A motorcycle rider, who was swerving to avoid a car driver, struck and killed a 74-year-old man in the morning of last Saturday, September 18, in Humboldt Park. The victim was the second person fatally struck in the West Side neighborhood within a two-day period.
On Thursday, September 16, at about 8:05 p.m. a woman was in the process of crossing the south leg of the intersection of Chicago and Kedzie avenues when a northbound driver struck a southbound car and one of the vehicles careened into the woman, killing her.
On Saturday at about 11:35 a.m., about 1.5 miles northeast of Thursday's crash site at the intersection of North Avenue and Washtenaw Avenue (2700 W.), the elderly man was crossing North Avenue southbound in a crosswalk, according to Police News Affairs. Police did not specify whether the senior was in the east or west leg of the intersection.
The west leg has a pedestrian island, but the east leg does not, because it has a left turn lane for westbound traffic. North Avenue is five lanes in this location which encourages speeding. The Chicago Department of Transportation installed non-protected bike lanes on North last year, which may help calm traffic somewhat by narrowing the travel lanes. Washtenaw is one-way southbound here, and the North/Washtenaw intersection has a stop sign for southbound traffic.
According to police, while the man was crossing, a 30-year-old male motorcyclist was riding west in the southernmost westbound lane of North Avenue when a southbound car driver on Washtenaw cut in front of him. The motorcycle rider swerved north into the northernmost lane to avoid the motorist, continued through the intersection, and struck the pedestrian.
The senior was transported to Stroger Hospital in good condition, police said, but was pronounced dead three hours later, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. The medical examiner has not yet released his identity.
The motorcyclist was cited for failure to stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk. However, it's unclear why the car driver wasn't ticketed, given that westbound traffic has the right of way at that location, and it appears the car driver's failure to yield to the motorcycle rider contributed this tragedy.
Fatality Tracker: 2021 Chicago pedestrian and bicyclist deaths on surface streets
Pedestrian: 14
Bicyclist: 7
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.
