A 38-year-old Ottawa man was struck and killed by an 18 wheeler this morning as he rode his bike along Hunt Club in the city’s south end. Ottawa Police say the driver of the tractor trailer had no idea he had even hit someone and continued blocks down the road before another motorist pulled him over. By then, the cyclist was already dead. Ottawa Police say the cyclist was travelling east on Hunt Club just before 8 a.m. So was a tractor trailer. The road is busy at that time; traffic travels fast, 80 kilometers an hour. Somehow, the 18 wheeler struck the cyclist and killed him.
“He succumbed to his injuries on scene,” says Constable Chuck Benoit with the Ottawa Police, “where paramedics, firefighters and police were called but nothing could be done.”
Police say the driver of the truck had no idea he had hit someone. He was stopped blocks down Hunt Club by another driver.
There were plenty of witnesses, though police are looking for more. And plenty of criticism, too, about the dangers of cycling along this stretch of road.
"I never go down Hunt Club,” says cyclist Ian Stead. “When I ride to work, I bike downtown and try to stay off the roads as much as I can.”
Sheldon Whittle was cycling along the sidewalk beside a busy Hunt Club Road, “It's a very busy street, and it’s very dangerous if you're riding on the road as a cyclist. The cars are bigger, you can't really see.”
The fatal comes just one week after a ride in memory of Danielle Nacu, who was killed riding her bike on Queen Street in October of 2011. It was this time last year, October 18th that Krista Johnson died riding along Bronson Avenue. In July of this year, a cyclist was killed on Bank when a cement truck hit her.
“It's disheartening,” says Christian Fournier, Nacu’s friend and the organizer of the memorial ride. “We put a lot of effort into commemorating Danielle’s death so her death is not in vain, bringing people to think about cycling safety (yet) seven days to the day something like that happens. It's disheartening.”
Krista Johnson’s death on Bronson did lead to changes along that strip of road. Fournier says that's great but the city need to be proactive in making changes elsewhere before more cyclists die.
