Bikes and dogs: Incompatible?

There’s been a lot of discussion in recent months about the new bike share program in New York City and whether the expected increase in bicycles on the streets will caue more accidents between cyclists, vehicle drivers and pedestrians. But what about dogs?

There are hundreds of thousands of dogs in New York. Most of them are gentle family pets. But as one bicyclist found out recently, not all of them are so benign. A bike rider in Central Park was recently bitten.

A New Jersey man, who rides his bike to work in Manhattan every day and does five laps around Central Park, was attacked around 8:30 AM by two dogs that were off their leashes. They bit his legs and feet. The 54-year-old man said, “I had to fight them off with my bicycle. They were aggressive.”

The owner eventually came over to help pull the dogs off the cyclist. “My dogs don’t bite,” she said. The breed of the dogs was not known. However, according to Animal Planet, most serious dog attacks come from pit bulls, rottweilers, wolf hybrids and close relatives. Another report published on the website dogsbite.com for 2009, shows that pit bulls accounted for 59 percent of dog bite fatalities, with rottweilers being blamed for 14 percent of deaths from dog bites.

Police officers arrived and arrested the dog owner at the scene. She was charged with failure to have proper licenses and vaccination records and for letting the dogs run unleashed in the park. The dogs were handed over to New York City’s Animal Care & Control department.

Source: New York Daily News, “Bicycler in Central Park bitten by dogs, July 31, 2012.