Sharing the Road: Bicyclists’ and Drivers’ Safety Concern After Tragic Accident in Venice

VENICE, FL (WWSB) - The investigation continues into a tragic accident in Venice involving a car and four bike riders. Those four bicyclists were critically injured after they were hit by a car along Center Road in Venice.

"It's challenge… and it's one that we really need to face up to, and I think the community – the bikers and the drivers – need to work together on,” said Henry Danielson.

Henry Danielson is the President of the Coastal Cruisers Bicycle Club, which has over 500 members from the Suncoast, including the four riders critically injured in yesterday’s accident.

“A major focus of our club is safety and bicycle safety, and that’s what we work on,” Danielson said. He tells us that those bicyclists were highly trained and travel all over the world to ride, and that he still can’t understand what could’ve possibly happened. Florida is a very bicycle-friendly state, but like Danielson tell us… not everyone knows the rules.

“You have to be very careful with automobiles. You must be visible. You have to make yourself seen and you have to signal and be aware as you can,” Danielson explained.

When sharing the road, bicyclists must stay in their designated bike lane or as close to the right-hand curb as possible. However, there are some exceptions. "If you are passing a slower vehicle, if you are avoiding some sort of obstacle in the road, or if they were turning left. They obviously would need to change their position from the outside lane to the inside lane. That it appears to be what happened here, there was a lane change being made by the bicyclists,” Lt. Greg Bueno, from the Florida Highway Patrol, said.

What officials are trying to determine is when they were making that lane change and how far away they were from the intersection and from the coming car.

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