Cyclist Involved In Bus Hit & Run Seeks Witnesses

A local cyclist who was struck by a school bus last week is looking for neighbors who may have witnessed the crash.

Molly Kelleher Cuff tells us that on Thursday, April 16 at about 9:50am, she was riding her bike on 6th Avenue, and was at Lincoln Place when the bus struck her and then a parked car before driving off, pushing Molly over her handlebars and leaving her “sprawled out into oncoming traffic,” she explains.

She says a couple stopped to get her bike out of the road, but didn’t seem to have seen anything — but she’s hoping that, as the street is pretty busy at that hour, someone may have seen something that can help her find the driver.

“Because NY is a no fault state the hospital bill is going to fall onto me (and yes I have insurance, and yes this seems crazy, please just trust me I’ve talked to everyone this is how it works here) unless I can find the (expletive) who hit me,” she wrote to us. “So if anyone saw anything or knows anyone who saw anything (I was upside down at the time and my memory is a little foggy) please help!”

Molly says she filed a police report, but that, “because I didn’t see any more than the 4 digit bus code… there is nothing more they could do. They even went so far as to ask me if I wanted to further file the report because there’s nothing to report can do to help me, because they don’t see a way for me to track down which bus among the thousands that go through that neighborhood every day.”

Her bike is in the shop — it wasn’t totaled, but required some realignment — and thankfully she wasn’t personally too badly injured, as far as she can tell, as she “had to leave the hospital without getting any scans because I was told my insurance won’t cover for a no fault situation and as there is no way to find the driver the medical bills are going to fall on me.” But, being in pretty good shape as a pilates instructor may have helped, she says. “I have a guardian angel and exercise really works!”

Of more long-term concern to Molly, though is how we as a city deal with cyclist safety.

“I know nothing may come of this for me but I feel like something needs to be done physically (bike lanes!!) and lawfully (no fault!) to protect our cyclists in this city,” she writes. “The last vehicles we should be worried about riding next to is a bus full of kids!”

If you happened to see anything on Thursday morning that may be of some help, you can reach Molly at molly1717@yahoo.com.