Police seek witnesses in zero-emissions motorcycle collision
By LORI CULBERT, Vancouver SunNovember 14, 2010
http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=3820390&sponsor=
A vehicle that stopped in Vancouver to promote the "World's First Zero Emissions Race" was involved in a collision with a cyclist Friday at the from Olympic Village.
A vehicle that stopped in Vancouver to promote the "World's First Zero Emissions Race" was involved in a collision with a cyclist Friday at the from Olympic Village.
Photograph by: Nick Procaylo, PNG
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A 50-year-old cyclist is recovering after he suffered several rib fractures when he collided with an electric motorcycle in Vancouver Friday during an international race to promote zero-emission vehicles, police said.
In a brief statement issued late Saturday evening, Vancouver police spokeswoman Const. Jana McGuinness also appealed to the public for any witnesses to come forward.
"There were many people in the area when the collision occurred and investigators are particularly interested in any video that may have been taken by witnesses," McGuinness said.
Police said the cyclist collided with the side of an electric concept vehicle and that the cause of the crash is under investigation, but would release no further information.
"Everybody is depressed, everybody is really shaken ... [but] I don't think it is any black mark on the event or the vehicles," said one of the organizers, Don Chandler of the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association.
"They are worried about the cyclist that got hit and his recovery."
Chandler was there when the accident happened just before 10 a.m. at Athletes Way and Manitoba Street, in front of the former Olympic athletes' village on southeast False Creek. He maintained the driver of the two-seat, enclosed, electric motorcycle was not at fault.
"Nobody here said that at all, I would say definitely not. From what I saw the bike came off the sidewalk in front of [the motorcycle]," said Chandler, who was asked to file a police report.
Chandler said he understood the cyclist's injuries are not life-threatening, but allowed that getting hit by a 750-kilogram motorcycle "will cause some damage."
Footage of the incident captured by a Vancouver Sun photographer attending the event shows worried-looking bystanders kneeling over the injured cyclist, his dented bike lying nearby.
A videographer for a local TV station was riding in the back of the motorcycle at the time of the accident. His camera smashed through the vehicle's windshield as a result of the collision, causing significant damage to the camera and the motorcycle, Chandler said.
Both driver Frank Loacker, a member of the Swiss team in the race, and the local videographer were shaken, but not hurt, Chandler said.
The Swiss group is competing against teams from other countries in the event, dubbed the Zero Emissions Race, as part of an 80-day world tour to show electric vehicles are capable of circling the globe in less than three months.
Friday marked the first and only Canadian stop on the race, as the vehicles were scheduled to head next to Seattle.
The motorcycle had days earlier been shipped to Vancouver from China, and minutes before the accident Loacker had joked with reporters that it had been difficult to navigate around erratic drivers in China.
In a statement issued earlier Friday morning to promote the event, tour director Louis Palmer said the race was not about speed, but about proving electric vehicles are capable of covering 500 kilometres a day.
The race started in August in Switzerland, and has crossed Russia, Kazakhstan and China.
The race will hit several U.S. cities before reaching the World Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico in December. It is slated to end at the United Nations in Geneva in January.
