Vigil for Bret Lewis to be held Friday in Beaverton

Intersection of TV Hwy and SW Tualaway Ave.
(Photo: Jim Parsons)

Community members plan to hold a vigil for Bret Lewis*, the man who was hit and killed while bicycling on Tualatin-Valley Highway in Beaverton on Saturday.

The event is being planned by local citizen advocate (and 2011 BTA Alice Award nominee) Jim Parsons along with Hal Ballard, the executive director of the Washington County Bicycle Transportation Coalition.

The vigil will be held this Friday (2/18) near the intersection of SW Tualaway Ave and Tualatin Valley Hwy. The gathering will begin at 4:30pm.

There are still many unanswered questions about this crash. Stay tuned for more coverage. For now, learn more by reading the comments on our story from Saturday.

*Please note the name change of the victim. We have learned from a friend that he goes by Bret, not Michael.

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car owner and driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, feel free to contact me at @jonathan_maus on Twitter, via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a supporter.

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K'Tesh
K'Tesh
13 years ago
q`Tzal
q`Tzal
13 years ago
Reply to  K'Tesh

Are you the Google Street view bike?
If not: why not?

K'Tesh
K'Tesh
13 years ago

I may be wrong, but I believe that the crash occurred on the East side of the intersection in front of All-Star Auto Sales, and not the Audi Dealership.

wsbob
wsbob
13 years ago
Reply to  K'Tesh

“…but I believe that the crash occurred on the East side of the intersection in front of All-Star Auto Sales, and not the Audi Dealership.” K’Tesh

Can you offer some explanation as to why you believe this to be?

K'Tesh
K'Tesh
13 years ago
Reply to  wsbob

As I’ve seen in other injury/fatality crash sites, the investigation team will paint markings on the road where various elements were located (tires of the vehicle, the bicycle, and the victim). I spotted some painted markings on the East side of the intersection. The marking was “RPI” which could stand for “resting place individual”. This is just a guess. Jonathan said he’ll provide more info tomorrow.

Alan
Alan
13 years ago
Reply to  K'Tesh

RPI could be “reconstructed point of impact” but that’s a guess, too. Compare that with where q’Tzal reported seeing the bike (green arrow). The points are roughly 175′ apart; seems a bit far but we don’t know the car’s speed.

Esther C, the car only needed its rear end sliding a little bit outside the front tire tracks in order to sweep the bike with its right side. A front wheel drive car under braking or throttle lift tends to oversteer just that way when it swerves. I don’t know if that’s what actually happened in this case, just that’s how the described impact could happen.

q`Tzal
q`Tzal
13 years ago
Reply to  K'Tesh

This would have been one of at least two Reference Points (RP1) marked with a nail and the label in paint or whatever miracle chemical sticks in falling rain.
From “Motor Vehicle Accident Forensic Survey” at http://www.fig.net/pub/fig2010/papers/fs03c%5Cfs03c_ helmricks_46… and
“Basic Accident Scene Mapping” at oregonforensicengineering.com/linked/basic%20 scene%20mapp… I can say with certainty that this was used in the mapping of some recent vehicular incident.
It is, however, highly unlikely that any evidence, vehicle or body at rest would have been at this point of reference: the mere establishment of which would contaminate the evidence of the crime scene being recorded.
All drawings shown in the two PDFs explain that these RPs are uninvolved points outside the scene used to accurately reconstruct what happened inside the area later when the road has to be opened and legal implications are afoot.

q`Tzal
q`Tzal
13 years ago
Reply to  q`Tzal

2nd PDF was at
http://oregonforensicengineering.com/linked/basic%20scene%20mapping-website.pdf

The illustration on page 44 and page 40 are particularly relevant but I think the page 44 picture applies here

esther c
esther c
13 years ago

How do you hit somebody from behind with the right side of your car? According to the Oregonian he swerved to avoid the bike and hit him with the right side of his car but hit him from behind. Unless he was sliding completely sideways I do not understand how you can hit someone with from behind with the right side of your car.

Yvonne Boeckel
Yvonne Boeckel
13 years ago

Thank You Jonathan for putting the name he went by correctly on the post about his vigil on friday.

Todd Boulanger
Todd Boulanger
13 years ago

For those considering adding a video camera to their bicycles – Big 5 has a weekly special on the Oregon Scientific atc2k for less than $40. This is about a third of it’s initial price.

Kim McAuliffe
Kim McAuliffe
13 years ago

Where’s my comment? Did you delete it because it was about bikers running down pedestrians?