A student was hit and injured by a vehicle in the intersection of East Asbury Avenue and South Williams Street while riding her bicycle last Tuesday, marking the third incident involving a student near campus in the past six months.

Junior Brianna Johnson said she was riding her bike on Tuesday, Sept. 25, to a LASA Weekly Charla, an informal chat targeting Latin American issues and helping students speak Spanish, when a vehicle ran a stop sign and struck her. According to Johnson, the driver, 39-year-old Kirstin Gaffney, was distracted when she ran into her. Denver police charged Gaffney with careless driving resulting in injury.

Gaffney continued driving forward after she struck Johnson, running over Johnson’s left foot.

“People ran out of their cars and homes right away to help me,” said Johnson. “One person was an EMT and instructed me what to do until the ambulance arrived.”

Johnson was rushed to the Denver Health emergency room.

“I was let out of the hospital that night with no broken bones but a huge black and blue foot and lots of scrapes on my right foot,” said Johnson. “I am now on crutches, which is really no fun on this campus.”

According to Johnson, she obeyed all traffic laws before entering the intersection. She said she stopped at the four-way stop sign, allowed another vehicle to pass by, and then rode forward when she had the right-of-way.

“I did everything right as a biker and still got hit,” said Johnson. “I have heard a lot of other people complaining about the [auto-cyclist] situation also.”

Johnson said she doesn’t feel safe riding around campus. She said DU should put up more signage or hand out traffic rules to cyclists to help promote safety.

According to Buddy Knox, manager of Parking and Transportation Services, the department was instrumental in getting the “sharrows,” which are markings that remind drivers that cyclists also use the road, put onto the pavement along South High Street.

“[They are] a way of trying to remind people to share the road,” said Knox.

Knox said as long as bikes and cars have to share the road, there are going to be safety issues. He said car drivers generally go through the motions of driving under the assumption that everyone else, including cyclists, is going to obey the rules.

“Bikes also act as if they don’t have to obey the rules,” said Knox. “You’ll see them blow through stop signs, scream through intersections, tear down sidewalks and generally act as if the world owes them the right-of-way.”

Knox said the best way to avoid getting hit by a car is for cyclists to obey traffic laws in the same way as automobile operators. He also said it’s important for cyclists to be doubly diligent in watching out for cars.

“It shouldn’t have to be that way, but the reality is that bikes are going to have to shoulder the burden of diligence and defensive riding because they are small and crunchy,” said Knox.

Johnson said she will eventually ride a bike again when her feet heal.

“I will just have to hop back on right away for my confidence,” she said.

The incident, which occurred on Tuesday, Sept. 25, is the latest in a string of auto-cyclist related accidents that have occurred since January. Graduate student Masoud Bharamisharif, 24, was killed in a hit-and-run accident on May 31 at the intersection of University and Evans. Another student, Sophie Hoad, was hit by a car pulling out of the Bruegger’s Bagels parking lot at the intersection of East Asbury Avenue and University on April 16.