Derek Teel of
Dialed Health was struck by a driver while out riding yesterday afternoon near Wise Winery in Lincoln, California. California Highway Patrol are asking for public assistance in finding the driver as they fled the scene of the incident.
| Incident: A hit and run crash occurred on 01/30/2023 at approx. 1:32 pm on southbound Crosby Herald Rd. Near Wise Rd. The suspect vehicle is described as a possible silver Honda Accord and may be missing a right front mirror.
If you have any surveillance footage around the area, please check for the suspect vehicle around the time of the incident.
We urge anyone with information to contact Auburn CHP at (916) 663-3344 or 1-800-Tell CHP. Your assistance is crucial in resolving this case and bringing justice to the affected party.—Auburn CHP |
Teel's wife Alicia shared in a video today that he was awake when he came into the hospital by ambulance and does not have any head or spinal injuries, but he has had to undergo surgery for a severely broken pelvis, a broken femur and a collapsed lung among other injuries.
Teel is an accomplished cyclist and strength trainer who
completed an off-road Everest in 2022 as well as a
double Everest on the road. He has shared several
strength training videos with the Pinkbike community.
We wish him all the best with his recovery and our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time. You can donate to his recovery fund
here.
Update from Derek Teel & Dialed Health, Sunday February 4, 2024
To all of our members in the Dialed Fam,
On behalf of Derek, we wanted to provide an update to those of you who may not yet be informed on his current situation.
This past Tuesday, January 30, Derek was struck by a hit-and-run driver and sustained serious injuries while out on a road ride. He is currently in the hospital with his family by his side, recovering from surgeries to repair a broken femur and pelvis, among other injuries. Thankfully, he did not suffer any trauma to his spine or head. He is doing well and in good spirits. At the moment we are unsure of his current timetable for recovery or when he’ll be back to his normal daily operations within Dialed Health. In the meantime, we will continue to provide both coaching support through Coach Josh and customer service/tech support through our web team with Ben and Tommy. Thank you all in advance for those who are awaiting responses from us. We are working hard to get back to you as soon as we can and we are grateful for your patience as we move forward.
We greatly appreciate your continued support during this time and will provide updates as needed. For those of you who are on Instagram, Derek’s wife, Alicia (@lishteel), and mom, Tami (@tamiteel), have been posting updates on their personal pages regarding Derek’s progress.
For those of you local to the Sacramento area, MTB NorCal is in the process of setting up a fundraiser ride to support Derek and his family in covering any expenses necessary. Details are listed below. More information on the ride along with a link to donate to the Teel family are available on the MTB NorCal Instagram page (@mtb_norcal).
Ride Info
Date: Sunday Feb. 11
Address: 7095 Douglas Blvd, Roseville, CA
Coffee & Donuts @ 9am
Raffle @ 9:30am
10am ride roll out
12pm ride concludes
All Disciplines of riding are welcome
For now, we will continue to rally behind Derek and his family as he begins the recovery process. For those of you who wish to show support, we believe Derek would be most touched by knowing everyone who currently uses the Dialed Health platform is continuing to grind out their training sessions with him in mind - if there’s one thing we know about Derek, “HE DOESN’T MISS!” Feel free to tag him in posts on Instagram, send in videos or simply share stories of how Derek/Dialed Health have impacted you all.
Thank you to every single one of you for taking the time to read and for being part of the Dialed Fam. We look forward to continuing supporting you all and building this amazing community of riders as Derek recovers.
- Coach Josh and the Teel family
Reminder to everyone to watch and share Phil Gaimon's "Please Share This When I'm Killed by Someone Driving a Car" video.
i.redd.it/p6trzyjrwnr61.png
Edit: First episode: www.paysonmcelveen.com/podcast/episode/7b7c9daf/derek-teel-on-strength-training-for-cyclists
@sarahmoore any chance you can change the wording to "Struck by a driver" instead of a car in the opening line?
