This morning on my way to work, I saw a latina woman driving a Silver PT Cruiser in the financial district who looked to be in her 30s. The first 3 characters in her license plate were "HY5", and she had a Gilroy Dealership license plate cover on it.

I just wonder how hard it can possibly be to find a car that has the letters KAY and a 'heart shape' on the license plate?

How many could there possibly be in San Francisco...or the Bay Area for that matter? Don't the SFPD have access to a data base that can pull up this information?

The 'difficulty' in finding this vehicle and the woman that drove it sends a message to me as a bicyclist that the SFPD cares very little about crimes against bicyclists and their safety.

I think I may have had an encounter with this car over a month ago, on 25th Street at Treat. But it was a mini van driven by a woman that passed me within inches just so she could get to a stop sign before me. I was fortunate that she didn't hit me. But it was very scary.

My thoughts are with the family as they go through this dramatic change in their life.

One more thing...

JSmith's comments are completely inconsiderate and singularly focused.
The driver did not yield to the traffic PERIOD!!
Instead she hit a bicyclist and left the scene. This sort of 'aggressive driving' behavior is what gets people hurt, whether that person is walking, biking or driving in their car.
If aggressive drivers had their cars impounded and were given a bicycle instead, then things would change rather quickly on our city streets.

http://holierthanyou.blogspot.com/2009/07/andrew-bennett.html

Here's a question for you then: if indeed there is merit to the driver's side, then why is she not stepping forward and telling her side? Why is she laying low? The deafening silence from her is almost as good as a guilty plea, as far as I'm concerned.

Ya know, it's hard to claim the position of the unbiased, dispassionate seeker of truth, when you just made a quite bigoted statement about the "smiling, earth-loving, political correct father with tiny children strapped on his bike" who always gets his way. Just to remind you, that smiling, earth-loving guy is the one who got his back broken.

However, on many occasions Occam's razor has stifled or delayed scientific progress. For example, appeals to simplicity were used to deny the phenomena of meteorites, ball lightning, continental drift. It originally rejected DNA as the carrier of genetic information in favor of proteins, since proteins provided the simpler explanation.

I'd love to hear her side of the story. I think all of us would. But until that happens (yeah, right) we have to base our advocacy and opinions on the set of facts available to us. That set of facts strongly supports concluding that Andrew and his children were victims. To presume that acting on these facts is some sort of slippery-slope to vigilantism is beyond absurd. Nobody is advocating going out and beating up this person - we're advocating finding out who/where she is so that she can be turned into the police.

Perhaps if she weren't in the wrong the driver would just come forward and just clear things right up... I wonder why she isn't...

"Lauren, you are aware that the driver in this incident ran through a red light? Apparently it wasn't even a "speed up for a yellow" borderline kind of situation. Independent witnesses saw this happen. This isn't a case of 'well, perhaps the facts aren't all in..." the driver is clearly at fault. Unless you're an emergency vehicle running code there is no excuse for running a red light."

The answer to your question is: no, I'm not aware. And, quite frankly, I would caution that neither should you be, for that matter. And it's your degree of certitude that I find so troublesome. Certainly you're entitled to your opinion, but to couch hearsay as hard facts is wrong. As John Adams said, "Facts are stubborn things."

True, the press has reported the assertions of independent wittnesses that the accident unfolded exactly as you say, but until all sides are heard, and all the facts are presented and parsed neither you nor I should draw any inferences. This is why we have courts and operate uder the rule of law. What I infer from your post that you are satisfied that all the facts are in. If we follow your logic than reductively there is no need to ajudicate this matter. Rather, we can impute fault through a kind of warm and fuzzy concensus, and collectively assume the role of judge, jury and executioner. This is the rocky road to vigilantism.

To your point that "lack of ambiguity" is the reason this matter has gotten so much press: not true, the degree of press coverage is directly proportionate to tragic nature of the occurrence; the lack of certainty regarding the identity of the other party involved; and the urgent need to locate the other party, decide the facts and administer justice.

Finally, I like bikes!

A man on a bicycle is not a fly - any time you hit something that big in a car you *will* notice. It will make a loud sound and almost certainly damage your car.

There are plenty of traffic cases where the facts are ambiguous and plenty of traffic cases where the bicyclist or pedestrian is at fault. This is not one of them and the lack of ambiguity is why it's gotten so much more press than most "accidents."

As for the "smiling, earth-loving, political correct father with tiny children strapped on his bike" (and an aside, what's up with the condescension from drivers towards cyclists?). Had he plowed through a red-light at full-speed and been hit by a car that had the green then we'd all be up in arms about how irresponsible and reckless the guy is.

I'm no bicyclist, but reading the various comments from this thread and others about this incident has given me a hell of a lot more sympathy for those of you who go out every day and face such an amazing amount of suspicion and hostility simply for using a legal and healthy form of transit. A lot of people out there really need to work through their cultural hostility towards bicyclists.

Don't you think there is at least a dent?

Just to pile on - I'd hate to live in a world where children don't have safe access to the street until driving age, or that they must remain (unsafely) tethered to the backseat of a car. Children's health and nascent autonomy are inextricably tied to safe walking and biking. We need to childproof the world, not worldproof the child.

Nevertheless, I ask only that you and others take a step back and grant, (without my endeavoring to become an apologist for the driver, who may, indeed, be at fault) that it is concievable that the driver may not have been aware that she struck Andrew and his son. It may not have been intentional. She may or may not have consciously "hit and run' -- that's all I'm saying.

JSmith - your comments are heartless and misinformed and reflect the typical North American bias that anyone not driving a car or truck should stay off the road. Re-read your local traffic laws - bikes belong.

Lauren - ignore the fact that the victims were on a bike - there is absolutely no excuse for anyone to hit & run anyone regardless of the other party's choice of vehicle. What makes it worse is that one victim is a child and his father was left with a broken back.

Cyclists especially are very aware of their own screwups. The primary difference that builds the drama is that when the driver is at fault, they kill a pedestrian or a cyclist, when the pedestrian or a cyclist is at fault, they kill themselves. In a sane world, this dichotomy would lend itself to drivers taking their responsibility seriously. Instead, the knee-jerk reaction tends to be that cyclists and pedestrians should get on their asses - in the seat of a car.