Bicyclist dies after being struck by car Wednesday on Bellingham’s Meridian Street
A 44-year-old male bicyclist died after being struck by a car Wednesday morning on Bellingham’s Meridian Street. Impairment is not suspected in the fatal crash and no citations were issued.
Bellingham Police were called at 6:11 a.m. Sept. 22 to the 3600 block of Meridian Street for the report of a vehicle collision involving a bicyclist, Lt. Claudia Murphy told The Bellingham Herald in an email late Tuesday. Officers arrived to find a car stopped in the turn lane on Meridian and a cyclist on the ground nearby.
Bellingham Fire Department medics arrived and attempted life-saving measures on the cyclist, but their efforts were unsuccessful, and he died from his injuries on the scene, according to Murphy.
Meridian was closed for approximately two hours between McLeod Road and Birchwood Avenue, while Police Crime Scene Investigators and Traffic Division officers forensically documented the scene of the crash, Murphy reported.
The investigation found that the car was heading south on Meridian when the cyclist “appeared out of nowhere in front of the car, crossing the street from one side to the other,” Murphy reported. The driver was unable to avoid the cyclist, and after hitting him, stopped and called 911 to report the crash.
“The investigation eliminated any signs of impairment associated with the driver of the car and no citations or infractions were issued,” Murphy wrote.
No other information about the identities of the driver or cyclist was included in Murphy’s report.
The fatal crash is the eighth on Whatcom County roadways in 2021 and the death was the 10th so far this year, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation’s Crash Data Portal. It represents the third fatal crash inside Bellingham city limits this year.
There were eight fatal crashes and eight deaths on Whatcom roadways in 2020, but none were within Bellingham city limits.
This is the first fatal crash involving a bicyclist in 2021, after there was one in 2020 and none in 2019, according to the WSDOT data.
