Two cyclists were in critical condition and one was in serious condition Friday after the group they were riding with early Thursday morning on a stretch of A1A in Gulf Stream was struck by an SUV.
A woman driving a 2020 Kia Soul struck the group of eight bicyclists in the 2800 block of North Ocean Boulevard when she crossed the center line of the road just after 6 a.m. Thursday, according to the Florida Highway Patrol and Delray Beach Fire Rescue.
One of the bicyclists who was hit was identified only as a 43-year-old Boca Raton man. He was taken to Delray Medical Center as a trauma patient, according to Florida Highway Patrol. FHP has not released the names of any of the cyclists or the 77-year-old woman from Lantana who was driving the SUV.
Andrew Lofholm, a spokesperson for Delray Medical Center, said Friday evening that the three patients who were taken to Delray Medical Center on Thursday remained there Friday. Two of them were in critical condition while one was in serious condition, he said.
Others were taken to Bethesda East, officials said Thursday. Spokespersons did not return a voicemail or email seeking information about the patients who were taken there.
Video shared with the South Florida Sun Sentinel showed the moment the driver crashed into the group. A camera on the back of one cyclist’s bike shows the group riding two abreast with helmets and lights on. The recording device said the cyclist was riding at about 20 mph.
A moment before impact, the cyclists in the camera’s view appeared to attempt to veer out of the way before the car plowed between them. It appeared that the bicyclist who had the camera attached to his or her bike was not hit by the car; that bike was placed on the ground after the crash. A woman could be heard screaming the name one of the injured bicyclists.
That part of A1A has no bike lanes, and “every cyclist that we encountered during our response was wearing a helmet,” Police Chief Richard Jones said Friday.
Felipe Costa, who heads the Brazilian cycling group Galera do Pedal in South Florida, said he knew six of the riders in the group, who are also Brazilian. He said some of the stronger riders were leading the “well-organized group,” which were experienced riders and athletes in their 30s and 40s.
One of the riders who is in critical condition is an athlete who is relatively new to cycling but who in the last year rode about 60 to 70 miles a week, Costa said. Costa said another one of the more severely injured cyclists was undergoing surgery Friday, and one woman was in an induced coma Thursday night but her condition had improved as of Friday morning.
Costa said he rides that part of A1A nearly every day.
“It’s like a nightmare,” he said of the crash.
Local riders said there are places when riding they have to just “hope for the best.”
Ryan Bickford, a rider and employee of a Boynton Beach-based bike shop, said Friday, “I don’t find it too safe to ride down here.”
He described the stretch along A1A as “just a really narrow road along the beach, in some sections there’s some sliver of a white line … but it’s a very narrow road. South Florida isn’t the friendliest of biking territory down here.”
Cyclists are planning to gather at the crash site Saturday morning to “advocate for safer roads,” according to a Facebook post by the Boca Raton Alpha Cycling Team. Costa and cyclist Cameron Oster, who is heavily involved in South Florida’s cycling community, said they plan to be there.
Oster, of Boca Raton, who owns the event production company 3R Cycling Experience, said he was riding in that stretch of A1A on Thursday morning and passed the group not long before they were struck. He said hello, knowing many of them from the community and one of them particularly well from working some of his company’s events together.
“My first reaction was that it was so bad, I was running through in my head everyone I saw earlier and I was trying to figure out who I didn’t see then because in my head, like, who’s gone?” Oster said of riding upon the crash scene.
The South Florida cycling community was recently rocked by the death of one cyclist Longuinho Amaral Jr., who was struck by a driver in Boca Raton last summer and died. Amaral Jr. was riding in an area of Southwest 18th Street that also did not have a bike lane, Oster said. Costa also knew Amaral Jr., who went by Junior.
“All within the same community,” Oster said. “So this is, like, double devastating, not just in the same area, but really, like, the same very small community to have another totally catastrophic situation.”
Oster said he believes a bike lane in that area of A1A is necessary but that shorter-term goals to make it safer are possible, like shared lane markings, also known as “sharrows,” to show that vehicles and bicycles share the lane.
“Some of these regions that don’t have bike lanes, there’s no reason why they can’t put shareways on the road. All it is is a visual cue of what the actual law is,” he said. “It brings that immediate awareness.”
Costa and Oster both mentioned a need for driver awareness to share the road.
“By law, when there’s no bike lane, the cyclists can ride in the road … So it’s often still perceived by the driver, not that the cyclist can legally be in the road … (that) the cyclist is in my lane,” Oster said. “So what can we do right now to just sort of curb that perspective?”
Sun Sentinel staff writer Lisa J. Huriash contributed to this report.
