An accident that killed a cyclist in the center of Okanagan in British Columbia happened a week before Go By Bike Week, an annual province-wide event that celebrates cycling as a form of daily commuting.
The Kelowna RCMP said it responded on Tuesday morning to a motor vehicle collision on Highway 97 on Parkinson Drive in the northern part of the city, near Lake Ellison, where a 70-year-old cyclist was hit by a car and died at the scene.
In an email to CBC News, Mounties said the man tried to cross the freeway from west to east during rush hour and was hit by a subcompact Honda Fit car traveling in the direction north.
“Our thoughts are with the victim’s family at this difficult time,” said Kelowna RCMP spokesman Cpl. Tammy Lobb said in the statement.
The RCMP says they are still investigating the incident and have not revealed any further details.
The incident happened a week before Go By Bike Week, which takes place from May 30th. The annual event, which began in 2007, encourages people from across the province to go to work and bike school.
“We have to win the lottery to stay alive”
Landon Bradshaw, president of the Kelowna Area Cycling Coalition, says the incident highlights the need for additional protections for road cyclists.
“We have to get out there every day and most of the time play with the traffic,” Bradshaw said. “I use the word ‘play’ very jokingly, but that’s what it means: we have to win the lottery to stay alive.”
Bradshaw says while drivers can sue ICBC for injuries, bicycles are treated as uninsured vehicles and cyclists are often charged for damage to the cars they collided with.
That was the situation in which Vancouver cyclist Ben Bolliger found himself last summer. Earlier this month, following requests for policy changes from cycling advocates, the BC government said the ICBC would change its policy so that cyclists who have suffered serious (or fatal) injuries do not have to cover the costs of repairing damage to the vehicle.
Available ICBC data shows that the number of cyclists injured by cars across the province fell steadily over the five years between 2016 and 2020, from 1,700 in 2016 to 1,100 in 2020.
The number of cyclists killed by cars in BC decreased from 10 in 2016 to six in 2020. The number of deaths in the southern region of the Interior has ranged from one to two cases over the years.
The last death of a cyclist in Kelowna occurred in August 2019, when a 69-year-old paraplegic man riding a bicycle was hit and killed after colliding with a car at the intersection of Dilworth Drive and Highway 97 .