“Now, I would love to get up every couple of minutes to get him,” said his father, Kurt Sorensen, a Southwest Airlines employee.
Brandon was riding his bicycle through an Alameda intersection on a rainy Monday afternoon last month when he was struck by an S.U.V. By chance, his mother, Tammy, came upon him lying in the street as she drove past. She held her son one last time; he died at a nearby hospital.
A Bay Citizen analysis of bicycle accident data from the California Highway Patrol found that young cyclists like Brandon are at the highest risk. The analysis shows that in the Bay Area cyclists ages 10 to 19 were involved in more traffic collisions — more than 3,200 from 2005 to 2009 — than any other age group.
Nearly half of those accidents involved boys ages 12 to 16.
In a region filled with thousands of adult cyclists, including daredevils who barrel through congested cities at high speeds, data showing that youngsters are most prone to accidents surprised even bicycle advocates. They said it showed the need for early education about traffic laws and safety.
The highway patrol compiles information about bicycle accidents from local police reports. According to the data, San Jose had 434 collisions involving teenagers, the most of any Bay Area city. Oakland was second with 193. (The Bay Citizen’s Bike Accident Tracker is at baycitizen.org/data/bike-accidents/.)
“I would have thought it would be males in their 20s” who would have the highest accident rates, said Renee Rivera, head of the East Bay Bike Coalition. “Anecdotally, I see mostly young adults cycling.”
In fact, cyclists in their 20s had the second-most collisions with motorists — about 3,100 from 2005 to 2009.
The data showed that teenagers were judged by the police to be at fault 63 percent of the time. By contrast, cyclists in their 20s were faulted in 46 percent of accidents.
The police are still investigating Brandon Sorensen’s accident, and the cause is unknown. The driver is cooperating, and no charges have been filed, according to the Alameda Police Department.
The police and experts in bicycle safety said adolescents, as inexperienced riders, often put themselves in danger because they are unfamiliar with traffic laws. The California Vehicle Code requires cyclists to ride on the right side of the road and follow all traffic rules, including stop signs, traffic lights and signaling.
“Bicyclists don’t think they’re vehicles on the roadway,” Sgt. Steve Paich of the Oakland Police said. “They feel like they should be treated like pedestrians.”
Sergeant Paich said many teenagers think it is legal to ride their bicycles in the crosswalk, for example. “Riding in the crosswalk,” he said, “means you’re riding on the wrong side of the road,” which is the ticketing category for riding in a crosswalk.
Adolescent cyclists were cited for being on the wrong side of the road two and a half times more than for any other individual violation, the data showed. Adolescents were found to be on the wrong side of the road more than any other riders.
A sampling of police reports shows how youngsters’ ignoring traffic laws can put them in harm’s way.
In one accident, a woman was driving along Eighth Avenue in Oakland when a 15-year-old cyclist ran a stop sign and entered the intersection. Trying to avoid him, the driver lurched onto the sidewalk, but the cyclist was thrown onto the hood of the car before rolling off into the street.
The teenager was lucky. He escaped with a few stitches on his head and some scrapes on his leg. His name and the driver’s were redacted from the police report.
In another instance, a 12-year-old boy ran a red light at the intersection of Hegenberger Road and Edgewater Drive in Oakland and was struck by a car. The driver was accelerating after the light turned green, according to the police report. The boy was not injured, but was cited for not having brakes or wearing a helmet.