HAVERHILL — A 72-year-old North Haverhill man died last month after an early morning crash with an SUV while he was cycling on Dartmouth College Highway.
In the wake of Joseph Miller’s death, Upper Valley Cycling Club members have raised concerns for biker safety.
Pascale Graham, a Piermont resident who has been cycling in the area for 17 years and joined the club recently, said she only learned what happened by word of mouth several days after the fact.
“The silence about it was its own kind of shock that someone died on the road right by my house that I ride regularly and there was no knowledge about it,” Graham said Monday by phone.
While biking in the area of 1459 Dartmouth College Highway at around 7:30 a.m. on May 27, Miller veered into the driving lane where he was hit by a Hyundai driven by a 20-year-old, the Haverhill Police Department crash report stated.
Woodsville Ambulance responded to the scene, and Miller was subsequently airlifted to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. He died the following day in the hospital as a result of his injuries.
The crash report did not assign fault to the driver, and Haverhill Police have not taken enforcement action since the accident.
“There were no witnesses to the crash, just bystanders who assisted in rendering medical aid and calling 911,” the report stated.
A Monday phone message left for Haverhill Police Chief David Appleby was not returned by deadline.
Based on the driver’s account of the crash, police believe that Miller — while biking on the same straightaway as the driver — looked over his shoulder momentarily and drifted into the northbound lane, the report stated.
The collision caused disabling damage to the driver’s vehicle. There’s no particular behavior by the driver that police said contributed to the crash, according to the report. The possibility of speeding being a contributing factor in the collision — the posted limit is 50 miles per hour — is described as “unknown” in the report.
Miller worked for 35 years at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center as a biomedical technician and a cardiac catheterization technician, which is where he met his wife, Rita, according to his obituary. The two were married for 35 years and had one son, John.
Efforts to reach family members on Monday were unsuccessful.
Some of Miller’s interests included hiking, music, gardening, woodworking, apple cider pressing, maple syrup making and biking, according to the obituary, which also described him as “the healthiest 72-year-old man that you would ever meet.”
While police did not assign fault to the driver, Graham worries that there aren’t enough details about how the accident occurred to make that determination, since no one else saw what happened.
Regardless, she hopes people become more aware of the physical imbalance between a car and a bicycle. Blame aside, the cyclist bears the consequences of a collision, she said.
Accidents of this nature can be a result of distracted driving, curvy, narrow roads or high speed, which creates less time to react, Graham noted.
Drivers must maintain a distance of three feet away from cyclists on roads with a 30 mile-per-hour speed limit or less. Every 10 miles per hour calls for another foot of space, according to the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. Even when drivers keep their vehicle perfectly straight, airflow is a concern.
“The car can pull a cyclist into traffic if they’re too close and they don’t yield that three feet,” said Upper Valley Cycling Club board member Alix Norris.
On rural roads, the shoulders are not always suitable for cycling. In that situation, cyclists have a right to travel in the driving lane “when necessary to avoid hazardous conditions,” according to RSA 265:144.
While some collisions can’t be prevented, cyclists can decrease the likelihood of an accident by riding predictably, wearing bright clothing, adding a bike light and using hand signals, said Pascale.
Annually, about 1,000 people die in the U.S. as a result of bicycle-car collisions. In addition, there are 120,000 emergency department visits per year as a result of non-fatal accidents, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Still, these statistics don’t begin to show the number of close calls that happen regularly, said Norris, of Lebanon.
There are about six times per year where she narrowly avoids an accident, she said Monday by phone. Most notably, Norris recalls biking on Route 4 toward Enfield last summer when a van driver failed to yield while turning into a parking lot near the boat launch. Norris slammed on her brakes and skidded just enough out of the way to avoid being struck.
“I would have been completely flattened and it was terrifying,” said Norris. “…That situation shook me so much I just had to turn left on the rail trail and go home.”
The Upper Valley Cycling Club hosts safety workshops two to four times per year led by various board members on topics such as group riding skills and coexistence with cars. The next one is anticipated for July or August, which participants can find on the club calendar at: https://uvcc.bike/calendar.
