To the editor:

“Just an accident.” With this statement, the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office concluded the incident resulting in the death of a bicyclist last August when a westbound motorist attempting to overtake another vehicle struck and killed the eastbound bicyclist in the opposite lane of traffic on County Road 950, a road posted as shared with bicyclists.

The motorist fled the scene. He reversed directions shortly after and returned to the accident site. He would claim to have seen neither the bicyclist and the bicycle lying in the shallow ditch beside the road nor the bicycle parts and a shoe on the roadway. He left the scene again only to return once more after the police and emergency medical technicians were on the scene whereupon he admitted responsibility for the death.

The motorist was said to have intended no harm and sincerely regretted what he had done. He declared to investigators that his attention was focused not on the road ahead but rather on the vehicle being overtaken. He believed that he had struck a road sign.

There would be no charge of manslaughter or vehicular homicide, no prison sentence, no probation, no diversion, no community service, no suspension of driver’s license and no evaluation of the driver’s mental or physical competence to operate a motor vehicle in the future. Nothing. The lack of accountability beggars the imagination, but then, it was “just an accident.”

In 2012, there were more than 700 bicyclists killed in the United States, and many of these deaths were deemed “just an accident” Many more bicyclists suffered serious injury. Absent effective accountability for such deaths and injuries, the toll is unlikely to abate.