The Scorcher Menace strikes again! Ted points to this story of a school bus driver forced to swerve off of the road because, according to the initial headline, some kid was riding home from school on his bicycle in Columbia, Missouri.

According to the news story, a vehicle moved left into the oncoming lane of traffic to pass the kid on the bike, which in turn forced the bus driver in the oncoming lane to veer into the ditch. An earlier version of the headline for that story apparently blamed the kid on the bike for the crash, when in fact it was the (unidentified) driver of the first vehicle performing an unsafe pass.

This story reminds me of a crash on Highway 17 near Los Gatos, California last April that was dispatched as “bicyclist on right hand side caused traffic collision.” This was in a curved portion of the road known as “The Cats.” It turns out the driver, moving well beyond the 50 MPH speed limit, jockeyed left to move around the guy on the bike. Unfortunately for the driver, there was another vehicle in that left lane, so oops.

Driving with care is apparently too difficult for many of us to handle. If you’re going to break the law anyway, perhaps you should do so in a conveyance that won’t cause thousands of dollars in property damage and possible loss of life or limb when the inevitable “accident” occurs.

Image: “, The Unrestrained Demon of the Wheel, How he looks to timid people.” Sept. 23, 1893 attributed to “Corbould” but I can’t find good information on who that is.