I Want To Ride My Bicycle! Stop That Bus!


By Nikita R Stewart
...
Asher Corson, director of communications for Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), found himself pinned between a parked truck and a Metro bus.

The bus driver, Corson said, apparently did not see him as he cycled in the "rightmost lane" on Thursday on H Street NW near the White House. Corson, 24, just purchased his black and gray Cannondale Sunday and was biking from his home in Foggy Bottom to the Wilson Building shortly after 9 a.m.

"I merge over. Right as I merge over, the bus begins to speed up," said Corson, 24, who found himself being squeezed. "Clearly, he didn't see me. Or I guess he didn't see me."

Happy to see that he had suffered only a busted knuckle, Corson said his relief quickly turned to anger when the bus simply pulled off.

Corson jumped up on his bike and caught the driver at the next stop. "I said, Sir, you almost killed me.' At which point, he closed the door," he recalled. "I was..."

This is a family D.C. Wire, Asher.

He again jumped on his bike and at the next stop, he got all the information he needed to file a police report.

Corson said he has learned in his research that the driver was supposed to "stop, call a supervisor, call the police."

"Instead of it being accident, I filed a hit-and-run (report)."

Corson said he's not interested in suing the city or WMATA. He said he just wants "WMATA and bus drivers to pay a little closer attention to bikers."

"If it (the bus) was an inch over, I could have broken my shoulder. If it had been two inches, I could have been dead," he said. "It scared the daylights out of me."

Corson has every intention to &quot;keep on riding.&quot; <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/2008/08/i_want_to_ride_my_bicycle_stop.htm">http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/2008/08/i_want_to_ride_my_bicycle_stop.htm</a>;

by B' Spokes

Like most people I live a hectic life and who has the time for much exercise? Thanks to xtracycle now I do. By using my bike for daily activities I can get things done and get an hour plus work out in 15 minutes extra of my time, not a bad deal and beats taking the extra time going to the gym. In case you are still having trouble being motivated; the National Center of Disease Control says that inactivity is the #2 killer in the United States just behind smoking. ( http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/bb_nutrition/ ) Get out there and start living life! I can carry home a full shopping cart of groceries, car pool two kids or just get lost in the great outdoors camping for a week. Well I got go, another outing this weekend.
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I regularly ride in DC and the metro buses take no prisoners. I have watched them swerve from left to right as they force their way through traffic. There are some bad drivers, but the city doesn't doesn't help. The number of bus stops should be cut, people can walk a block to get to a bus. The bus stops should be clearly marked on the road surface, the people parking in bus stops should be ticketed heavily, and the bus drivers must use the official bus stop, no stopping early, no opening the doors when not next to the curb. To often the bad driving is driven by badly located bus stops and cars parking in bus stops, but that is no excuse for not stopping. My guess is that this diver has a history of being shouted at by bikers. Take the bus number, the route and the time then report bad diving on the WMATA website. My advice to the biker, stay clear of buses, don't cut ahead of a bus on the inside lane, and expect them to do crazy unpredictable things. The same goes for taxi's in dc.