Seattle cyclists, advocates concerned over bike crashes involving cars

SEATTLE – Fourteen individuals died in website traffic incidents so much this calendar year in Seattle, and 21% of those people incidents included people on bikes.

A lot less than a week back, a 63-calendar year-outdated man died on his bicycle in a hit-and-run crash close to the Spokane Avenue Bridge in Seattle. Also this 7 days, a teenage bicyclist was killed in Parkland when a vehicle hit him at a cross-walk.

Bicyclists say they have to be mindful of cars and trucks each and every time they are on the street.

“At the last second, they turned to make the correct turn and stopped in the center of the bike lane. I swerved. If I hadn’t swerved, I would have absent through their window. [I] smashed into the back again of the auto, hit, spun, hit the pavement, broke my again,” stated Sean Delaire, detailing an incident he was included in. 

Delaire states past month, he was involved in a crash with a vehicle whilst using his bike. The crash despatched him to the hospital and he is continue to recovering.

Having said that, he states the worst element is he still is waiting for responses.

“Observed me on the ground and requested if I was alright and I reported, ‘no I’m not.’ And they took off right before the paramedics acquired there,” said Delaire.

SDOT officials say out of the 14 traffic deaths that transpired in 2022, a few of them have been bicyclists.

“That’s a enormous affect. That is the ultimate loss,” reported Vicky Clarke, the coverage director for the Cascade Bicycle Club, a group that advocates for the equity and protection of bicyclists.

She says a ton nonetheless needs to materialize in Seattle right before the metropolis reaches its objective of zero site visitors fatalities by 2030. 

“It is aggressively performing, frankly. It is investing in safeguarded infrastructure that separates vulnerable road people, men and women going for walks, people today biking from rapidly-relocating automobiles,” she reported.

In 2021, SDOT installed 2,500 new signals reducing speed limits to 25 miles for each hour via most Seattle metropolis streets.