An article in the SacBee today reports that a bicyclist died when he/she swerved into the path of a motor vehicle. The article parrots the CHP spokesman, that the bicyclist swerved. No doubt the uninjured driver would say that. The bicyclist is dead and has nothing to say, so the CHP takes the word of the driver.

Note that no crash investigation has been conducted by CHP. Crash investigations take weeks, and require gathering of detailed information about the point of collision, and the direction of movement of the bicyclist and driver at the time of collision, and more information about the victim and perpetrator. But without the results of an investigation, the CHP just assumes that the bicyclist is at fault and the driver is innocent. This is victim blaming of the first order. Of course this is standard procedure for CHP, where almost every officer thinks that every bicyclist crash is the fault of the bicyclist, without evidence to support that assumption. CHP is not a safety-oriented agency, they are a victim-blaming agency. No surprise.

What is a surprise is that the SacBee would parrot the CHP’s misinformation about the crash. News media does not exist to reprint agency press releases. It should exist to question what agencies say, particularly when the agency expresses certainty about a crash that has not received an incident investigation. Please do better, SacBee. Report the facts that are known, not CHP speculation.