I'm sad to report that a motorist in a Ford pickup has killed a 65-year-old Arizona man cycling in Bike Florida's bike ride this week in Alachua County.
A 23-year-old driving a Ford F-250 pickup truck drifted onto the shoulder of a road in Newberry, FL and killed Robert Paul King, 65, of Prescott, Ariz. Wednesday at 12:42 pm.
The Gainesville Sun Web site provides more details.
2 comments:
"Robert Paul King rode among us and with us. Until that moment shortly after noon on Wednesday, March 30, when he was among us no more. Mr. King was killed after being struck from behind by a fast-moving pickup truck. The driver, a young man, reportedly told police he had dropped his cell phone and was reaching down to retrieve it when his vehicle drifted into the marked shoulder where Mr. King had been cycling."
http://bikeflorida.org/wordpress/?p=364
This is from a blog entry on the Bike Florida website. I had gone looking for the cause of this fatality and came across this entry. I am a bicycle planner by profession and a cyclist and love most every moment of it, except when I realise that so much of our safety depends on others. As a Bike Safety Action Plan participant, I acknowledge the need for safety training for all and infrastructure changes, but there is a more basic distracted driver message that needs to get out.
We live in an age of instant and... and that is all it takes to take a life. Somehow we need to be reminded that driving is a very dangerous activity, not something we can take lightly and that we are all responsible out there, particularly for vulnerable road users.
My name is Devon King. I really wish I knew whether he went in peace instead of pain. Whether it was instantaneous. Even if it wasn't, i'd prefer to know. I hope he's happy and somewhere nice. I miss him.
Post a Comment