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Electric Motorcycle Collides with Cyclist in Zero Emission Race

An international race to promote battery-powered vehicles ended badly for a 50-year-old cyclist, who collided with a 750-kilogram electric motorcycle, suffering several rib fractures. The crash involving the cyclist and the electric vehicle took place at the Athletes Village in Vancouver, BC, on November 12, 2010.

The collision happened in the morning, at Athletes Way and Manitoba Street. The event was supposed to promote the "World's First Zero Emmissions Race" which stopped in Vancouver, after starting in Geneva on August 16, 2010.

A woman who witnessed the collision Friday between the two zero-emission vehicles told The Vancouver Sun she was "disturbed" by how fast the motorcycle was travelling in a residential area.

"We thought, 'Holy crap they are going really fast down that residential street.' There were cars parked along the side. Someone could have walked out on the street and not heard that vehicle -- not like you would have heard a regular motorcycle," said Dawna Werbeski, 43, who lives in the neighborhood.

However, despite the efforts made to find out the speed with which the electric motorcycle was traveling, neither the police nor the spokesman for the association responded to the requests. A controversial aspect of the incident is also the lack of noise of the streamline-shaped Zero-Tracer.

"Everybody is depressed, everybody is really shaken ... [but] I don't think it is any black mark on the event or the vehicles,"
said one of the organizers, Don Chandler of the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association to The Calgary Herald. "They are worried about the cyclist that got hit and his recovery."

Participants to the World's First Zero Emmissions Race have been driving 100% electric vehicles running on renewable energies for up to 500 km (310 miles) a day since the race began, with a goal of completing their around the world journey in just 80 days.
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