smile politely investigates hit and run crash involving cyclists

Today, Smile Politely featured a long article about a couple of hit and run crashes involving cyclists that have taken place around C-U over the past year:

Dornick was riding near the back of the pack, and immediately noted how quickly the honking car was approaching, close to 100 mph in his estimation. By the time a rider had called “Car back!“ the vehicle — a blue Chevy Impala with heavily tinted windows — had reached the cyclists, slowed to around 35 mph, and was rapidly moving through the group.

As Hand describes it, “Almost immediately the car was already up in the middle of the group.  We had already tried to start moving over and were probably halfway over.  I saw the car moving into the group.  It sounded like he was driving in the grass for a second, and then that sound went away and it looked like he was moving toward us.“

As the pace line tried to move to the right to clear room for the driver, riders at the back of the pack saw the car pass less than a foot to the left of their bikes.  Cyclist Sean Walker watched the passenger side mirror pass over his handlebars, narrowly avoiding a hit.  The driver then hit Dornick’s left elbow with his passenger side mirror, knocking him off-balance.  Dornick was able to remain upright, and the driver continued forward.

At this point the driver had reached the middle of the pack. Nangle was riding near the back of the pack and had an unobstructed view of the vehicle as it approached the center of the pace line.  Nangle watched the driver reach the middle of the pack before “clearly, deliberately turning to the right and moving the car into the pace line of riders, clearly making an attempt to hit one or more of the riders.“  The other cyclists confirmed this unmistakable display of intent.  Rob Raguet-Schofield observed “a good four feet of pavement and at least one or two feet of solid grass shoulder to the left of the car.  It was absolutely, unmistakably clear this was no accident.  This was intentional.“

 Incidents like these spurred Governor Quinn to sign an anti-harassment law compelling drivers to give cyclists at least three feet of space on the road.