GPS: Commonly Found in Cars, but Bicycle Unit Clears Accident Confusion
When you think of a GPS unit, most people would say that they are made for cars, for turn to turn directions. Rarely do people purchase them for their recreational bicycles, but the story of one professional cyclist may change their minds.
The professional cyclist had begun his day with an early training ride, but ended it with confusion and frustration after being involved in a bicycle accident. The driver of a car had failed to see him crossing through the intersection and then became less than truthful when law enforcement arrived on the scene.
The woman originally claimed that she did not even strike the cyclist, but that he simply fell over on his own, but after that story was quickly eliminated upon inspection of the vehicle, she claimed that he burst from a Starbuck's parking lot and diagonally crossed the road where she could not have seen him. The cyclist argued that he had legally stopped at the stop sign and had begun to enter the intersection when she failed to notice him there.
There was not enough evidence for the officer to write a citation, and without a citation, the insurance claim for damage to the bike was denied. After experiencing frustration, the cyclist remembered his GPS device he had installed on the bike. The GPS recorded the exact path he had traveled from the moment he stopped at the stop sign, to where his bike eventually came to rest after the accident. The GPS device quickly cleared the confusion between the "he said, she said" debate.
Source: BikePortland.org "From Denver, a story of GPS justice" Jonathan Maus 12/21/10