Some context here if folks want to know why: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-10/why-news-coverage-of-car-crashes-favors-drivers
It's not a crash, Derek was literally almost killed by another human and they are acting like the car had a mind of its own and accidentally bumped him.
So yeah for sure in this case it was definitely the driver who failed and struck, but I wouldn't be too surprised if there'd be a day when people are indeed being struck by cars, not drivers.
Scary out there for pedestrians.
coloradosun.com/2024/01/29/colorado-pedestrian-bicyclist-traffic-deaths-2023
"The number of pedestrians killed by drivers in the U.S. has been climbing for more than a decade and in 2022, they reached a 40-year high when more than 7,500 pedestrians were killed."
Such a negative feedback loop where people feel they need bigger cars to feel safer. Then the next generation of cars are bigger . . .
This is a good article that explores reasons for the spike. It isn't entirely clear that it is simply due to larger vehicles.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/11/upshot/nighttime-deaths.html
www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/News-Releases/2024/E-Scooter-and-E-Bike-Injuries-Soar-2022-Injuries-Increased-Nearly-21
a simple google search will give you dozens of articles discussing the increase in injuries stemming from ebike travel. Overall id rather see more people on ebikes than more cars on the road..but cities aren't creating the infrastructure to keep cyclists safe. Anyway thats a discussion for another thread. This was a shame to hear.
I was in a Ford Fiesta.
Of interesting note, he admitted to falling asleep at the wheel. Even though I witnessed him use a turn signal to change lanes into me.
Instantly down to the limit 70... It was actually scary how smooth it was. My ol ford Kuga would feel like an old shoddy sea side roller coaster at that speed.
This was blindingly obvious when pussE bikes first hit the roads years ago. They need Tax, insurance an MOT like real motor bikes
Vehicle size ? Donkey
There are lots of things that could be controlled, or at least limited, which would reduce harm and have no real impact on user experience, except bruising a few fragile egos.
Our next door neighbor has caused 2 separate accidents on I70 from falling asleep at the wheel. It’s amazing she is still alive and hasn’t killed or injured anyone. Yet insurance pays out and she has had 3 different vehicles in 9 years of living next door. Drives our residential mountain road at an average speed of about 30mph, posted limit is 10 due to blind switchbacks and being residential. Some people just don’t think about responsibility and consequences, the world revolves around them.
For anyone interested in why, I strongly recommend the book "there are no accidents." Spoiler its not cell phones. It is mostly horrific road design in north america, coupled with modern vehicle design that prioritizes occupant safety.
Totally anecdotal, I think a big factor is that many people perceive driving as a trivial chore and don't weigh the responsibilities of being an operator with the consequences when shit goes wrong. Very similar to falling into heuristic traps with backcountry skiing (or really anything with risk exposure) such as familiarity (i've driven this road thousands of times), social facilitation (everyone else is speeding), etc. www.summitpost.org/human-factors-in-avalanche-incidents/188636
Personally, I'd like to see better roadway and urban design that prioritizes pedestrians. I don't see that happening in many places though or think that our culture would stomach that. I'd like to see stricter licensing requirements with more frequent training/education and testing involved, but I don't see that happening here anytime soon. I don't know what, if any, solution is. I just know that what we're doing now is not sustainable and regularly learning about people being seriously injured and killed because they were walking, running, or riding (or driving) and another person operating a motor vehicle failed to take their responsibilities seriously really sucks.
It's the phones too, for sure. But putting it all on the phones is reductive and counterproductive to coming up with effective solutions.
