BikinginLA

Now we have a little more information about yesterday’s fatal bike crash in Highland.

The Highland Community News is reporting that sheriff’s deputies received a call of a someone lying in the street around 8:30 pm Monday.

Deputies responded to the intersection of Sterling Avenue and Ninth Street, where they found the victim. They determined he’d been riding his bike when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver headed south on Sterling.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The San Bernardino Sun identifies the victim as 54-year old San Bernardino resident Dereck Alexander.

In a story that’s not online yet, KCBS-2 reports Alexander was a cancer survivor who’d fought for his life after having an ear and part of his skull removed.

A street view of the Highland itersection shows a four lane roadway with center turn lane on Sterling, with one general lane and a bike lane in each direction on Ninth; the intersection is controlled by a traffic signal in every direction.

Without witnesses, there’s no way to know who may have had the right-of-way at the time of the crash.

Anyone with information is urged to call San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies at 909/425-9793.

When the driver is caught, he or she should face a murder charge for making a conscious decision to let Alexander die in the street.

This is at least the fourth bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the first I’m aware of in San Bernardino County.

Update: That heartbreaking KCBS-2/KCAL-9 story is now online.

According to the report, Alexander was wearing a hi-viz vest while riding home on Sterling Ave. Yet the driver apparently didn’t see him, and never bothered to stop.

His niece called his killer “heartless,” as the family struggles to understand how anyone could just leave him like that — just like the loved ones of virtually any victim of hit-and-run.

And who can blame her? That’s about the mildest term I would use.

But perhaps most heartbreaking of all is the image of his dog by the gate, waiting for an owner who will never come home.

A GoFundMe account to help pay his funeral expenses has raised $125 of the $8,000 goal in the first several hours.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for Dereck Alexander and all his loved ones.

Thanks to Erik Griswold and Jeff Vaughn for the heads-up.