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Lawsuit risk from bike accidents

 

Editor, Index-Tribune:

    

  The city’s policy to allow bicycles on sidewalks makes it just a matter of time before the recent Santa Rosa incident, of a jogger who suffering a skull fracture when she was hit by a cyclist, happens here. On two occasions, walking in Sonoma, I have been hit by bike riders. Fortunately, I am a bit more sturdily built than many of our senior citizens. I have seen any number of near-hits.

  An elderly woman was recently killed by a bicyclist in San Francisco.

  By failing to enforce state law that requires bicycles to operate on streets and follow motor vehicle codes, the city has opened itself up to an inevitably huge lawsuit that may require deeper pockets than the city has. It might be worth asking whether the city’s insurance would cover such an injury or death.

  Lewis Perdue

  Sonoma