A 30-year old man was killed Wednesday afternoon when his bike hit the rear of a pickup in Indio.
According to KPSP-2, the driver pulled out of a driveway at 4:30, and may not have seen the rider in the gathering dusk. MyDesert.com reports that the driver made a left turn across the northbound lanes of Monroe Street near Shadow Palm Ave before pulling onto the southbound side of the street, where he was rear-ended by the bike.
Reading between the lines, the driver must have pulled directly in front of the cyclist and cut him off; either the rider was traveling fast or the pickup must have been moving unusually slowly after pulling in front of the rider for the collision to occur the way it was described. And not seeing the rider, as the driver claimed, should be seen as an admission of guilt, not an excuse.
The unnamed victim was rushed to a medical center in Palm Springs, where he died.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Indio Police Department at (760) 391-4057.
This is the first bike fatality to make the news in Southern California this year, after a total of 70 traffic-related bicycling fatalities in 2011, including 11 in Riverside County.
I’m pretty familiar with that stretch of road. It moves rather fast with drivers passing along to make numerous turns to the various businesses and streets ahead. There generally isn’t much awareness or tolerance by local drivers of cyclists there. I’m not implying it was intentional, but rather not out of the norm for drivers along there.
The drivers in that region are not anywhere close to the enlightened drivers we have in LA, if you can imagine LA drivers as enlightened.
CVC 21804
[…] Cyclist Killed in Crash in 2012 (Biking In L.A.) More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill Email Share […]
And yet, this is in a “metropolitan area” (Palm Springs) where Golf Cart Lanes do exist because of their prominence in the area!
http://www.nofooling.me/?p=1327