I just read a very interesting piece from the New York Times written by an avid bicyclist. Apparently, the writer, John Markoff, was recently involved in a very serious bicycle accident wherein he suffered some kind of traumatic brain injury. As part of his head injury, Mr. Markoff had a 20-minute hole in his memory — including any recollection of what caused his accident.
This was of great concern to Mr. Markoff, because if his crash had been caused by a seizure or some other medical problem, he certainly would want to know about it and what to look for.
So Mr. Markoff decided to do his own investigation, and in the process of doing so, happened upon the idea of using his bicycle’s GPS device to try to figure out how he crashed. Since the GPS collects data reflecting not only exact location but also speed, Mr. Markoff was able to determine both the point that his bike became permanently stopped, as well as the last time that his bike was moving at a normal speed. He was then able to take this data to the scene of the accident, and look for any physical evidence. In Markoff’s case, he found a large, dangerous pothole in the roadway just before his bike permanently stopped. He was able to piece together a pretty convincing case that his front bike tire must have hit the deep pothole at the time of his crash.
As an Orlando area bicycle accident attorney, it is exciting to consider that many “unsolved” or unexplained significant bicycle accidents may now be explained. It is not unusual in bicycle accidents for drivers to blame bicyclists for causing accidents or being where they shouldn’t on the roadway. Now, many bicyclists have GPS cycling computers on their bikes that continually monitor and save data such as speed, elevation, pedaling cadence, and other data ostensibly useful for athletic training. Hopefully, this same GPS data will now level the playing field and help bicyclists achieve justice in significant injury cases.
If you have any questions regarding a bicycle accident case, or the use of a bicycle GPS device to investigate or reconstruct a bicycle accident, please call Orlando personal injury lawyers Kim Cullen and Bob Hemphill at 407-644-4444.
