Cyclist George Sawicki, 70, died after he “struck” illegally parked truck on Museum Campus Drive

Update 8/19/21, 9:00 AM: The victim has been identified as George Sawicki. In April 2019 ABC Chicago interviewed him after a pair of robberies on the Lakefront Trail near 47th Street. "I heard about it this morning from one of the engineers in our building," Sawicki said. "I live right on the Lakefront. I ride a lot, so I have a pretty good sense of what to look out for." It's possible Sawicki was riding on Museum Campus Drive as a strategy to detour around more isolated parts of the path.

A 70-year-old man whom police say "struck a parked truck" yesterday evening while cycling on a road next to Soldier Field in the South Loop has died from his injuries.

At about 5:19 p.m. on Wednesday, August 17, the man was riding north on the 1400 block of South Museum Campus Drive, a few hundred feet west of the Lakefront Trail, when he hit the stopped vehicle, police said. The victim was taken to Northwestern Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The Cook County medical examiner's office identified the victim as George Sawicki, of the 1700 block of East 51st Street, on the border of Kenwood and Hyde Park. According to a LinkedIn profile, Sawicki was a "former lab manager and research scientist at University of Chicago."

Responding officers issued the truck driver a citation for stopping in a no parking / standing zone, police said.

Streetsblog Chicago is seeking more details on this case. As is usually the situation in fatal bike crashes, the victim did not have a chance to tell his side of the story.

The senior was the 6th person to die from an on-street bike crash in Chicago this year. There were six on-street bike fatalities in our city as of August 21 of last year, which ended with nine bike deaths, more than any other year in the past decade, and a 125 percent increase from 2019. The spike can likely be attributed to higher rates of cycling and speeding by drivers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fatality Tracker: 2021 Chicago pedestrian and bicyclist deaths on surface streets

Pedestrian: 11
Bicyclist: 6

Note: Streetsblog Chicago’s traffic death numbers represent fatal crashes on Chicago surface streets, based on media reports and/or preliminary Chicago Police Department data released by the Chicago Department of Transportation.