South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Silent Ride remembers two killed in collision
More than 60 cyclists signed up but many more showed up for a Silent Ride Saturday in memory of two fellow cyclists who died when a car plowed through their group in Davie almost a month earlier.
The collision occurred about
8:30 a.m. Nov. 25, when Nicole Vanderweit, 33, drove through more than a dozen cyclists on eastbound State Road 84, east of Southwest 148th Avenue, police said.
Denise Marsh, 53, of Weston, died at the scene and fellow cyclist Carlos Rodriguez, 62, of Hollywood, died after surgery at Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, police said.
John Beitz, 49, Edgar Reyes,
48, and Maria Bautista, 56, were
treated at the hospital, and a
14-year-old boy was scraped up but not hospitalized, police said.
Beitz, with Cycling Family Broward, helped organize Saturday’s Silent Run along a
22-mile route starting at Markham Park about 7:30 a.m., complete with a Broward Sheriff’s Office motorcycle escort.
The group rode by the scene of the fatal collision where a white bicycle, pictures, flowers and other items filled a memorial site.
The Pembroke Pinesbased cycling group has been working to increase safety measures and raise driver awareness about sharing the road with bicycles.
Vanderweit told investigators she was temporarily blinded by sunlight and was also distracted by something inside her Honda Fit moments before the collision, police said.
Hers was one of more than a dozen calls made to 911 to report the collision.
“There was a pack of them,” she told the operator. “I hit a couple of them. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
Police were examining evidence that included two badly damaged cellphones that belonged to Vanderweit and one of the injured cyclists.