SAMMAMISH, Wash. — A woman is recovering in the hospital after a bicyclist crashed into her on a popular Sammamish trail on Monday.
"This isn't the first, I'll do anything I can to help it be the last," said Jim Wolfe.
KING 5 received video from Wolfe, whose house camera caught the moments leading up to Monday’s collision on the East Lake Sammamish Trail. The video shows a bicyclist heading south on the trail, ringing their bell, avoiding a woman starting to walk out on the trail. Within seconds, she gets hit by another bicyclist heading north, crashing right into her.
"You can hear her go down,” said Wolfe. “I think she probably hit her head on the concrete or this gravel on the side of the trail, it's horrible."
Wolfe has lived along this trail for more than 40 years and says bicyclists go too fast.
“We got a 2-year-old, I don't want people going 30 miles per hour past my house,” said Wolfe. “The legal speed limit on the trail is supposed to be 15 miles an hour, so I got 15 mph speed limit signs and I put that sign up and there's another one down there."
KING 5 walked along the trail and noticed there were no official speed limit signs posted near the stretch where the collision happened. King County owns and maintains the trail. Officials with the county said 15 miles per hour signs are posted at busier spots. At this location, there are signs that read, "Watch for pedestrians."
In addition to the trail design features, King County officials said Parks works with the King County Sheriff’s Office to heighten its presence on the County’s regional trails and enforce the speed limit and trail etiquette.
County officials also said Parks post educational signs on behavior and safety, such as speed limits and passing etiquette signage, and encourage cyclists to announce their presence or ring a bell before passing.
But Wolfe said that's not enough.
“They have to enforce it and there has to be some kind of penalty for it,” said Wolfe. “Otherwise, we're going to keep seeing this."
Sammamish police responded to Monday's crash. KING 5 reached out to them about what happened with the bicyclists that hit the woman but never heard back.
Wolfe said the woman's husband told him she was in the hospital and had a concussion as well as some bleeding in her brain.
King County officials estimate about 110,000 people use the trail annually and these types of crashes on the trail are not that common.