See Something, Say Something: SPD Needs Your Help in Hit-and-Run Bicyclist Death

A Cyclist Died Here by papahazama from the Seattlest Flickr pool.

Last week, while biking home from work, 44-year-old Michael Wang, of Shoreline, was hit and killed by a driver in a tan SUV. And while the cyclist's family grieves, the driver is still driving, free as a bird, and guilty as sin. The Seattle Police and detectives are calling on anyone who may have information to come forward to make the situation right.

The collision occurred near Dexter Avenue North and North Thomas Street on Thursday, June 28th, at around 3:45 p.m. The vehicle involved is described as "a mid-1990′s to mid-2000 beige to brown colored American-made SUV, possibly with tinted windows and a silver luggage rack." It is unknown whether or not the vehicle sustained any damage.

The Traffic Collision Investigation Squad are asking that those who may have been nearby, or who may know something about the driver, please call (206) 684-8932 and help them out. Those who have valuable information about the accident but don't feel comfortably disclosing your own identity are still encouraged to call and tip anonymously.

This man's family deserves justice, and this driver is not someone you want on the road alongside you and your loved ones. If you know anything about this horrible accident, please do your civic duty and come forward.

And confidential to the driver: the traffic detectives are actively looking for you. This isn't like scratching someone else's bumper. You killed a man, and you drove away. If you have any kind of humanity in your body, you will turn yourself in.

A memorial fund has been set up for Wang's family.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@seattlest.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By hanna brooks olsen in News on August 4, 2011 9:00 AM

Comments [rss]

speakeasies

@El
Jost The police report (there is a link to it in this article) makes it
clear that they suspect there is front-end damage to the SUV, which is
likely based on witness reports. The only way you can sustain front-end
damage and not know you hit someone or something is to not be paying
attention, and if you're not paying attention when you are driving a
huge metal box on wheels, you're avoiding basic responsibility.

Hanna Brooks Olsen

Could not agree more.

If you genuinely think that a driver could kill a human being and not notice, and then not notice that they were at that intersection, at that time when it was all over the news, and then not notice that their car is the one being described in every report, then I sincerely hope that you are not someone I may be driving next to on the road.

A man is dead because a car ran him over.

Are you actually excusing someone who killed a person while driving, and then never turned themselves in?

El Jost

Very often with accidents between cyclists and motor vehicles the driver of the vehicle is not aware that the accident occurred. It is not necessarily so therefore that the driver is deliberately avoiding his responsibility to report the accident as the writer of the article above would appear to assume.