A collision in central Berkeley sent a young cyclist to the hospital with moderate injuries Friday morning, authorities report.
Berkeley police and firefighters responded to a call around 8 a.m. in the 1600 block of Dwight Way, near California Street, where a driver collided with a child riding his bike. The boy was taken to the hospital with moderate injuries, said Berkeley Police Lt. Andrew Rateaver in an email to Berkeleyside. The boy’s age was not immediately available.
The driver stayed at the scene and cooperated with officers looking into what took place. The official cause has not been determined but Rateaver said early indications are that the boy violated the state Vehicle Code in some way, which led to the crash.
Twitter user Tom Price posted a photo of the car he said was involved in the crash, a white Toyota Prius with a shattered windshield. Price tweeted that he and his daughter crossed the intersection just 10 seconds earlier, and that they heard the boy get hit.
“Even though this is a major and designated thoroughfare for kids to get to school, there is no light at this intersection,” Price wrote. “No way for kid to signal he was crossing. He obviously didn’t see her [the driver] coming.” Price said he thought the rising sun would have shone directly into the driver’s eyes.
California Street is a city-designated bicycle boulevard between Hopkins and Russell streets. Longfellow Middle School is several blocks south of the crash site, and Walden Center & School is several blocks east.
“Berkeley, we gotta do better. If we are going to designate routes for our kids to ride to school they have to be safe,” he wrote.
Another Berkeleyside reader on Twitter recalled “a close call or two” at the same intersection.
Replied Steve Bloom, in the same Twitter thread: “For bikers and drivers: *Always* make eye contact. If you can’t, assume they don’t see you.”
