Friday, January 11, 2008

Cyclist seriously injured on Lincoln Street, hit and run driver sought by police

I'm not sure how many people still monitor this blog. I've devoted most of my attention recently to Sustainable Savannah, leaving Bike Year untended. I'm considering reviving bike year, but in the meantime, I thought the following information was critical to post here, as I've frequently written about the Lincoln Street bike lane.

If you regularly operate a bicycle in Savannah, your friends and relatives will worry about you. Yesterday I was on the Southside when my cell phone vibrated. The caller said she saw police cars on Lincoln Street and a cyclist on the ground. She wanted to make sure it wasn't me.

This morning I was alerted to the alarming details (Thanks, Clint).
Savannah-Chatham Police are searching for the driver of a car that ran over and seriously injured a bicyclist Thursday morning. The crash occurred shortly after 10 a.m. at the intersection of Wayne and Lincoln streets.

The complete story is here.

I'm glad the police are taking this seriously. In a city in which residents seem perpetually obsessed with violent crime, it's important to remember the motor vehicles can be weapons. Or, as Lt. Scott Simpkins, commander of the Savannah Chatham Metropolitan Police department's traffic division, said in a Jan. 4 Savannah Morning News story:
"Killing someone with your car is somehow more acceptable than shooting them," Simpkins said. "This should not be the case."

Police are asking for help finding the driver, a white female in her 20s, who sped away in a white passenger car after hitting the cyclist. Anyone for more information should call 652-6650 or call CrimeStoppers at 234-2020.

2 comments:

Revrunner said...

Yeah, I still monitor "Bike Year". By the way, my URL has changed. It's now revrunner07@blogspot.com.

There definitely is a dangerous mindset out there about bikes & cyclists. Appreciate any follow up you might be able to give on the guy's condition. Disturbing to hear this news. Even more disturbing to think that the victims are forgotten.

Jett said...

Glad to see you're posting and also glad to see Savannah Police taking this seriously.

I especially like the comment about cars versus guns by Lt. Simpkins. There must be some sort of amnesia when you can ignore the fact that 49,000 people die each year on our highways. We make a bigger deal out of much smaller numbers of deaths.