A woman’s teeth were smashed at about 6:30 p.m. Thursday after she was thrown from the motorcycle she was passenger of when it collided with a BMW at the intersection of University Place and Comstock Avenue.

The collision caused the unidentified woman and male driver of the motorcycle to be ejected from their vehicle and slide across the front of the BMW, said Julie Ausseur, a doctoral student at Syracuse University who witnessed the accident. The man did not seem to suffer from any major injuries, and both riders were wearing helmets, Ausseur said. Syracuse University Ambulance took the man and woman to University Hospital.

The accident occurred when a Centro bus attempted to make a left turn onto University Place from Comstock Avenue, but had to stop and reverse because it turned too wide, holding up traffic behind it, said Kim Isaac, a Public Safety officer who responded to the scene.

The white BMW made the same turn onto University Place directly after the bus, but was struck by the motorcycle heading south on Comstock as the turn was being made, Isaac said. The motorcycle ‘smacked’ the BMW head on, Isaac said, and then slid underneath it.

Isaac did not witness the accident, but was told by witnesses that the woman passenger did suffer injuries to the mouth and was taken to the hospital.

‘All I heard was there were cracks on her teeth,’ Isaac said.

The driver of the BMW refused to give his name or comment about the accident. Isaac said the bus driver was gone from the scene by the time she got there and that he or she probably didn’t know the collision took place.

Five Public Safety and SUA vehicles blocked the intersection for about 30 minutes as Public Safety officers interviewed witnesses and two friends of the motorcyclist removed the damaged bike.

The collision also caused the motorcycle to trickle gasoline into the gutter of University Place. An SUA driver used a chemical drying agent to clean the spill.

Neither the driver of the motorcycle nor the driver of the BMW was ticketed, Isaac said.

‘This is what I would call a ‘no fault’ incident,’ she said. ‘Unless your vehicle is parked, you’re both going to be blamed.’

Published on October 6, 2005 at 12:00 pm