What to Know
- A Manhattan mother is urging bike riders to slow down after she says a cyclist “plowed” into her 4-year-old Monday night
- The child suffered scrapes, bruises and had to get stitches
- Mom says she was told in the ER that what she and her daughter went through is not a unique case
A Manhattan mother is urging bike riders to slow down after she says a cyclist “plowed” into her 4-year-old Monday night at Riverside Park, ultimately, sending her daughter to the hospital.
“He couldn’t slow down because he was going so fast,” Adrienne Rivetti Jensen told NBC 4 New York.
Her young daughter ended up with bruises, scrapes and stitches after the cyclists rammed into her on the Hudson River Recreation Path near West 79th Street.
Jensen says what she and her daughter went through is not a unique case.
“When we checked in, they told us that she wasn’t even the first kid that day to be hit by a cyclist,” she said.
Jensen wants to make it clear that she is not anti-bike, but she is anti-speed. She wants cyclists sharing a road or a path with pedestrians to pay attention to signs.
Local
Signs found in the park where the cyclist allegedly hit Jensen's daughter puts the responsibility on bike riders.
“You just got to kind of watch out -- yell, rely on each other, whistles, bells -- it all works,” Josh Witchger, a cyclist, says.
Though it is not always easy to share a narrow space among cyclists and pedestrians, Witchger says it is all part of getting around in a crowded city.
“It’s tricky because sometimes you have to weave in and out,” he said.
As for Adrienne, she said that the cyclist who hit her daughter did apologize and was concerned about the little girl’s condition.
Jensen is now asking for cyclists to slow down.
“My husband and I were talking about how, you know, he could have killed her,” she said.
