Well, it was nice while it lasted.
After horrible month of August, we managed to go a little more than a week without news of yet another person killed riding a bicycle on the mean streets of Southern California.
That ended yesterday, when a 67-year old woman was killed by the driver of a Ford F150 pickup in Desert Hot Springs.
According to the Desert Sun, the victim was riding a ped-assist ebike east on Pierson Blvd when she was run down from behind about half a mile west of North Indian Canyon Drive, shortly after 7 am.
The woman, identified Monday as Desert Hot Springs resident Laura Harker, was taken to Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs suffering from multiple traumatic injuries. She died about half an hour after she was struck.
The driver of the pickup remained at the scene. CHP investigators said it was unclear why the driver didn’t see Harker; however, the occurred about half an hour after sunrise, so the sun would have still been low on the horizon.
Although that doesn’t mean they weren’t distracted, or that there wasn’t some other reason why they didn’t see her.
It’s also unknown how fast the driver was traveling on the perfectly straight rural road, which likely would have had little or no traffic at that hour.
The crash remains under investigation.
This is at least the 40th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the sixth that I’m aware of in Riverside County.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Laura Harker and all her loved ones.
