March 16th, 2016 Joyce Koven Smith, age 59, a resident of Carlsbad was heading south past Agua Hedionda Lagoon, north of a local power plant. Wi
March 16th, 2016
Joyce Koven Smith, age 59, a resident of Carlsbad was heading south past Agua Hedionda Lagoon, north of a local power plant.
Witnesses say she was riding south along Carlsbad Boulevard when she may have lost control of the bike and steered from the bike lane into the traffic lane, littered with high speed vehicles. Despite the streets 35 mile per hour speed limit, officials claim that the lay-out of the road, comprised of a straight line, with no interrupted traffic lanes encourage speeding in the area. She was hit by a Ford Fiesta, driven by a 64 year old woman. The driver of the Fiesta says she did not have time to stop or avoid hitting the cyclist.
The infrastructure of the street suggests that she may not have lost control of her bicycle. Authorities have suggested that she may have been in the process of doing a u-turn or turning left into the power plant before the collision occurred.
Joyce Koven Smith succumbed to her injuries just after the collision, the county’s Medical Examiner’s Office claims. Authorities have came to the conclusion that the Ford Fiesta driver was in no wrong doing.
This marks the 27th bicycling fatality in Southern California in 2016 and the sixth in San Diego County.