One of our fellow cyclists got hit this past weekend in a hit and run. They are searching for the vehicle. Anyone living in the area that has any info, it would be greatly appreciated. It may be the same vehicle that gunned it and aimed at a group of us before veering off in the parking lot at Wilson Park in Carrboro on Sunday June 12th.
Thanks
Andy P.
http://www.newsobserver.com/print/tuesday/city_state/story/2521752p-8925699c.html
Drew Cummings is used to being harassed by drivers while he’s on his bicycle.
But after a hit-and-run accident nearly tore off his leg Saturday morning, he’s more wary than ever of drivers unwilling to share the road with cyclists.
Cummings was biking down U.S. 15-501 from his home in Durham to a Habitat for Humanity build in Pittsboro about 8 a.m. when an oncoming driver crossed the double yellow line, gunned the engine and headed straight for him, he said. The front left corner of the car hit his left ankle, then his left thigh hit the car’s side mirror, breaking it off.
The car skidded back into its lane and headed off, leaving Cummings on the side of the road, his ankle shredded and his left thigh gashed open, the exposed muscle protruding “like a steak,” he said.
“My first thought was that he was going to swerve away,” Cummings said, “and my second thought was that he wasn’t.”
Cummings called 911 on his cell phone and was taken to UNC Hospitals. He was released the next day and will likely spend six to eight weeks in a brace and a cast.
Although he can’t prove the driver acted intentionally, “unless they were totally dead drunk they can’t have not known they hit somebody,” said Cummings, 32, who recently received his master’s degree in public policy from Duke University and has been working as a temporary code enforcement officer for the town of Hillsborough.
The state Highway Patrol has determined that the car was a light-brown Buick and is waiting to identify the exact model and year or possible years before it starts combing vehicle registrations and notifying local body shops. If found, the driver will face felony hit-and-run charges, a spokesman said.
In the meantime, the local biking community has rallied around Cummings. Friends have volunteered to cook dinner and are taking fliers to body shops, hoping a mechanic will notice the vehicle and report it.
According to the N.C. Department of Transportation, more than 1,000 bicyclists are involved in police-reported collisions with motor vehicles each year. About 30 cyclists are killed and 160 more are seriously injured.
In 2003 there were about 158 crashes in the Triangle area, 23 of which were hit-and-run, according to the DOT.
Efforts to educate the public about bicycle safety and sharing the road are ongoing, said Alison Carpenter, bike and pedestrian coordinator for the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization.
“Bikes are vehicles on the road and have the right to be on the road,” she said. “Traffic laws need to be abided by both bicyclists and motorists.”
Cummings and his wife, Amy, who recently completed her master’s in education at UNC-Chapel Hill, are both avid cyclists. Although the Triangle area is considered relatively bike-friendly, the Cummingses and their friends said drivers sometimes honk angrily at them, “buzz” by closely and occasionally even throw things at them.
“People just get intensely selfish about their right to speed along a road,” Cummings said.
Sean Lyman, a friend and medical student at UNC-CH, picked up the remains of Cummings’ bike and brought it by his apartment Monday. The sight of the bike, with its left pedal bent inside the frame and the back nearly shorn off, brought tears to Amy Cummings’ eyes.
**Staff writer Karen Hauptman can be reached at 932-2002 or **khauptma@nando.com