Updated at the bottom with an eyewitness saying Schick crashed completely solo: First posted at 8:04 a.m. April 9.

Friends of bicyclist Susanna Schick are raising funds to help her with her recovery and biking gear after she was injured in what some are claiming was an act of hit-and-run road rage downtown over the weekend.

Her fellow bicyclists say it happened about 11:30 Friday night on Spring Street at Fourth when she was hit from the rear by a man in a white Lexus and ended up unconscious on the sidewalk.

What's scary about the story is that her friends say it was deliberate:

Schick was apparently riding in the new green bike lane on Spring Street when words were exchanged with the driver, who reportedly had a female passenger next to him and swerved into the bike-rider's path.

Credit: Schick / Facebook

Credit: Schick / Facebook

A few blocks later, at Fourth and Spring streets, he allegedly aimed for her back wheel, struck the bike and drove off, according to BikingInLA.


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The bicyclist awoke with paramedics working on her. They they took her to County USC Medical Center, where she was being treated for a concussion.

On her Facebook page Schick, whose nickname is “Pinkyracer,” lists herself as the founder of a company called Sustainable Fashion LA.

Friend Jennifer Beatty tweeted that Schick suffered from …

Angry, Beatty added:

Anyone have an info on the driver?

Call police at 1-213-972-1853.

[Update at 5:10 p.m. Tuesday]: Blogdowntown called LAPD Lt. Paul Vernon, who says there was no collision, and that officers nearby, who actually were the ones who called paramedics, witnessed Schick go down solo.

He says the rider had words with the occupants of the Lexus, but that the car never hit her — that she went down on her own.

Should she be arrested, then, for allegedly making false claims?

Well, it's possible the claims aren't her own (see above). Nonetheless, the story has made Schick's accident a cause celebre within L.A.'s bicycle-rights communty.

We have a call in to Vernon to clarify.

[Update at 2:59 p.m. Friday]:

An LAist reader who comments under the handle “wy wy” had this seemingly credible account of the crash, which was republished on the site yesterday:

I ran to her side moments after she crashed. No one crashed into her or veered into her- there was no traffic near her. She simply lost control and fell off of her bike. The officer said to me that her front wheel wobbled and she fell. I was across the street on my skateboard and heard her hit the ground, immediately looked in her direction, saw she wasn't moving, and ran across the street directly to her. About 3 other by-standers came to the scene soon after me, including 2 police officers who made sure no one touched her or her bike until the ambulance came. Susanna was face-down, breathing heavily and was unresponsive for about 2 minutes, and the whole time I was talking to her until and after she regained consciousness. I asked her simple things like 'do you know where you are?' 'do you know what day it is?' 'what is your name?' and I told her that the ambulance was close and that she was going to be okay. She told me her name, asked if she crashed on her bike or motorcycle, said her shoulder and her hip hurt, she felt stupid and couldn't believe that happened, she asked if her nose was bleeding, asked why her foot was cold and it was because one shoe came off when she crashed. I stayed by her side talking to her and kept an eye on her bike until the firetruck and ambulance came and they made me move out of the way. The police officer who saw her crash took on the responsibility to get her bike to her house after she told us her address, which was a block and a half away. I made sure the officer took care of her bike- he had her address written on his hand and put her bike in his trunk. I looked her up on facebook while she was being loaded into the ambulance and sent her my phone number so she could call me and let me know how she was doing. I took a few seconds of video while she was being loaded into the ambulance and I was walking away.

Schick's supporters maintain her the back wheel of her bike was “taco'd” and that she was hit, But it's sounding more and more like they've been trying to use Schick's non-hit-and-run as a weapon in their war on cars.

Vernon, by the way, did call us back Wednesday.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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