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Teenager Survives Bicycle Crash Injuries, Another Dies

August 18, 2005

Eugene Knight spent his 14th birthday at Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, where he is recovering from non-life-threatening injuries following a fatal accident when he and another teen on a bike collided with a car.

Knight was pedaling down the sloped Citrus Avenue bridge, with Daniel Barber, 15, sitting on the handlebars. For some reason, they rode into moving traffic on U.S. 1, investigators with the Florida Highway Patrol said. The teens crashed into a car that was headed south, and the impact threw both of them off the bike. The car did not stop.

Barber died minutes later at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center and Heart Institute in Fort Pierce. The teens, both of Fort Pierce, were not wearing bicycle helmets, said FHP officials, who point to this accident as an example of why children 16 and younger should wear bicycle helmets, which are required by state law. However, St. Lucie county commissioners in 1998 voted to keep the county exempt from that rule.

'It's a parent's responsibility,' then-Commissioner John Bruhn, said at the time. 'Government can't raise children for them,' he said, adding, 'the cost of enforcement would be astronomical.' In the past seven years, since the decision, there has not been much discussion among county officials on the topic, according to media reports.

Meanwhile, FHP continues to investigate the accident, including statements from witnesses who said they saw a driver run over Barber, after he was thrown from the bike, and drive away, said Lt. Tim Frith.