The crash of a truck into a group of 20 bicyclists on a bridge that killed two and injured nearly all the rest of a Phoenix area cycling group appears to have been an accident, police said Monday. The driver told officers his steering locked, the AP reports. Goodyear Police Chief Santiago Rodriguez said the cause of the Saturday morning crash is under investigation. He said the driver, whom authorities have identified as 26-year-old Pedro Quintana-Lujan, told officers he was headed to work with materials he picked up for a job; he was in a pickup truck hauling a trailer. “There is no indication that his was an intentional act or anything but an isolated incident,” Rodriguez said.
A charging document released by police Monday says Quintana-Lujan told officers he was driving in the left of two northbound lanes when his steering locked and he drifted into the vacant right lane, then into the adjacent bike lane where he heard “a sound similar to metal.” The document said the driver told officers “he let off the gas and regained steering control, then turned left and stopped in the middle of the bridge." It said reconstruction of the collision determined when Quintana entered the bike lane he also struck the concrete barrier that separates the roadway from a sidewalk, leaving black tire marks halfway up the wall and striking several cyclists.
The department was waiting for results of a blood test acquired with a warrant that would show whether the driver was impaired. Quintana-Lujan told officer he shared a marijuana cigarette the night before, according to the document. Quintana-Lujan was booked into Maricopa County Jail on Sunday on suspicion of two counts of manslaughter, three counts of aggravated assault, 18 counts of endangerment, and two counts of causing serious injury or death by a moving violation. One person remained hospitalized Monday in critical condition. Authorities originally said 11 people were injured in addition to the two who died, but police said Monday that 19 of the 20 in the outing organized by West Valley Cycle were injured.
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