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Bike fatality underscores trail's rules

The severe injuries to two veteran bicyclists involved in an accident on the Pinellas Trail earlier this month have overshadowed another fact about that accident: It occurred after dark.

Terry Joyce, a 69-year-old competitive cyclist, died Monday from injuries he received when he tumbled across the handlebars of his bike and hit his head on the paved trail. A fellow cyclist who was trailing Joyce, 47-year-old Mitch A. Scott, collided with him after he fell and also was hospitalized with injuries.

Joyce and Scott were in a group of more than a dozen cyclists setting out on a Thursday evening ride from Dunedin to Trinity in Pasco County. The St. Petersburg Times reported that the cyclists were members of the Suncoast Cycling Club, an advocacy and activity group made up of serious cyclists who often get together for evening rides.

Because they are serious cyclists, they surely were aware that riding on the Pinellas Trail after dark is not permitted. The trail, like all Pinellas parks, closes at dusk. The accident that injured the two cyclists occurred about 6:30 p.m., almost an hour after sunset. And while authorities say the accident apparently was caused by a mechanical failure in Joyce's bike, not by riding in the dark, no one should have been on the trail at that hour.

There was discussion about opening the trail to nighttime use in 2002 after well-known radio announcer Carl Metcalf was hit and killed while bicycling to work on a county road at 4 a.m. Bicyclists asked the county to open the Pinellas Trail as a safer after-dark alternative, but county commissioners quickly turned down the idea. The trail would have to be lighted and patroled by rangers, and residents whose homes backed up to it were opposed to the idea. The trail remained closed at night, leaving the streets as the only legal nighttime alternative for bicyclists.

The Suncoast Cycling Club and other such groups celebrate the great sport of bicycling and promote safety. Authorities said that the Suncoast club members were wearing helmets and had lights on their bikes last Thursday. It is important that they and other groups also set a good example by following the rules of the Pinellas Trail.

[Last modified November 20, 2005, 00:54:20]