Does anyone have any more details? (Like, was the driver of the car negligent, had a history, or any other details?) Too bad the Capital Times refers to the crash as a "traffic accident" It is also not clear to me why the bicyclist was on US Hwy 10 (not that there is anything wrong with that, but I'd certainly try to get onto a secondary or tertiary road myself).
http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2006/08/12/0608120073.php CROSS-COUNTRY CYCLIST HIT BY CAR >From The Capital Times, Sat Aug 12 2006 Robert Irving Burton Jr. didn't want to be like his father, always saying someday he'd do this or that. He decided to pursue a lifelong dream and died as a result in a Wisconsin traffic accident. "I realized that talk with no action was getting me to the same place as my father -- nowhere," Burton wrote on his blog. "What I had always wanted to do was ride my bicycle across the country." Burton, 55, retired in September from a city of Tacoma computer networking job. He began training for the trip and persuaded his wife, Anita, to join him. They sold their house, placed their possessions in storage and began pedaling in San Diego in May, visiting relatives here and there. They planned to reach Dover, Del., in October. "Bob and I were having the time of our lives," his wife said. But Burton was killed Tuesday when he was hit by a car on U.S. 10 in the central Wisconsin town of Milladore, according to the Wood County Sheriff's office. Milladore is about 15 miles north of Wisconsin Rapids. An investigation is continuing, but deputies said Burton was wearing a helmet and that alcohol was not involved. "He was living his dream and happy," said Jim Finnell, who knew Burton for 20 years. "When he left, and I saw him off, we were both crying. I said, I'm sad you're going, but I'm excited about your adventure.' " On their journey, the Burtons spent three weeks with their son Jim and his family in Minnesota, then returned to the road six days before the fatal accident. Anita Burton said he stepped off his bicycle and headed into a ditch to relieve himself, but she kept pedaling, joked that he was a slowpoke and then added that she'd let him catch up to her. About three-quarters of a mile along, she didn't see him so she stopped and waited until a car stopped and the driver asked whether she had been with another bicyclist. When she answered yes, he gave her a ride back to the crash scene, saw her husband lying in the ditch and was told by an ambulance driver that he was dead. "It was an instant thing," she said. "We had a beautiful road, two feet (of shoulder) and then the white line. The person who hit him did not see him." ------------------------------- Peace Corps: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gherkinsforperkins/ BikeAid: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gherkins4perkins/ _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
