A 64-year-old bicyclist was killed in a hit-and-run crash Saturday morning, according to the Houston Police Department.
Houston police received a report of a hit-and-run crash involving a bicyclist around 5:35 a.m. on the West Loop 610 service road at the Braeswood Boulevard exit in the Meyerland area.
The family identified the cyclist as Randy Washington. They said he loved to ride his bicycle with friends.
Houston police said Washington was riding with a group of bicyclists. He was just a short distance ahead of the group when he was hit by a vehicle driving southbound on the service road. The driver did not stop and render aid. Once the bicyclist’s group caught up to him, the vehicle had already left the scene.
“Yet another case of someone getting struck and another person getting struck and the person taking off. The callous-ness of that is truly unacceptable,” Sean Teare with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said.
Fellow cyclists, even strangers, are mourning his death too.
“As a family of cyclists we’re always trying to be careful, trying to be safe on the roads,” Mark LeBlanc, a cyclist, said. “The car and truck is always bigger than us.”
LeBlanc, who did not know Washington, said he is hoping officials do more to protect cyclists.
“They’ve got trails but they haven’t finished the connectivity. If they would have had the connectivity going underneath 610 then this would not have happened,” LeBlanc said.
Looking for witnesses
An investigation into the fatal hit-and-run crash is ongoing. The driver will face a failure to Render Aid charge, Teare said.
“We will find this person and when we do were are going to prosecute them,” he said. “Cyclists share these roads and we’ve got to protect them.”
Teare asked that anyone who witnessed the crash or who has information on vehicles with front-end damage to call the Houston Police Department.
“We take these very very seriously,” he said. “We share the road with these cyclists every day and Houston is very bad a treating our cyclists appropriately and this is yet another case of someone getting struck and the person just taking off. The callousness of that is truly unacceptable”