26 Year-old Tucson police officer struck from behind and killed while bicycling
Not many details are available yet. Arizona Daily Star article here. Tucson Citizen Article here.
The officer was Allen D. Johnson. He was just 26 years old.
Something tells me this is one driver who is going to get cited for hitting a bicyclist. If nothing else comes of this, maybe TPD will take some time to train its officers about the “three foot safe passing” rule, and begin enforcing it.
My condolences to the family. This is the second hit-from-behind fatality on Old Spanish Trail.
Update: Jean Gorman writes that according to Perimeter Bicycling Records, Johnson rode the 109-mile El Tour de Tucson twice, in 2007 and in 2008. He finished in under six hours both times. What a terrible, tragic thing. I sincerely hope that Johnson’s death will spur the Tucson Police Department to start enforcing the three-foot rule. Consider what progress they could make if they began pulling cars over and issuing warnings — lots of warnings — on say Grant or Campbell during rush hour.
–Erik Ryberg
March 11th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
It breaks my heart to have to start the list so soon into the new year. I had hoped to hold off as long as possible. Such a shame; he was so young.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
I can’t believe it. Old Spanish Trail? Again? The street with the bike lane the width of the Champs D’Elysees? Very sad and discouraging.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
And where’s the pro forma, idiotic “was/was not wearing a helmet” wording? It’s included in every bike-fatality story but this one, apparently. Nice to know the truck was red, though, Alexis. Way to dig.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
That’s my ‘hood. The speed limit is 50 mph for those big red trucks, which really means 80. While it seems like a friendly bike route, it’s not. I don’t know what I want to happen next, I do know that a human life is not a fair trade for the 4 seconds it would have taken that big red truck to slow down and move over. 4 seconds.
March 12th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Sorry to hear about this. Perhaps, take a look at the City of London’s bike lane design standard chart:
http://www.streetsblog.org/2006/11/13/londons-cycling-design-standards-a-model-for-nyc/
Any street with vehicles moving as fast as Old Spanish Trail would need to have a physically-separated bike lane to protect cyclists. At 50 mph, virtually any crash is going to be a fatality.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:27 am
[...] one about a drunk driver who was acquitted after killing a teenager on his bike, and one about a police officer who was struck from behind and killed by a car. (Maybe charges will be filed in that case.) [...]
March 12th, 2009 at 9:04 am
[...] one about a drunk driver who was acquitted after killing a teenager on his bike, and one about a police officer who was struck from behind and killed by a car. (Maybe charges will be filed in that [...]
March 12th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
We were riding Old Spanish Trail just 10 minutes behind Allen, and had 2 different cars come by really closely. One honked at us… just no love out there.
Our thoughts go out to the Johnsons