HAVERHILL — Police have released additional details shedding light on why they decided not to charge the driver of an SUV in connection with a fatal collision last month that left a cyclist dead.
On May 27, a 20-year-old Hyundai SUV driver struck Joseph Miller, a 72-year-old cyclist, in the area of 1459 Dartmouth College Highway. Miller was airlifted to the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and died the following day.
The driver told police that Miller looked over his shoulder and suddenly swerved directly into her path on the road, according to the police report. There were no other witnesses who could speak to what happened.
Tire tracks in the dirt from the bike indicate it was Miller’s actions that caused the accident, the Haverhill Police Department said in a news release on Friday. There was no hazard until the cyclist veered into the travel lane.
Police did not charge the driver with any crime, as there was no probable cause, said investigating officer Cpl. Kaitlyn Barnum.
Following Miller’s death, the Upper Valley Cycling Club sought to raise awareness about road safety in part through a letter to the editor. Members of the club questioned whether police had done a thorough investigation of the incident.
The Haverhill Police Department’s report of the accident noted the possibility of the crash being speeding-related as “unknown,” and did not mention accident reconstruction efforts, the Valley News reported on June 8.
“It’s just kind of basic facts of what happened, not everything that happened,” Barnum said of the department’s initial report last Thursday in a phone interview.
In addition to Haverhill police, the New Hampshire State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Unit arrived on scene the morning of the crash to aid in the investigation.
Physical damage to the car and to the bike demonstrated that the front of the car struck the side of the bicycle, according to state police’s crash report, provided by Haverhill Police.
The June 19 news release also said police had ruled out speed as a factor.
The driver braked and her vehicle left behind a skid mark about 100-feet long, which state police said indicated she was traveling 47 mph in a 50 mph zone, according to the crash report.
Police discovered a bicycle tire mark in the dirt on the northbound side of the roadway.
“This mark continued north, until turning towards the pavement,” the crash report stated.
Club member Alix Norris felt Friday’s news release “raises more questions than answers,” she said in a Monday email.
Norris expressed some confusion as to why a road cyclist would have been on the dirt shoulder in the first place, as opposed to on the pavement as is permitted by law. It’s possible that an unknown factor pushed the cyclist off the road and he over-corrected when trying to get back on, she said.
“It definitely seems as if there is more to the story than this report outlines,” Norris said.
In New Hampshire, drivers are required to provide cyclists with a minimum of 3 feet of space, with an additional foot for every 10 miles over a 30 mph speed limit. In this situation, the driver would have been expected to pass Miller with 5 feet of space between them.
Neither the Haverhill police report nor the State Police crash report specify exactly where in the travel lane the SUV was before the bicycle veered into the lane; Haverhill Police Chief David Appleby did not respond by deadline to a Monday phone message and email.
However, a diagram included in the Haverhill Police report shows the SUV partially in the southbound lane.
There are typically a couple driver-cyclist collisions per year in Haverhill, said Barnum. The investigation into this accident is considered closed by police.
