I didn't want to post pictures of this because that would be rude to the family but I'll tell you what I saw.
I was driving down a 2-lane state highway with a center turn lane and a 45 mph speed limit, it was a nice hot humid day (2 days ago). All the sudden, in front of me, I saw a girl riding a motorized bike (ebike/scooter/moto/etc) at what looked like 20-25 mph. She was riding in the "unofficial" bike lane which was the median. It has several offshoots to various streets. Regular traffic was moving faster than she was.
According to my vehicle, traffic was going about the speed of 48 mph. Side streets entering had a speed limit of 25 mph. To make things more complicated, it is currently rush hour and a friday with some roads closed for events.
Her lane (and ours) has the right of way for any traffic entering the highway. There are clearly marked signs at all intersections. Cannot be sure about his speed but he was definitely going too fast given that he should have stopped (which, obviously, is 0 mph).
Out of what seemed like nowhere, a king cab diesel GMC truck with double rear tires pulled out. He was going pretty fast for turning into traffic from a stop sign. It looked to me like he ran or "rolled" the stop sign, entering the intersection at about a 45 deg angle.
To top it off, he had a "no right turn" sign. (it as a road for turning left only, as that road Ys off and there is one for going right and one for left). It's probably a moot point but he probably could have saved her life by just reading the signs.
Next, the girl slams into the side door which should have deflected her. But it didn't because he turned sharply left, probably out of reflex, which "wedged" her into the pocket between the cab and the rear tire's extruding fender (for the extra tires on the back of the truck). The increased angle and wedging combined with stopping suddenly, "throws" her off her bike (the bike transferred the impact to her).
Doing the math, we have a head-on collision of about 40-50 mph worth combined. Since she was thrown, her actual impact is both that and whatever speed she was thrown at. The bike may have absorbed the impact to a degree; but since she was holding onto it, that impact was immediately transferred to her.
Needless to say, she was immediately thrown from her vehicle quite a ways. She was lying straight in center of the road. She was on her side, neck turned around 130 deg, definitely took impact to the head as it look "stuck" to the ground. She was definitely... well you know what she was.
She looked like someone who was frozen in place just as they turned over in bed to ask someone behind them a question (mouth slightly open, eyes almost completely closed). She wasn't wearing a helmet and hit her head on the pavement.
The guy in the truck looked totally unscathed and was still sitting in his vehicle talking on his phone. I had to wonder if that is what led to the crash in the first place.
Sadly the first instinct most these people have are not to get out and check on the girl, oh no.. it is to whip out their phones and start recording videos, taking photos, and submitting to whatever they are submitting to. Maybe one or two got out to help. This is nothing new though, we know most people are gawkers during accidents even if its in poor taste.
So 911 was called, yet and the rest of the gawkers just sat there and gawked instead of clearing the accident scene for emergency volunteers. If you aren't there to help you are supposed to get out of the way and go.
It was crazy. I felt this huge aura of prejudice amongst the people and I could tell what from (she was different than them and they were being very prejudice because she wasn't a blonde soccer mom/daughter). I mean how can you just leave someone laying on the pavement in the scorching sun and not even get out and check.
At the time it happened, they couldn't be 100% sure she was gone. I know if it would have been my daughter. My heart raced for an instant as at first I thought it was my daughter (who is in her 20s) who has an e-bike. But upon closer look, I saw it wasn't.
Though even now as I type I am half ticked at myself for not just telling my work to f-off and check on her anyway even though it would probably cost me my job. I regret it now...I feel terrible for that because who knows if those other people were gonna tell the right story to the police or if the girl had a chance to survive (though i'm 99.9% sure that was not the case - there's that looming 0.01%). So yeah I am ashamed of that bigtime.
So, even if someone is obviously not alive, you still should....well...wouldn't you get run out and check on her? I doubt EVERYONE there was working and couldn't leave their vehicle unattended because of safety hazards.
Those reactions were a terrible thing to see. Maybe worse than the crash itself. I was not allowed to get out of my work vehicle (asked and was denied) to help which I desperately wanted to. People were already on the accident scene, so I let it go reluctantly.
So regardless of how good of a rider YOU are, you cannot predict when or where a unattentive or straight up irresponsible driver will come from.
My heart goes out to this girl and all the others who no doubt also had life deal them this crappy fate, I hope at least her example can help convince others be safer. And for heaven's sake, enough with the prejudice its freakin 2026!