Tyler J Gilstrom, 24, has been charged with vehicular assault for seriously injuring a woman on Alaskan Way shortly before 5:30 p.m. March 1 (a Friday), the PI reports.
Gilstrom was going 60 on his Honda motorcycle when he crashed into a 64-year-old woman on a bike. They were both headed southbound just two blocks south of Myrtle Edwards Park and the start of the Elliott Bay Trail, according to court documents.
This stretch of Alaskan Way has two lanes in each direction. According to investigators, a taxi had stopped in the right lane, and the victim had moved to the left to pass the cab. At the same time, Gilstrom came up from behind going as fast as double the posted speed limit (60 in a 30) and lost control of his bike, striking the victim from behind.
She was left with severe injuries to her leg that has impaired her ability to walk as well as a fractured vertebrae in her neck. Gilstrom had minor injuries.
Gilstrom has been stopped for speeding or reckless driving three times in the past five years.
Comments
13 responses to “Man charged with vehicular assault for speeding and crashing into woman on bike downtown”
I think you meant severe not severed.
Yes. Fixed.
Alaskan Way is a disaster for all modes of transportation.
Buses, bikes, cabs, delivery trucks, and tour buses fight for space on the right lane in each direction and traffic goes as fast as humanly possible in left lane in each direction (I love watching cars slam on the gas just to slam on the breaks for the next light a quarter mile away).
Cyclists fly through red lights with no care for the pedestrians crossing or they use the sidewalks and slalom through tourists and ferry boat passengers. In the last four months I have seen 3 pedestrians hit by cyclists. I have also been stopped by a pedestrian who thanked me for stopping at a red light and said his arm was broken after a hit and run with a cyclist who ran a red light and knocked him down.
How hard would it be to paint some bike lanes on Alaskan Way? We still have 3-4 years before construction on the waterfront even starts so we need a ‘temporary’ solution and full police enforcement of red lights (for cyclists and cars).
The victim or her family needs to immediately capture all of Gilstrom’s use of social media to determine if he had posts/status/tweets about malicious intent to speed, or bragging about his speeding, etc…
This evidence could establish grounds to lock up Gilstrom for several years.
I saw this happen, it was horrific – but a series of unfortunate events. A taxi cab had parked _perpendicular_ to the curb effectively cutting off the right(west) southbound lane of traffic. I hope that the taxi driver gets cited, too. The motorcycle slammed into the taxi cab, only moments after a passenger got out of that back door. That passenger was one lucky duck. Speaking of lucky, Tyler slid on the pavement about 50-70 feet into oncoming traffic. He is SO lucky that SUV slammed on their brakes because he was just shy of getting rolled over.
The worst part of the whole thing was that people immediately rushed to the woman and propped her up, not knowing that she had broken her neck. If you see an accident or someone flip up in the air and land upside down on concrete: DO NOT LIFT THEM UP.
Your description of this contradicts the report a bit. Did the motorcycle hit the cab or the bicycle? If the cab, how did the motorcycle end up hitting the bicycle?
Yeah I knew it would sound confusing…
So the bicyclist was trying to navigate around the cab. The motorcyclist came around the corner down by the sculpture park and then revved up. He appeared to realize that he was blocked by the upcoming cab and went into the other lane just realizing there was a bike in his way.
On the video it looks like, because I’ve paused it at the moment of impact, that he tried to slide his bike. He hits her, she flies up and flips over and lands in her place. While he is slid down the street off of his bike and his bike continues to slide VERY violently into the back side of the cab. It pretty much happened instantaneously. I didn’t see it until the cab got hit, and I saw a man sliding down the street.
The report has the motorcycle doing 60 on Alaskan Way. Your description has the cab parked blocking a lane of traffic. If true, this is not a “series of unfortunate events.” Parking perpendicular to the curb and blocking a lane of traffic and speeding are not unfortunate they are illegal.
Absolutely, I meant that it was unfortunate for the victim.
[…] this vehicular assault case from March, via Seattle Bike Blog, when a 24-year-old doing 60 mph down Alaskan Way crashed into a cyclist. […]
smallgirlbigtown- I am the lawyer representing the bicyclist who was run down. Would you please call me to discuss this crash. I am at 206-262-9290.
Thank you!
Bob
And I would guess that the taxi did not have the hazzard lights on to warn other vehicales know that it was double parked. This is an on going problem that I hear about from other bicyclist and car drivers. Anyone double parked in the street needs to put hazzard lights. If you pull over to pick someone up the right blinker should be on. When you stop for more then 30 seconds in a lane or a none parking spot then the hazzard lights should go on. Truely sad.
Not to take away any responsibility from the dude going 60 on a road that should be marked 15, but cabbies in this town are a menace. We should regulate them to death, and hope the free market replaces them with a more responsible alternative.
I’m regularly cutoff, they have signaled left and gone right (and I have gone over their hood), they have just plain run into me as I am waiting on my bike for a red.
4 hours on, 4 hours off. Regular drug testing. Stringent testing of knowledge of rules of the road. Any infraction is met with a 6 month suspension or more, depending on severity. They are dangerous to the extreme.