Columbia bike rider gets hit with SUV, ticket

(Columbia) February 22, 2007 - A Columbia bicycle rider got hit by an SUV - then he got slammed with a ticket.

Tannie Dandridge is limping, in pain, still not sure how he ended up getting dragged up Harden Street under an SUV, "I just, I thought I was dead. Everything turned red and black underneath the vehicle."

The morning of January fifth, Dandridge was riding his bicycle to work in Five Points. He says he was in the crosswalk on Slighs Avenue, when a Ford Explorer making a turn on a red light pulled out and ran over him. "I'm not sure if I was snagged at some point, but I was definitely rolled and I could feel things breaking and popping and moving in the wrong direction."

"It's just painful to think about."

Bleeding and still stunned by what had happened, Dandridge says he managed to get up, walk over to the driver and ask for a ride to the hospital. Columbia police showed up a short time later, and it was then Dandridge says they added insult to his injuries.

It came in the form of a ticket and a fine. He was fined $232.50 for failing to yield right of way, with the charge misspelled by the officer. "They said we're giving you a ticket, failure to yield right of way, $232. And I laughed. I went, 'You're kidding right?'"

A police report says the bike hit the SUV at 15 miles an hour, though damage to the vehicle was estimated at only $50.

Dandridge on the other hand, suffered far more. "My left arm was broken. They had to do surgery on it to put it back together. My left ear was nearly ripped off - scar here across my eye. My right shoulder is dislocated, the ACL joint."

Dandridge says he's run up huge medical bills and has no insurance. He hasn't worked since the accident and says he, his wife and daughters are close to getting evicted. And Dandridge says police charged him based solely on the SUV driver's version of events, "If they had asked me, I would have told them what happened."

A Columbia police spokeswoman says an officer did speak with Dandridge before he went in for X-rays. His attorney said if the light was indeed red, anyone in the crosswalk would have the right of way, whether riding a bike or on foot.

Dandridge was scheduled to appear in court Friday morning and could have paid his fine. Instead, he has asked for a jury trial.

<Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the cop did in fact get the full story and the man was at fault in not yielding the right-of-way to the SUV, all of which is debatable not only on grounds of simple truth but the moral applicability of such rules. But, let us assume this is the case. Has the man not paid enough for his crime? Will that never even be a legal consideration?>