"Peter called to my attention, below, my likely transgressing NBC's © by reproducing here the entire transcript of Matt Lauer's interview with Henry on The Today Show, November 17, 2003 in the course of which he spoon fed her lines and she covered herself with self-pity aided and abetted by him.

So here I've edited the transcript and make only what is called ""fair use"" of it here. This is probably somewhat less self-pitying for my deletions.

________________

MATT LAUER: Give me an idea of what these last couple of months have been like for you.

Ms. HEATHER FRENCH HENRY (Former Miss America): It was almost impossible to talk about, especially the first couple of weeks. ... (G)etting to come out now, is more to help others who've been through it, and more so to say thank you. Thousands of letters and e-mails from peo--all around the world....

...

LAUER: And you're in your SUV. And you're at a light waiting to make a turn. The light turns green. Take me from there.

Ms. HENRY: (T)he hardest thing to live with is seeing her face, her hand in the air and her screaming, `No,' and trying everything you can to avoid an unavoidable accident. (I)t replays through your mind all the time. (Y)ou swerve the car to the right, because...there were cars to the left.... (T)here was just no way to get around it.

LAUER: So you made--you made this turn. She was on a bicycle.

Ms. HENRY: She--it darted out from...

...

LAUER: And from what I understand, there was a lot of sun glare on the road.

Ms. HENRY: There was a lot, and not blinding sun I will say. But it made me concentrate really hard. It's a very busy intersection. There are six lanes of traffic going in and out of that area. And you're always very aware of how much room you're taking in that turn, especially in a truck [sic] with other cars there.

(I)t's just like when a child darts out in traffic to get a ball.

LAUER: You hit her with the center of the grill, basically. What did you do immediately after?

Ms. HENRY: ... We all convened over at--at Karola side. And then my husband--we live literally less that a half mile from that scene, so he ran down within 30
seconds.

LAUER: He is a doctor....

Ms. HENRY: A trauma doctor, so he's very used to these situations.

LAUER: What was your reaction when you got the word later that night that she had died?

Ms. HENRY: Oh, I didn't hear that she had until I saw it on the news. ... (T)hat was like one of the hardest parts was not having that connection and then having to deal with the second-hand information that just--just totally devastated my life, and still does today, knowing that, you know, I will have to move on. ...

LAUER: You've released a statement through your husband's office saying, expressing your deep condolences to her family. Have you reached out in any other way to her family? .... (S)he has four children, is that right...

Ms. HENRY: She does. She did have four children.

LAUER: ...that sometimes her children are being told is--is, `Your mom was killed by that beauty queen?'

Ms. HENRY: Right. That's what I have feared the most, and that people--I mean people who know me and the work that I've done know that I'm a very compassionate person towards humans. I mean, I value human life so much.

LAUER: Why not just call? Why not--why not get in contact with her family personally? ....

Ms. HENRY: We've been very...interested in that. And I just don't think that either party we are really ready yet for that. I mean, it's a struggle enough for me to get out of bed. ...(I)t's just--it's--it's devastating.

LAUER: ... Do you think...being somewhat high profile, the fact that you're a power couple in Kentucky, has i"

maybe we can teach drivers to aim their vehicle at another vehicle or object rather than a bicyclist or pedestrian. the vehicles have seat belts and protection, most have airbags . the 86 year old driver that killed 10 people and injured 70 in Los Angeles made a conscious decision to drive around other all the other cars and parked vehicles in the farmers market. this woman admits that there was a vehicle on her left,she had airbags, seat belts and was accelerating from a red light however she chose to run into the bicyclist.

"The interview makes it seem like the accident is entirely the cyclist's fault - ""it's just like when a child darts out in traffic to get a ball"". From what I've seen, cyclists don't tend to launch themselves in front of moving SUVs, especially when that cyclist is a mother with four children at home. The fact that she hasn't contacted the victim's family suggests that she is fearful of a lawsuit (granted, a lawsuit can be filed against someone even if they were not in the slightest bit at fault).

I found the fact that she spent most of the interview talking about her suffering rather distasteful. I don't doubt that this has taken a toll on her and her family, but what about the victim's family?"

Some things in the Lauer-Henry interview don't make sense.

The accident was at an intersection with a six-lane road. French-Henry and her husband lived “less than a half mile” from the accident. I gather far less. She said her husband ran to the scene of the accident in “less than thirty seconds.” A man of his supposed age and shape, not running on a track surface or with running shoes is likely not going to run 100 yards in that time. Rich people’s homes are a scant 100 yards from a busy intersection with a six-lane highway?

The cyclist had to be going perpendicular to French-Henry to be hit by her, not to mention in the center of the grille. Since French-Henry was turning, the cyclist was going straight. Vehicles going straight have the right-of-way over turning vehicles.

French-Henry was going from a, you should excuse the expression, dead stop at a traffic light. Is it plausible—perhaps it is—that in those few yards, with all the care she describes having driven, she could and would have accelerated so fast and reached a speed as to put such a dent in her car, not to mention into the cyclist?

It seems to me the cyclist may have been on the sidewalk. Otherwise, if she were riding in the street, why even mention she was outside of the crosswalk? She would have been in the road. So coming to the curb at the end of the walk in order to cross the street, how far outside of the crosswalk could she have been that French-Henry hangs her defense/exculpation on that? And if she was outside of the crosswalk, does French-Henry contend she wouldn’t have hit her? Hmm, let’s see: if she were on the side of the crosswalk closer to French-Henry’s approach, French-Henry would have had even less time to slow down and stop for her. If she were on the far side of French-Henry’s approach, is French-Henry saying she would have stopped her SUV in time to not hit the crossing cyclist, but that she accelerated her SUV enough to kill her in the distance between the crosswalk and where the cyclist was crossing outside the crosswalk? Not likely.

That news in that article is nothing less than astonishing, flabbergasting, appalling. And no mention is even made of you know what!

How appalling!

(And your Gilbert citation is further reason to offer you a tip of my helmet. I hadn't even heard of that work.)

To Hank (who I think is one of the most considerate cyclist /ride leader):

snip>close calls that come out of the blue like a kid who ran out across the path without looking by the flagpole near 72nd Street.

I think this is the root of the problem of how drivers see cyclist. We don’t belong where they are. I am amazed at the speed that some cyclists carry when they round the turn at the little league field and oval track. I don’t know if anything else can be done to slow people down at that corner, but a lot of people don’t. The environment changes for 10 blocks along the narrow waterfront and cyclists become the aggressors and bullies.