Archive for October, 2007

As I was riding along Route 28 in Rockville several Sundays ago, I was hit in the back wheel by a driver.  The driver obviously wasn’t paying attention and skidded and was about to come to a complete stop just before she hit me.  I lunged forward when I got hit but didn’t get knocked off my bike, and amazingly there was no damage to the wheel.  The driver was totally unapologetic and if anything was annoyed that I was there getting in her way.  Since it was a busy intersection, I asked her to meet me past the intersection so we could exchange information.  Well, guess what?  She took off!

An unapologetic driver taking off on me was the right combination of factors to report the incident to the local police as a hit-and-run.  Luckily the driver behind her saw the whole thing, wrote down the license plate number and gave it to me.  I need to mention here that the driver had a temporary license plate on her car.  I called the Montgomery County Police and reported the incident.  The indignity of getting hit by an arrogant driver was about to be made worse.  The officer told me that they can’t trace temporary license plates back to a specific driver.  I asked if he was going to file a report, and he said that he “could” if I made the request for it but it probably wouldn’t lead to anything.

I didn’t get hurt.  I didn’t even have any damage to my bike.  But I consider hit-and-run to be a serious offense, and according to the law, it IS a serious offense.  Now that I think about it, I probably should’ve filed the report just to press the issue with the police officer and so that I would have something on the record.  If I had suffered serious physical injury as a result of the collision or had been killed, would the officer been a bit more determined to find the offender?  This is just a wild guess but if a Montgomery County Police Officer had been injured or just struck by a hit-and-run driver, I get the feeling that somehow, they would track down the owner of the vehicle if all they had was the temporary tag number.

On September 22, Thomas Lynch, driving a pickup truck, is alleged to have caused a 16-bike crash in Lake County, Illinois causing injury to several of the riders and sending at least one rider to the local hospital for emergency treatment.  Based on the information available through third-party eye witnesses, statements made by members of the cycling group and confirmed by the Lake County Sheriff’s office, the driver first drove alongside the riders, who were lawfully riding single-file, then drove in front of them and suddenly hit the brakes causing the pileup.  He fled the scene, but then returned to the crash site where he was questioned by a county deputy sheriff.

In explaining how he caused the collision, he first said that he thought that that a bicyclist had punched his truck.  He later explained that he braked suddenly in front of the bikers to avoid hitting a squirrel.

The driver of the truck has been charged with improper lane usage and failure to provide aid and information, both misdemeanors, and was initially ordered to appear in Lake County court on October 29.  I’ve been in communication with one of the cyclists who was involved in the collision, and he tells me that Lynch’s court appearance date has been pushed back to December, but that the Lake County Sheriff has called back several of the people who were involved for more detailed statements.  We are grateful for the work of the Lake County Sheriff’s Department for thoroughly investigating the facts of this incident, and particularly Deputy Sheriff Alan Burns, the deputy on the scene who took this matter very seriously and professionally as he investigated and recorded everyone’s statements.

This was not an “accident.”  This was an act of violence by a driver forcing himself against law-abiding bicyclists with the weight of a pickup truck weighing thousands of pounds.  He fled the scene.  His account to the authorities of what happened is ridiculous and shows blatant disregard for the safety of others on the road.

The League of American Bicyclists is watching this case with great concern.  League executive director Andy Clarke has written to Mr. Michael J. Waller, the Lake County State’s Attorney, urging him to vigorously investigate the case and where appropriate press charges to the fullest extent of the law.  A copy of Andy Clarke’s letter to the State’s Attorney Michael Waller can be viewed here.

More articles on the story:

http://dailyherald.com/story/?id=46661

http://dailyherald.com/story/?id=47086
http://www.chicagoaa.com/news/xxxcrash07news.html

I encourage you to contact the Lake County State’s Attorney and let him know that cyclists locally, regionally, and nationwide are watching this case, and that a message needs to be sent to drivers like Thomas Lynch that they do not own the road and they are not at liberty to commit acts of physical violence to others on the road, motorized or not.

State’s Attorney Michael Waller’s contact information:
Michael J. Waller
State’s Attorney Office
18 North County St., 4th Floor
Waukegan, IL 60085
Phone: 847-377-3000
Fax: 847-360-1538
Email: StatesAttorney@co.lake.il.us