Questions surround the death of Merrill Cassell
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- November
- 11
Two cyclists in the Rockland Bicycling Club have raised questions about how the driver is back behind the wheel of a Bee-Line bus so quickly after being involved in an accident resulting in the death of Merrill Cassell.
They also voiced concern of the headline in today’s Journal News, “Cops say cyclist fell under bus.” Which is taken from this police quote, “He could have hit the curb. He could have lost his balance. We don’t know, Capt. Joseph DeCarlo said.
This quote caused Steve to comment, “I was taken aback by the Journal News coverage of the investigation in this morning’s paper. When I read the article it was clear that Mr. Cassell fell under the bus after being sideswiped by the bus, and perhaps forced into the curb. In other words, if the bus driver had allowed a reasonable distance of at least three feet between the bus and Mr. Cassell when overtaking him, then Mr. Cassell would still be alive. Yet the headline on the JN article said simply that the cyclist had fallen under the bus. It was reminiscent of Dr. Thompson’s defense in his California road rage trial that the cyclists he injured just fell down because bicycles are inherently unstable.”
He also asked, “Is anyone else shocked to learn that the bus driver is already back behind the wheel of a bus? While his actions might not necessarily have been criminal, someone who allows his bus to brush against another vehicle as he passes it is at best negligent, and needs to be retrained.”
Rita added, “I agree with you, entirely. You’ve stated exactly what I was going to assert.
Driver negligence? Positively. Criminal act? Perhaps less clear, but a collision that results in death or even injury says loud and clear that the bus driver was neither in control of the vehicle nor driving safely.”
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This entry was posted
on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 1:17 PM by Randall Wolf. 
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“He could have hit the curb. He could have lost his balance. We don’t know.” What kind of investigation is that? If he had been a pedestrian, I suspect things would be going differently. There seems to be this erroneous sentiment by some that Mr. Cassell should not have been riding there and deserved to be crushed by a bus so there’s no need to investigate further. Of course, he had every right to use that road and deserves to be alive today. Sad. Are there really no witnesses to interview to learn what actually happened?
This is why we need the 3 foot law in NY. Even if it was a complete coincidence that an extremely experienced bicyclist just happend to fall over right at the moment a bus was on top of him, if the bus was required to give him three feet of leeway it might have been a different outcome.
My condolences to his family and friends.
Ben
If you interviewed the police and quoted them successfully you would see it was the media that created this bias towards blaming the cyclist in this case—intentionally or unintentionally.
I did interview the police and they did not lay the blame at Merrill’s feet.
Benepe
I totally agree. The driver should not be allowed back to work until the investigation is complete. The poor man who I knew for many years is now dead because of this horrific accident. His family is devastated. His friends are shocked. It is not right. The driver should not be behind the wheel so soon. How could anyone want to take on that responsibility after something so tragic. I would be too “freaked out” to drive for a long time. It’s insane.