A Santa Ana man has died three days after he was struck by a driver while riding an ebike.
According to a press release from the Santa Ana Police Department, first responders found the victim lying in the street with “significant injuries” at Chestnut and Cypress avenues around 9:35 pm Saturday.
The victim, identified as 55-year old — or possibly 51-year old — Santa Ana resident Rey Flores, was taken to a hospital, where he died on Tuesday.
A preliminary investigation determined Flores was riding west on Chestnut, when he was hit by a driver headed south on Cypress.
A street view shows bike lanes on Cypress north of Chestnut, and on Chestnut east of Cypress, but not in the other two directions. That would have put Flores on the bike lane before he entered the intersection, which is controlled by four-way stop signs.
The driver remained at the scene and did not appear to be impaired.
However, the press release notes that detectives are determining whether Flores was under the influence — which suggests they may have some reason to believe he might have been at fault, or at least impaired.
The police say multiple times that Flores was riding an e-bicycle, suggesting it was a ped-assist bike, rather than an electric motorbike.
Anyone with information is urged to call Detective Corporal M. Pardo of the Santa Ana Police Department Collision Investigation Unit (CIU) at 714/45-8208, or the Santa Ana Police Department Traffic Division at 714/245-8200.
This is the 31st bicycling fatality that I’m aware of in Southern California this year, and the fourth we know about in Orange County; Flores is also the second bike rider killed in Santa Ana this month.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Rey Flores and all his loved ones.
Woah, ridden this route a few times, last was not too long(3-4 weeks) ago to DTSA. It’s rather quiet, not too much traffic, good sight lines, wide painted bike lanes, off the main thoroughfares of Main St. and just south of 1st St. There’s no way you can have an accident at that intersection resulting in death without someone running the stop sign. My condolences.
Santa Ana is the LA of OC. It’s one place OC bike clubs avoid and I try to avoid in my car too for safety reasons. Hit and run culture adopted from south of the border. Additionally, while most cities in OC have a 7.75% sales tax for years, Santa Ana has a 9.25% tax it’s so poorly managed like LA is.
Lol, tell someone you don’t live, go, or been to Santa Ana in a long while. Sure cycling infrastructure in the city isn’t the greatest, but it’s made some strides in recent years. “hit and run culture” the driver in this accident stayed at the scene. Also the recent death/accident(in SA off Fairview) earlier this month, driver stayed at scene. You think neighbor Irvine is any safer w all the white Teslas and wide roads? Go onto Reddit/NextDoor and peruse the bad driving threads. There’s a reason why Santa Ana seems on the bottom rung in terms of cities. The neighboring cities send all their problems literally(ie homeless) to the county seat. Yah I wish some things were different in terms of management, so to be more like Huntington Beach lol gtfoh. Great, please try to avoid SA in your car for safety reasons lol.