An apparent hit-and-run driver injured two people tonight after reportedly rear-ending a motorcycle as it slowed to pass over an unpaved area of Walnut Street.
A witness, Joe Elmore, of Walnut Street, said he heard a loud crack followed by a woman's "blood curdling" scream, and he rushed from his back yard out to the roadway. He assisted the driver and his female passenger, trying to get a passing BMW to call 911 and and follow the hit-and-run driver. He doesn't believe the BMW driver did either.
Elmore said he screamed at a semi-truck driver to stop and put on his flashers, and he did, to slow down traffic.
The location of the accident, about 143 Walnut St., is the start of a road construction area where the pavement has been completely removed and replaced by stones. There is an at least four-inch drop from the paved area to the rocky surface.
Both Elmore and T.J. McAllister, who lives adjacent the accident scene, said cars continue to come flying down Walnut as if there's no construction at all.
Elmore said the motorcycle driver told him that he slowed when he hit the unpaved area, but the car behind him didn't and plowed right into him.
"He said he did everything he could to protect his girlfriend," Elmore said. "He broke his leg just trying to hold up his bike."
Just in the five minutes or so Elmore, McAllister and myself stood there talking, after the accident scene had been cleared, at least a half dozen cars passed in each direction driving at or above the normal speed limit. One car hit the bump so hard something fall off of it.
Elmore said he wanted attention brought to the street so that people will be more aware that they need to slow down.
A few minutes earlier, while McAllister and I talked, he pointed to a police car pulling away and said, "This was bound to happen. See how bumpy it is. Look at that police car and how much it's bouncing even as slow as it's going. People come through here going twice as fast. It's just crazy."
No official report on the accident is available at this time.
