Friends and family are mourning the death of Michael Nine, a 43-year-old Santa Ana man who sustained fatal injuries during a Newport Beach truck acciden. Nine was riding with his morning cycling group on July 15 when he was struck a truck driven by Jose Luis Huerta Mundo. The Newport Beach bicycle accident occurred at Spyglass Hill and Harbor Ridge Drive as the cyclists were riding their usual route from Tustin through Irvine to Newport Beach and back.
According to police, Mundo made an illegal left turn onto Spy Hill Road and his vehicle ended up blocking the riders. Nine reportedly braked hard in an attempt to avoid colliding with Mundo's landscaping vehicle. Instead, the Santa Ana cyclist lost control of his bike, slamming head first into the back of the truck.
Mundo is charged with vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence, driving without a valid license, and failure to obey a traffic sign prohibiting a left turn.
A ghost bike has been set up on Spyglass Hill Road to remember Nine. Ghost bikes are small memorials to remember a cyclist that died on a particular street while advocating for a bicyclist's right to ride safely.
In CoronaDelMarToday.com, John Tzinberg, a member of the Newport Beach Cycling Safety committee, noted that the city is not doing enough to take care of the issues that are contributing to local bicycle accidents. Tzinberg notes that a cyclist dies every several months in Newport Beach.
In December, Irvine bicyclist Donald Murphy died from fatal injuries he sustained when he was injured by a hit-and-run driver on Jamboree Road. The 49-year-old rider was in a bike lane when he was hit by an SUV driven by Riverside resident Patricia Ann Izquieta, who made an unsafe left turn. She was later arrested. A year ago last year, 43-year-old Darryl Benefiel died in a Newport Coast bicycle accident on Ridge Park Road when he was hit by a car. He suffered massive head trauma and other Orange County, California personal injuries. In November 2009, his mother, Karen Benefiel, filed a Newport Beach wrongful death lawsuit against the city and the driver and the owner of the car that hit her son.
Crash Victim Identified; Cycling Advocates Outraged, Corona del Mar, July 15, 2010
Cyclist dies after being hit by SUV, OC Register, December 11, 2009
Mother suing Newport for son's death, Daily Pilot, December 29, 2009
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Ghost Bikes
