“He was trying to beat the red light, and he didn’t.”
That was the assessment of South Pasadena Det. Sgt. Thomas Jacobs, referring this bicyclist who suffered only minor injuries on Thursday, Aug. 8, after colliding with a Jeep Cherokee at Huntington Drive and Fair Oaks Avenue – one of the city’s notoriously dangerous intersections.
The cyclist, a 30-year-old Los Angeles man whose name was not released by police, was riding east along Huntington around 7:30 a.m., in the second lane from the left, when, according to the police report, he failed to obey a traffic light that had just turned red.
While attempting to turn onto Fair Oaks, he was struck by a 2007 Jeep Cherokee that was headed west on Huntington and had just started to accelerate after sitting at the stop light. The man was flipped onto the SUV’s windshield – which suffered extensive damage – and then crashed to the pavement.
Luckily for the two-wheeled tempter of fate, the Jeep was going only 5 mph or so when the collision occurred. The 55-year-old San Gabriel woman who was driving the Jeep was not injured. She was alone in the car, the report said.
Three witnesses and the driver confirmed the scenario, Jacobs told the Review.
Neither party was cited in the accident, although, “The bicyclist was clearly at fault,” Jacobs said.
The dazed cyclist was taken by ambulance to Huntington Memorial Hospital for treatment to the gash on his right leg and assorted other bumps and bruises.