As for the change (in terms of driving education, road design and regulation) that has to be realized, remember that it can be done if enough people want it. It happened here in the seventies after all though I have to admit it can be harder now to make such a shift nowadays when people lose track of what has been and what can be. Last Summer at the world premier of (The Anthil film) The Engine Inside I talked to a lady from Scotland who mentioned that the people in The Netherlands pulled the brake just in time as now it is or would have been too late. Even though I think she may be right, it is seems like a depressing thought that we wouldn't be able to realize safer traffic in our own homeland. I know there have been a few instances where some progress has been made. The corona-crisis having been one of them where urban designers tried to create a safer infrastructure. As sad as the recent Middle East conflicts are, I can imagine it could trigger another oil crisis. Inconvenient, sure. The best way to decrease the oil price is to decrease the demand. Increased road safety is a nice side effect.
Either way there'll still be data transfer for authorities to investigate...?
"leads? yeah, sure I'll just check with the boys down at the crime lab. They got 4 more detectives working the case, they got us working in shifts! leads..."
A really common pedestrian strike scenario in my city is that you'll have a ped crosswalk across a 4-lane major arterial (like a 35mph zone). The xings are well marked, but they aren't at a light controlled intersection—traffic is supposed to stop. The pedestrian will be waiting to cross from one side. A car in one of the lanes will see the pedestrian and stop, they'll start to cross. Meanwhile, a car coming up the outside lane in relation to where the ped is crossing from won't be able to see the ped with the view blocked by the stopped car, and won't tune into the fact that stopped car means a ped is moving thru. The outside lane car keeps plowing ahead at 45 in this 35 zone, and strikes the ped.
For cyclists, right hooks by cars are very common, as are drivers turning left without looking thru an intersection. The city has been installing more bike-specific lights to give cyclists a chance to move through intersections when no motor vehicles are moving at all, but these exist mainly in the city core. Areas outside of the core, which tend to be 4 lane higher speed arterials, with tons of shopping centers where cars are turning in and out of are just death zones for peds and cyclists.
Someone up above linked the recent NY Times piece about pedestrian deaths and how the spike in ped deaths is especially concentrated after dark. It's a really worthwhile read. We get dark here by about 430pm in the depths of winter, just in time for rush hour. It rains a ton. Visibility is f*cked by the glare and distortion of headlights reflecting off wet pavement, rain on windshields, etc. People are stressed and distracted. You've got can collecting hobos on bikes unlit and riding against traffic. You've got peds and bike commuters everywhere. Traffic crawls, but then people will speed into every little gap they can just to get home 30 seconds sooner. It's such a broken morass of form and function, culture, urban design.
All this in a city that's ostensibly on the bleeding edge of ped/cyclist friendly urban design. I don't doubt that we are, but even with that, it's just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
If I'm mislead on that, I'd love to know better.
@BrambleLee: What is it that your city is doing so well for cycle infa, my city has 2 disused railway lines converted to bridleways and everything in between is crap
www.youtube.com/watch?v=knbVWXzL4-4&pp=ygUTYmlrZSB0cmFmZmljIGxpZ2h0cw%3D%3D
I have a kid too and riding a bike in traffic just doesn’t seem safe. I’m all for a bike lane though. It kinda seems a bit safer…..?
It was a game changer for me.
@Portland-maine: thanks for the tip
The prosecution for this is WAY to lax here in the UK an I'm guessing the US too? Drivers only get a slap on the wrist while a cyclist/pedestrian are severely injured or dying.
Greater punishment for this is the answer, the northern Euro approach is needed.
Here's a good tip for any mild altercation (in the UK anyway) Play Dead or neck pain can't move etc. This way, when ambulance is called for a road incident. The Police HAVE to investigate.....
I bet drivers would show more care once it’s clear that their lives are also on the line?
www.foxla.com/news/driver-charged-with-murder-after-striking-stabbing-oc-doctor-on-bicycle-in-dana-point
I’d much rather ride a moto track or do any number of “dangerous” things versus ride my bike on the road with other drivers. People are complete lizards, they don’t see/think/care. Just drool and drive.
JST is always in the comments reminding us he’s a hard mofo!
Since pinkbike didnt want to post his Everest video, here it is.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hk9vVO9ykI