Bicycle Guy Still Not Charged, Don't Hold Your Breath

We remain convinced that the design of 3rd Ave is more responsible for the death of Betty Jean Simon than the bicycle guy who reportedly bumped her. Actually, who knows what he really did - Reports vary, even within the same newspaper account. The Seattle Times said he bumped her and then later that, "the man rode by on the sidewalk and caused her to lose her balance," and in the P-I today, "witnesses reported the man might have shoved the woman beneath the bus." So which was it?

And of course there is the charge levied by witnesses that bicycle guy "was wobbling and may have been intoxicated." You know, if Seattlest caused someone to lose their balance via a bump or by any other means and they fell off the curb and a bus rode over them, we'd probably wobble too.

So far the bicycle guy has not been charged or, more frustratingly, named.

But back to 3rd Avenue. There is no shoulder recognized by Metro drivers on most of 3rd. You know when you're at a bus stop and the bus pulls in and drives very close to the curb for twenty feet or so and you contemplate mortality as your likeness is flashed back to you in the rapidly moving windows of the bus? That's the entire length of 3rd Ave. The difference between standing patiently on the curb and being crushed under a flying bus is literally a few inches.