puzzled me.

        I think we could avoid a lot of the issues with pedestrians and cyclists getting hit by motor vehicles by getting rid of stroads and properly designing cities to separate streets and roads.

  • fl42v@lemmy.ml
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    13 days ago

    That’s an interesting business strategy, I’ll give 'em that

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      Your honor…he hit me!

      Nuh-uh!

      Yeah huh!!!

      He started it!!!

      No I didn’t!!!

      Moooooom!!!

      Your mom has been dead for 32 years…you’re 81

      And I’m still bike riding the mean streets of NYC!

      Yeah, and getting billed for your bad driving.

  • affiliate@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    they couldve gotten way more than $1,800 if they hit a few more cyclists on the way. theres plenty of room in the back of an ambulance

  • Ajen@sh.itjust.works
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    13 days ago

    Maybe playing devil’s advocate here, but if it was the ambulance’s fault then the ambulance company’s insurance should be paying for all of the medical bills, including the ambulance ride. And the bill for the ambulance ride pays the EMS workers salaries and the vehicle maintenance.

    The amount of profiteering in the medical industry is obscene, but I’m not sure this is an example of it…

    • Sconrad122@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      I’m not a lawyer, but it strikes me that this could be exactly what is happening. The ambulance company’s insurance wouldn’t pay the hospital directly, they aren’t health insurance. So instead, the cyclist’s health insurance footed the initial bill. Then they went after the cyclist for his deductible/copay/whatnot. Now he has to get the money from the ambulance company. If this was vehicle on vehicle violence, he would have gone to his auto insurance, who would have in turn went after the ambulance company’s insurance, but he might not have auto insurance or auto insurance might not be willing to get involved because he wasn’t driving. So he has to go direct to the company. Wouldn’t be shocking if the company pushed off any non-legal petitions from him because he doesn’t have the name weight of an insurance company with lawyers on retainer, so now he is seeking a legal remedy. Insurance doesn’t just work always, there is often a degree of negotiating and litigation involved in these exchanges, especially if one party disagrees with another on matters of liability

  • madthumbs@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    “Hoesch estimated to police that he was going 5 mph to 10 mph and said he didn’t think the ambulance was going to turn in front of him.”

    -So he’s illegally passing on the right at an intersection and making assumptions. -Wouldn’t have a case with me on jury.

    • grue@lemmy.worldOP
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      13 days ago

      The ambulance was making an illegal turn across traffic.

      • madthumbs@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        This was in the US where they drive on the right making a right turn not ‘across traffic’. The picture at the article further shows the positions.

        • grue@lemmy.worldOP
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          13 days ago

          Okay, let me explain it to you: if there are two lanes going in the same direction, you are in the left one, and you turn right, you are turning across traffic (across the right lane going in the same direction as you). That’s what happened here. The fact that there was space to the right of the ambulance for the cyclist to be in means there were effectively two lanes.

          (And don’t try to claim there was only one lane: you conceded that point already when you claimed the cyclist was “illegally passing on the right.” Even an illegal pass doesn’t entitle the vehicle in the left lane to make a right turn across the other vehicle’s path! In order for this collision to be the cyclist’s fault, both vehicles would have had to be in the same lane to begin with, which means there wouldn’t be room for them to be side-by-side and the bike would have hit the back of the ambulance, not be struck by it from the side.)

          • madthumbs@lemmy.world
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            13 days ago

            The picture in the article clearly shows there’s only a right and left lane. There is no room for turning lanes. There’s also no space for a vehicle. Space for a bike doesn’t make it a lane.

            • grue@lemmy.worldOP
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              13 days ago

              What part of “you already conceded that point” did you not understand?

              But hey, you want to claim there was only one lane now? Fine. In that case, the cyclist was the vehicle lawfully occupying it and the ambulance must have swung wide to the left for some reason, out of the lane, and then back into it. Either way, it crossed the path of and collided with a vehicle in that lane. You are not entitled to deny this point.

              1. Cyclists are traffic.
              2. The ambulance was making a right turn.
              3. The ambulance hit the cyclist from the side.
              4. Therefore, the ambulance was turning across traffic, because no traffic means no cyclist to hit. QED.
      • BogusCabbage@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        Um what? From the article you posted

        “he and the ambulance were traveling the same direction”

        “The ambulance attempted to make a right turn onto another street”

        They were both traveling on the right side of the road of (based on the supplied pictures from the articles) a two way, single lane each way street, and the ambulance turned right and didn’t cross any traffic, thus the Ambulance didn’t make a illegal turn.

        The Ambulance should be at fault, and the Fire and Rescue should be covering charges as the ambulance driver wasn’t being well aware enough to make the turn, but at the same time Hoesch, The cyclists, also should have given way.

        I’m all for less cars on the road, but don’t go throwing information that isn’t true, please.

        • grue@lemmy.worldOP
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          13 days ago

          They were both traveling on the right side of the road of (based on the supplied pictures from the articles) a two way, single lane each way street, and the ambulance turned right and didn’t cross any traffic, thus the Ambulance didn’t make a illegal turn.

          Okay, I’ll try a second time to explain:

          The ambulance did cross traffic, by definition, because the bicycle was to the right of it and counts as traffic. In order for it to not cross traffic, it would have needed to start the turn from a position far enough to the right that there would have been no space for the cyclist to be in.

          Cyclists don’t purposefully cram themselves into tiny spaces between cars and curbs, you know. The only reason a cyclist would enter the space between the ambulance and the curb would be if the ambulance was waaaaaaay off to the left somewhere and left a huge (several foot wide) gap that invited him in, and that’s not something that is okay for a car about to make a right turn to do.


          Bottom line is, it is illegal to right-hook a cyclist. If you hit a cyclist while performing a right turn, you fucked up. Full stop, end of. I don’t understand why people are having difficulty understanding this concept!

        • thethirdobject@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          if there is a cyclist on your right, it doesn’t matter if there are two lanes, you don’t cut their path: if they go straight, they have priority