Sad news on the Raccoon River Valley Trail — after 21 years, the first fatality has been reported. A West Des Moines bicyclist apparently ran a stop sign west of Adel Friday evening, July 9, and crashed into a moving SUV. State Patrol and RRVT officials once again remind all trail users to ride with caution and to definitely stop at stop signs.
ADEL, Iowa, July 10, 2010 — The first fatality in the 21-year history of the Raccoon River Valley Trail occurred just west of here in the late afternoon of Friday, July 9, when a bicyclist apparently ran a stop sign and crashed into the sign of a moving sports utility vehicle on Dallas County road P58.
The Iowa State Patrol identified the victim as Kim Lou Clayton, a 55-year-old man from West Des Moines. The Patrol said Clayton was west-bound on the trail when he rode through the stop sign and hit the moving vehicle driven by Abraham Soud III, 29, of Waukee. After the collision, Soud stopped and called 911 to report the accident.
The RRVT is owned and managed by the Conservation Boards in Dallas, Guthrie and Greene Counties.
Mike Wallace, the Dallas County Conservation director, said Saturday he “can not recall any other fatalities” in the history of the trail, which opened in 1989. “It’s pretty remarkable, I think, that we’ve gone that long without one,” Wallace said.
Joe Hanner and Dan Towers, the conservation directors in Guthrie and Greene Counties, said they couldn’t recall any deaths on the trail, either.
“I’ve worried about something like this happening since 1989,” said Hanner. “With the trail crossing so many county roads, there are a lot of opportunities for accidents to happen if people get careless.”
Iowa State Patrol Trooper Tracy Bohlen told Des Moines TV station KCCI that the collision is a tragic reminder that bicyclist and motorist need to pay attention.
“We need to warn motorists because we have a lot of bicyclist that ride on rural roads, but we also need to advise bicyclists to abide by the rules of the trails or roadways, stop signs and stop lights,” Trooper Bohlen told the station’s reporters. “They need to stop like everyone else.”
But KCCI sent a reporter back out to the accident scene a day later, and their story later in the day ended with this frightful note: “At the intersection where Clayton died, many riders on Saturday were ignoring the stop sign or merely slowing down as they passed through.”
You can learn more about Kim Clayton by reading his obituary as it appeared in the Des Moines Register.
