MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. – The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating surveillance of a 56-year-old bicyclist recorded at a 7-Eleven minutes before the hit-and-run crash that killed him.
Troopers said the collision Friday around 9:35 p.m. ejected the bicyclist off of the State Road 520 causeway and into the Indian River, an estimated 30 to 50-foot fall.
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“I couldn’t believe it,” 7-Eleven employee Karen Watson said.
Watson showed News 6 the surveillance of who she described as a regular customer stopping in Friday night, she said, after he waited tables at the Merritt Island Red Lobster.
“He’d even tip us bagging his groceries,” she remembered.
When he left 7-Eleven, the man is seen heading toward the causeway on his way home to Cocoa.
State troopers said the driver was going west too when that driver hit the bicycle and never stopped.
Watson said she later drove by the scene.
“I saw lights and stuff at the top of the bridge, bicycle in the middle between the right and the left lane kind of twisted, but I didn’t see a person,” Watson recalled.
Troopers Monday did not release the name of the man and the only description troopers said they have of the vehicle is that it was white or another light color.
The FHP said the bicyclist did nothing wrong riding on the shoulder, but Lt. Channing Taylor also pointed out just how narrow that shoulder is.
“That’s probably one of the more dangerous bridges. There’s really no shoulder to ride on,” Taylor said.
Watson offered suggestions for making the bridge safer for bicyclists and pedestrians.
“It would be nice if we had cameras up there,” she said. “It would be really great if they put lights and lit the bridge up more.”
Anyone with information about Friday’s hit-and-run is asked to contact FHP at 407-737-2213, or Crimeline at 800-423-8477.