BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Disgusting. The driver certainly can't use the excuse that he didn't see the pedicab, those things light up like xmas trees.

"... has not been identified by police yet..."

is there a reason they wouldn't identify the person other than if they were a minor?

REALLY hope the pedicab people are ok. Can't help but think that, unarguably, that pedicab is somebody's wages gone until it's replaced or repaired. Could be the case with any bicycle, obviously. Hope everything comes right in the end.

Maybe the driver didn't have ID? Or the police want to make sure they have the right person?

so great that they were tailed or this would be like the Washington Blvd incident.

The Trib just posted the driver's name:

identified as Matthew Powdrill, 18, of an unknown address, was charged with drunk driving and other offenses

Matthew Powdrill, 18 ... charged with drunk driving and other offenses

This is a reminder of the time of year. Oakland and the enviroments will be filled with drunk drivers. Of course. Same as it ever was.

But with the new college students in, the drunk drivers will be rookie drivers and - at the same time - rookie drinkers.

Please exercise extra caution.

I usually take the safe assumption: Anyone driving at midnight on Friday or Saturday is driving drunk.

I don't mean "maybe-had-one-too-many" drunk. I mean, "so-drunk-he-is-carried-to-the-hospital" drunk.

Not accurate, of course, but close enough.

I ride sidewalks. (At near-pedestrian speed.) Going through Oakland, the sidewalks have pedestrians, so I do the safe, polite thing and walk my bike.

+1 to what mick said.....

+2 after driving a cab for a few years it was

really sad/disgusting the drunk driving that

people get away with

Funny thing about the internet these days. You can check out the facebook profile of accused folks.

I couldn't see this guys profile, it was all locked down. There's a dude in the UK that shares a name, though. I can see how one might confuse the two having checked out his collection of snapshots.

Pedicab == rickshaw. This crash involved a cyclocab. Just noting a distinction.

for real quizbot? I've definitely only heard them called pedicabs, but I see where you're going with the foot vs cycle distinction

Nice bit of victim blaming. Giving this guy from yellow cab the opportunity to call pedicabs dangerous when it was clearly the driver's recklessness that was at fault. Those people would have been injured in an actual taxi cab or on foot.

Whats being tacitly said here is that it is understood that vehicles would hit a pedicab and not another car not because its less visible but that it is somehow and ok to hit people on human powered vehicles.

Another big bummer for the other pedicab drivers, is that there will be one less cab for everyone at the company. Not only will this driver be affected, but probably everyone at the company will be trying to schedule time on fewer cabs until this one is repaired.

I Hope the pedicab driver and passengers will be ok. This is probably the 3rd accident involving someone hitting a pedicab that I've heard about this summer.

@Ted -Agreed! That was not cool at all by the Taxi Owner guy...

Oh well, hope the pedicab driver & passengers are recovering well.

@TheLivingTed "That jerk! He broke my fist with his jaw."

I was going to be really cynical and make a bet that "the system" treats Matthew Powdrill much differently relative to the crime than, say, Benjamin Cope. But, nah.

Powdrill's MySpace photo page is interesting.

as long as powdrill can leave the state to attend college, i don't see there being an issue.

we don't throw away kids with loads of potential in america.

i beg to differ:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScbNp0-bvGU

That's right, we don't throw them away, we throw them in college, ha

Garbage in, garbage out

Ha, ha!