The unusual trend of cyclists and pedestrians injured in local traffic collisions lately intensified this past weekend with a bicyclist seriously injured Sunday, and a pedestrian hit but only slightly injured Monday.
On Sunday, shortly after 5 p.m., paramedics responded to reports of a man on a bicycle hit by a car on Copper Hill Drive at Seco Canyon Road.
One witness to the crash shared her concerns in a Facebook message to The Signal, saying: “You guys have done so many stories on bicyclists being hit by cars. I am concerned about the man that was hit.
“He looked as if he would never walk again or was dead. I am praying neither is the case.”
Paramedics got to the crash scene at 5:10 p.m., said Fire Department spokeswoman Vanessa Lozano.
“The patient was transported to the hospital at 5:20 p.m.,” she said.
The injured bicyclist’s identity and medical condition were not disclosed.
In an unrelated traffic collision Monday, a teenager at Saugus High School was struck by a motorist near the school on Centurion Way.
The incident happened about 3:10 p.m.
“We had two units go to the school,” said Lt. Doug Mohrhoff of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station.
A paramedic responding from nearby Fire Station 111 who treated the boy at the scene said: “It was a minor injury. (The vehicle that struck him) was (moving at) a low rate of speed.
“The patient was released to his parents at the school,” he said.
Regardless of the extent of injury in either the cyclist-involved collision Sunday or the incident at the high school Monday, the rate of motorists hitting cyclists and pedestrians has not slowed down in the last month.
The recent rise in collisions involving both cyclists and pedestrians prompted SCV Sheriff’s Station officials to respond.
In mid-March, sheriff’s deputies emphasized two pedestrian safety campaigns — the already established Heads Up program directed at educating pedestrians and cyclists about safety, and an enforcement campaign carried out on March 25 in which 34 motorists were cited, seven of those involving allegations the motorist failed to yield to a pedestrian.
Numbers recently released from the Sheriff’s Station showed an increase over a three-year period from 2013-2015, with two pedestrians killed in 2013, one in 2014, and four in 2015, which was followed by the city and Sheriff’s Department working together to form a traffic-safety plan in 2016. There were no deaths in 2017-18, according to city officials.
A look at the recent spike in pedestrian/cyclist collisions reveals pedestrians were involved in at least four collisions over the span of one week last month, including two who died as a result of their injuries.
The two fatalities happened in the space of 48 hours, claiming the lives of a 61-year-old male pedestrian and a 62-year-old female cyclist.
Two days after the 34 citations were handed out, a pedestrian was struck by a motorist and taken to the hospital near Granary Square.
