Category: accident

Driver kills man on bike in Soquel, California

The Santa Cruz County California Highway Patrol responded to a fatality traffic collision after an 18-year-old man drove his vehicle into the back of a westbound 31-year-old man riding a bicycle on Soquel Drive near Rosedale Avenue at 8:30 P.M. Wednesday night.

Update: The cyclist has been identified as Kevin “Jack” Meehan, who moved to the Santa Cruz area from San Francisco in 2015.

At least one witness reports the driver was “speeding too fast before hitting the bicyclist.” The speed limit on this part of Soquel is 35 MPH, slowing to 25 MPH at Rosedale just one block west of the site of the collision. CHP investigation continues; they ask anyone with information to call (831) 662-0511.

I ride this way occasionally and I’m always somewhat uncomfortable on this stretch of Soquel Drive. Santa Cruz County is fairly small and there’s a fair chance I know somebody connected to the driver or the victim.

Information from the CHP bicycle incident report page, with a hat tip to Steve Piercy for bringing this to my attention. Steve, who maintains this map of Santa Cruz County pedestrian / bicycle collisions, was hit on his bike at this location just last month.

Windows Media dispatch audio can be streamed from here. It’s heartbreaking listening to this.

Two cyclist deaths in SF yesterday, another in Pleasanton this morning

Two women were killed while riding bikes in separate hit-and-run collisions in San Francisco yesterday, June 22, 2016. Details and discussion are in this Hoodline summary that collects statements from police, various news sources and a reddit conversation, but the gist of it:

  • Victim #1 in SoMa at 7th and Howard: woman in her 20s was hit by a driver traveling at high speed who ran a red light. Driver fled the scene but was caught by police. Witness says the driver was “definitely not sober.”
  • Victim #2 in Golden Gate Park: woman in her 40s hit by a driver traveling between 50 and 60 MPH on John F Kennedy Drive. The driver fled; vehicle has been located but not the driver. Here’s a view of westbound JFK approaching the location where the collision occurred.

Also, this morning, a woman in the East Bay town of Pleasanton, CA in Alameda County was killed while riding her bicycle across the intersection of Bernal and Stanley. This is a huge, multiple lane intersection. There’s no word on who ran the red light that controls this intersection, but the “the driver is cooperating with the investigation” while the cyclist is, of course, unable to give her statement.

Valley, Bernal and Stanley, Pleasanton, CA

Via Murph and others for this sad news.