Seattle city officials have not yet responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
SEATTLE \u2014 Seattle will pay more than $9 million to settle a lawsuit brought by a cyclist who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a 2024 crash that his attorney argues was partly caused by a dangerous bike lane design.<\/p>\n
Aviv Litov was 24 years old when a vehicle struck him on June 20, 2024. He was riding in a bike lane near Green Lake at the time. He was wearing a helmet and traveling below the speed limit when a driver turned directly into his path, according to the lawsuit. Litov was transported to Harborview Medical Center.<\/p>\n
“He was in bad shape,” said his mother, Lara Litov.<\/p>\n
His father, Tzachi Litov, recalled the difficult days at the hospital.<\/p>\n
“In that entire time, we were told over and over to have low expectations,” he said.<\/p>\n
Doctors confirmed Litov had sustained a traumatic brain injury. He lost partial vision and had to relearn how to walk.<\/p>\n
“His brain injury basically worked like a stroke,” said Karen Koehler, an attorney with Stritmatter Law who took his case.<\/p>\n
Koehler argued that a flawed bike lane design contributed to the crash, pointing to a slope near the intersection where sightlines between the cyclist and the driver were obstructed by parked vehicles.<\/p>\n
“You’re supposed to keep the parked cars so many feet from that intersection so that there would not be an obstruction to view,” Koehler said.<\/p>\n
She contends the city\u2019s layout created a blind spot. The driver could not see Litov, and Litov could not see the driver.<\/p>\n
“They just violated their own standards, and that’s why the court found that they were negligent as a matter of law,” Koehler said.<\/p>\n
The city of Seattle has not yet responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
For Litov, cycling was more than a mode of transportation. It was central to his life.<\/p>\n
“Cycling was the biggest passion of my life, by far,” he said.<\/p>\n
He was no stranger to the dangers cyclists face.<\/p>\n
“The vast majority of people I know in the cycling community have actually been hit by cars,” Litov said.<\/p>\n
When his crash happened, he had no recollection of the impact itself.<\/p>\n
“I just was in the middle of this mess,” he said.<\/p>\n
Despite the severity of his injuries, Litov fought his way back. His father credited the family’s refusal to accept the worst-case scenario.<\/p>\n
“I think the most important thing is to never give up hope, and we were unwilling to accept bad news,” Tzachi Litov said.<\/p>\n
Now, Aviv Litov says he wants his ordeal to drive broader change in how cities and drivers approach cyclist safety.<\/p>\n
“I really hope that it does force people to actually have to consider the safety of others when making decisions,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seattle city officials have not yet responded to requests for comment. SEATTLE \u2014 Seattle will pay more than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-642260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}