PORTAGE (WKZO AM/FM) — On the day that a major forum on Bike safety was scheduled for Portage City Hall, charges were filed against the driver who struck and killed a bicyclist in Portage this summer.
20-year-old Jeremy Smith of Kalamazoo was peddling along Portage Road near the Pfizer plant on the evening of August 7th when the collision occurred.
Smith died at the scene.
The suspect, Joshua Najacht of Hartford, was charged with a moving violation causing death, which is a one year misdemeanor that comes with up to a $2000 fine and license suspension for a year, at the judge’s discretion.
The suspect turned himself in last week and was freed on $500 bond.
Not everyone feels a need to make the roads safer for bike riders.
That pushback was felt at a public meeting on the subject in Portage last night and its being felt in the State House where bills to create a five foot buffer for bikes statewide has been assigned to a work group.
Some professional drivers complained that they have schedules to keep and bikers have no business being on a public street.
There were suggestions that bikers be required to wear brightly colored vests or have lights on 24-hours a day to make them more visable.
Margaret O’Brien says the law states that bikers have rights too, and she is working with that work group in the House to work out their issues over the size of the buffer and whether is should be wider at higher speeds, as it is in some other states.
Whether or not a biker’s rights extend five feet out beyond their handlebars is what is being debated in Lansing.
