Lucas K. Murray
Gloucester County Times
CLEMENTON, N.J. — “Skippy” never had a chance. The small hatchback came speeding through the parking lot before it tossed aside the 45-pound boy and the bicycle he was riding like they were nothing. Both the bike and the boy went careening through the air.
The force was enough to shatter the car’s windshield as it literally knocked Skippy out of his shoes. Pieces of his forehead were embedded in the fractured glass.
Yet the 30 or so law enforcement officers who witnessed the collision did nothing. In fact, this was the fourth time the boy was struck. Those officers were taking part in a week long, hands-on training session to provide enhanced training in vehicle versus pedestrian and bicyclist investigations.
The course was conducted by Paul Olson and Kenneth Harmon, both adjunct faculty with the Institute of Police Technology and Management at the University of North Florida.
The instruction is particularly important for officers in New Jersey as the percentage of pedestrians killed annually in the state is double the national rate. It’s a serious matter for Pam Fischer, director of the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety.
“People are always saying to us ‘what are you doing about it,’” Fischer said. “We’re looking at it from all different angles. We are out there preaching enforcement and education, but we need this piece of it to give officers the training they need to be able to investigate these accidents.”
As of last week, 49 pedestrians and two people on bikes have been killed in the state. About 27 percent of all traffic-related deaths involve those on foot or two wheels.
During Thursday’s session, officers were able to see what happens when humans meet moving vehicles. Otherwise they’d have to learn through textbooks or even worse, actual crash scenes.
It’s a scientific process that includes physics and geometry and incorporates observations and often witness testimony. The last crash was a broadside one, with the car hitting the bicyclist flat, causing only minor damage to the bike.
The previous run was head-on. The impact left the front wheel of the bike with almost a perfect jagged dent of the car’s bumper.
Olson said he’d never seen the rubber from a test dummy get caught in a windshield before. All-in-all it was a bad day to be Skippy.
“The bicyclist that was ‘killed’ here can’t tell you what happened,” Fischer said. “You have hit and runs and then motorists in very many cases that will say they simply didn’t see them.”
Dead men may tell no tales, but the tire marks in the parking lot and the positioning of where Skippy and the bike landed, along with other evidence left at the scene can give some indication of what may have happened if the driver simply drove on.
It can provide closure for families left with questions about their loved one’s death. Also it provides valuable information for authorities who are tasked with making roads safer for those in and out of vehicles.
In dealing with traffic safety, Fischer deals with four “E” principles. An engineering component to make sure thoroughfares are designed and built as safe as possible; education so motorists and pedestrians aware of traffic laws and safety guidelines; enforcement of those regulations; and EMS for those who respond to accidents.
There’s a fifth “E,” that being “everyone.”
“Everyone owns the street, so we need the public to step up and recognize that they have a role to play here too,” Fischer said. “Yes, there’re out there on foot, crossing the street, or riding a bike. They need make safety priority number one and then we don’t have to come to a scene to investigate something like this.”
Copyright 2010 Gloucester County Times