Anger and sadness from Tacoma-area bicycling advocates at death of boy hit in crosswalk
Days after a 13-year-old boy riding a bicycle in a crosswalk was struck and killed by a car in Parkland, local bicycling advocates expressed anger and grief over a crash they said was avoidable.
According to the Washington State Patrol, the teenager was using the crosswalk Tuesday afternoon near Pacific Avenue and 134th Street South when he was struck. Troopers said he activated the crosswalk’s flashing signals, but the driver failed to yield and hit him.
“It’s just shockingly sad, and it’s just completely 100 percent preventable,” said Noah Struthers, executive director of Second Cycle, a bike shop in Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood.
Struthers and other bicyclists who spoke with The News Tribune said their thoughts were with the family of the teenager who was killed. Struthers said he hoped they would be able to find a sense of peace and justice, and that he expected the driver to be held to the standard of the law.
Detectives are continuing to investigate the collision, according to Trooper Robert Reyer. The driver, a 27-year-old Lakewood woman, was not arrested at the scene of the crash. Reyer said charges could be filed once the investigation is complete. Troopers initially said she was not speeding and that she was not driving while impaired.
Struthers, 40, said he mainly commutes by bike or on foot in Tacoma. It’s stressful, he said, and he feels like the safety of people biking or walking often is brushed aside for the convenience of people driving cars.
“Bikes are kind of an afterthought. It’s not really designed for us in mind to keep us safe, Struthers said. “The infrastructure is just not there yet. It’s an unconnected patchwork of bike paths and lanes.”
He said preventing fatal crashes between bicycles and cars comes down to infrastructure, engineering and enforcement. In this case, he said, all three seemed to fail at once.
Paul Tolmé, a spokesperson for Cascade Bicycle Club, said measures such as reducing speed limits and implementing protected bike lanes – which separate bicyclers from motor vehicle traffic using a physical barrier of some kind – are both steps that can be taken toward creating safer streets. Cascade Bicycle Club is based in Seattle and is a statewide group that educates riders and advocates for safe places to bike.
In this crash, Tolmé pointed out, the boy was in a crosswalk, which he said should have been a safe place for a bicyclist to be. He said he hopes that the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office will review the facts of the incident.
“We do not have all the facts of what happened,” Tolmé, 57, said. “From what I’ve read, the blame clearly lies with the person driving the vehicle.”
Teena Johnson, 58, is a member of Tacoma’s Bicycle Pedestrian Technical Advisory Group. Her husband, Thomas, was killed by an impaired driver in May 2020 while biking near Port Orchard.
“If somebody does something like this, I feel for that driver, but there have to be consequences,” Johnson said. “And if there aren’t consequences, drivers just think it’s not that serious.”
Johnson, who likes to ride an e-bike at Point Defiance or along the water, said she was already skittish about biking on the road before her husband’s death. Afterward, she was only more nervous about it. Drivers in Tacoma go fast, she said.
“It is a struggle sometimes to drive at the speed limit or below the speed limit because nobody else is really doing that,” Johnson said. “Everybody is like five miles and over. And people get kind of mad sometimes. You’re on Ruston and you drive the speed limit and people are on your bumper.”
Johnson said she didn’t see how the driver who struck the 13-year-old boy was not considered to be driving recklessly. She compared the incident to walking down the road with a large knife, then striking someone who steps in front of you.
“That is for sure reckless. That’s a crime,” she said. “It’s a heavy, sharp thing, and a car is that.”
This story was originally published July 22, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
