Once again a bicycle rider has been killed.
And not one word about the driver — or whether there even was one.
According to multiple virtually identical sources, a man died following an apparent right hook collision in Encinitas late Saturday morning.
The victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, was struck as some sort of vehicle was turning right from westbound Leucadia Boulevard onto Moonstone Court around 11:50 am.
He died after he was taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, despite the efforts of bystanders to revive him before paramedics arrived.
The closest any of the stories came to mentioning that the vehicle even had a driver was a brief reference that police investigators don’t think alcohol played a role in the crash.
That determination also implies that the driver remained at the scene.
A street view shows a wide, four-lane divided highway on Leucadia with a faded green bike lane on either side.
Unfortunately, that’s all we know at this time, or are likely to learn before the holiday weekend is over.
This is at least the 61st bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the ninth that I’m aware of in San Diego County.
Update: The victim has finally been publicly identified as Dr. Jennings Worley, a noted authority in the battle against cystic fibrosis, who was instrumental in developing a number of bio-engineering patents.
He leaves behind his wife of 34 years and two adult children.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Dr. Jennings Worley and his loved ones.
Thanks to Phillip Young for the heads-up.
It’s an old street view. Now there are bollards – it’s a Class IV bikeway, aka “protected bike lane”.
These “protected bike lanes” are deadly, literally.
I realize many people feel safer riding in space that is physically separated from the cars, but it’s a mirage. These facilities naturally create a false sense of security leaving cyclists feeling safe and comfortable (which is why they’re favored by so many) riding in them which encourages a certain level of carelessness while at the same time making those cyclists seem irrelevant and cognitively inconspicuous to the very motorists with which they’re on a collision course. Neither the cyclist nor the motorist can be blamed. It’s the facility design that is at fault, the engineers who sign off on them, and the politicians and advocates who support them.
I’m sickened with grief and anger for all the family, friends and colleagues who are in mourning today and the foreseeable future due to this totally unnecessary premature death of a friend many of us never got a chance to meet.
Please, let’s end this insanity before any more are lost due to these well-intentioned but horrific facilities.
We lift up the family and friends of the victim in prayer.
I saw the accident. The car was a truck delivering storage pods.
Do you know if both the cyclist and truck were going parallel on Leucadia Blvd? I rode by the accident and saw the smashed bike and caution tape on the truck.
The article can’t seem to decide who hit whom.
The driver did stay at the scene and was seen sobbing hysterically for some time after the accident.
Reading about the truck reminded me of a very close call I had about two months ago, in fact it was the closest call I’ve had, not far from this fatality. I was in Del Mar on Stratford Ct. turning right onto 12th St. in a residential area. There’s a small median on 12th St. so to cross properly you have to go up around the median, make a U-turn and go back down to the other side of 12th Street. This big truck decided to drive down the left side of the median and turn left onto my side of Stratford Ct. Somehow, before thinking, I threw myself out of the way and pushed my bike onto the side of the rode, narrowly avoiding his tires. I only saw the side of the truck and later figured that he had to have been on the wrong side of the road because the median blocked him from turning into the right side of Stratford Ct. He probably thought that driving around that median would make his left turn too difficult. He continued on without stopping and was talking with people half a block away apparently oblivious as to what he did. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same driver. These are the type of drivers we share the road with.
Damn, that sounds like a close one. Been there too many times myself. Glad you came out of it in one piece.
I am saddened that this happens to a bicyclist. A person is killed, a driver, who may or may not have been at fault, has his whole life altered too. It is not customary to come into a deah scene and mention that this almost happened to you.
Maybe we need some signage at intersections to remind drivers passing through a bike lane, to signal.
I drove by right after the accident and saw the truck and several ppl around. The cyclist was not moving. I’ve checked back several times to see who the poor man was. I saw he was in cycling gear. Very very sad.
The victim was a well respected leader/scientist at a local biotech company who has been instrumental in drug discovery efforts that had led to marketed drugs to treat patients who have a fatal genetic disease. Many of these patients now have a new lease on life. It’s a huge loss for the scientific community and his colleagues, many whom he’s worked with at his current employer for 15+yrs. Not to mention his wife and 2 grown kids. He made an impact on everyone he met. Please keep them all in your thoughts and prayers. He was a good husband, father and friend and won’t soon be forgotten. For those who knew him, we already miss him terribly.
Thank you. I was a friend of his back in the day, having grown up with him and now an avid cyclist and married to an even more avid cyclist. This is heartbreaking. A huge loss to the scientific world, for sure, and my heart goes out to his family and friends.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I haven’t been able to find any sources identifying the victim of this crash, and for some reason the county coroner hasn’t updated their site since before Thanksgiving. His identity seems to be common knowledge, but I need some source I can link to before I can name him here, and give him the respect he deserves. Please let me know if you’re aware of anything.
His name was Jennings Worley.
Thank you.
Since the motorist was making a delivery on an obscure and relatively new little cul-de-sac, I strongly suspect he was distracted by his GPS or navigation screen, or simply made an abrupt turn when his destination caught him by surprise. The posts help make cyclists less relevant to motorists, and therefore more likely to be overlooked. They also give cyclists a false sense of security. I ride that stretch of road frequently, and I have caught myself passing Moonstone Ct. without doing at least a mirror check.
You can’t check your mirrors there because you are moving fast and if you check your mirror you might run into the stupid bollards.