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Read our latest story: Following tragic bike accident, a local family and their friends take action. ‘Slow down for kids. Be more mindful.’
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A Greene Middle School student on a bicycle died Friday night, March 6, when he was struck by flatbed truck at El Camino Real and California Avenue in Palo Alto, police and school officials said.
The child was identified as 11-year-old Paul Lafargue of Palo Alto, according to the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office.
The boy attended Frank S. Greene Jr. Middle School, district Superintendent Don Austin confirmed. The school district will provide extra counseling support to students and staff at Greene this week.
Police received multiple calls around 7:40 p.m. Friday about a collision between a vehicle and bicyclist. Officers and Palo Alto Fire Department personnel responded “right away,” but the boy was pronounced dead at the scene, according to a police press release issued Saturday.
A preliminary investigation has revealed both the boy and the truck were traveling eastbound on California Avenue approaching El Camino, with the boy riding on the sidewalk.
The vehicle, a white 2008 International flatbed truck, made a right turn to head southbound on El Camino and hit the boy, police said.
The driver, a Palo Alto man in his 60s, stayed at the scene and cooperated with police. He was uninjured, police said, and has not been cited or arrested pending the outcome of the investigation. Police do not believe drugs or alcohol were a factor in the crash.
Southbound lanes of El Camino were closed until 1:30 a.m. Saturday while police investigated the scene.
A memorial for the boy has sprung up near the intersection, with community members leaving bouquets of flowers, stuffed animals, a Rubik’s cube, candles and notes.
“Rest in peace, sweet child” said one that had been taped onto a tree above a picture filled with pink, purple and blue hearts.
Anyone who may have witnessed this collision and who has not already spoken with police about it is asked to call the department’s 24-hour dispatch center at 650-329-2413. Anonymous tips can be emailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent by text message or voicemail to 650-383-8984. Tips can also be submitted anonymously through the police’s free mobile app, downloadable at bit.ly/PAPD-AppStore or bit.ly/PAPD-GooglePlay.
It was not a car, but a flat bed truck or tow truck. Very different sized vehicles. Very sad tragedy.
RIP.
So sorry to hear about this.
Whose idea was it to mix bikes and vehicles?????
So tragic.
This is tragic. Evening is a hard time for bikers. Right turns are especially difficult for drivers with bikes in the mix. We talked about this at home — what would our kids do? As a biker, and particularly at night, you have to be paranoid and assume no one sees you. But that can be hard to keep in mind. I am so sorry for the family, and for the driver as well.
The city has bike zealots who want everyone to ride bikes. They encourage students to ride bikes, they should take some of the blame. Look at all the bike routes and crazy islands and arrow painting, bike logo painting on the streets. Ross Road has islands that push bikes into the middle of the street. They even have a bike route logo painted on the street of East Bayshore on the way to the Main Post Office, one of the most dangerous places to ride a bike with commuters turning from Embarcadero Road to East Bayshore to go to the Dumbarton Bridge. Back in the 70s and 80s, there were virtually no cars on the road and bike riding was safe. Now, there are too many commuters cutting through our city, it’s too dangerous to ride a bike. Commuters are constantly running red lights on Embarcadero and Oregon Expressway and there is no enforcement. High school students riding to Gunn ride on a busy street and have to cross El Camino, Paly students ride on Churchill, have to cross Alma. It’s amazing there aren’t more bike deaths. Bike vs. auto, auto always wins. This is such a disturbing and tragic accident. The city doesn’t care about our children or they would offer buses or close Churchill to cars.
This is heart breaking news. I’m so sorry for everyone involved.
An accident like this effects so many… the boy’s family and friends. The truck driver. The bystanders. Lastly, the first responders who worked on the boy.
Truly sad to read this…this boy had his whole life ahead of him… And yet, will anything change with the congestion on El Camino? Probably not..
Because of campers parked on a very congested El Camino Real, HWY 82 in Palo Alto, VTA buses, trucks, etc. need to drive in 2 lanes to pass the campers. This is a hazard for kids/adults on bikes, other drivers on congested El Camino Real in Palo Alto do not have room to drive/ride a bike. The stretch of El Camino Real from Los Robles Ave past Maybell Ave, Palo Alto, is another location for an accident waiting to happen, especially with the schools in the area, kids biking. In addition, the road is full of very large pot holes with all the construction trucks and the city/state has not repaved this road in decades.
The buses need to drive in 2 lanes to get past the campers parked on El Camino Real, in South Palo Alto. Since early January 2020, the same campers have parked in the same location on El Camino Real in South Palo Alto, preventing viability for intersections.
The City of Palo Alto and Police leave these campers parked for weeks and months at a time in the same location, even though the city ordinance is 72 hour parking. When is a dedicated location going to be found to house these campers?
@Chris: The illegal campers squatting on El Camino are indeed a safety and health hazard. However, not at the intersection of El Camino and California.
This seems like it was probably a large truck with poor right-side visibility turning right, on a dark night, and hitting a kid riding straight ahead. The solution would be to increase the lighting at that intersection, or eliminate the right turn on red, or prohibit trucks on California Ave.
A couple of months ago I attended a bicycle safety class with my son. Organized by the Palo Alto police department. He had been given a ticket for riding without a helmet. It was two hours of traffic rules, safety education that ended with a short documentary of a young man who suffered a head injury while snowboarding. The message from the two officers was clear to the kids. Please wear your helmets, know the traffic rules, have lights ( it is required by the California vehicle code) wear reflecting clothing, or at least not all black particularly at night, make eye contact, be predictable. As parents we need to teach this skills to our kids. But as drivers we need to exercise more caution while driving. When the officers showed photos of real bike collisions. And how he had to tell the parents of a young man that he was in the hospital and he might not make it. The whole room full of “cool high school kids” was dead silent. It became evident how serious the situation was. I’m glad I attended and my kid has been more careful while biking after that day. I hope us drivers and parents do our part in making this town safer for children.
@Tsk it’s not biking that needs to be discorouged! For starters, not everyone has the ability to commute in a different fashion. Furthermore, it should be bike safety that needs to be emphasized. When there are many car accidents, we shouldn’t tell people to not use cars, but instead tell them how to be more safe. This is a really sad and terrible event, but we must think about the actual root of a problem rather than the direct implications. RIP
I posted this on Nextdoor so will use my name.
If you want to talk about bike safety then let’s talk about bike education in school. This is what I went through as a child in my school.
Thank you for the reminder of bike safety classes. When I was a child we did bicycle proficiency classes, I think part of the PE curriculum. The lessons were each week about 30 minutes for many weeks with a test at the end. For the first couple of weeks we were not even on bikes, but walking around the lines in the playground as if we were on bikes learning how to do hand signals (hold arms out straight at shoulder height and count to 3 before lowering arm and then turning) and to do it before changing lane as well as turning as well as looking over our shoulders before turning. We also were taught to mount and dismount our bikes away from the traffic so that if we wobbled we would not wobble into traffic but into the kerb. We were taught about the necessity of bells and when to use them, and taught about bike lights. We had to learn road signs and traffic lights. All this before we actually got onto the bike. Then we had several weeks learning on the bike.From memory, I don’t think we were allowed to ride our bikes to school until we had passed the proficiency test. We were also not allowed to ride bikes on school grounds, the campus, but to walk them from the school gate to the bicycle shed. All these rules stick in my mind. I don’t think my offspring learnt anything like that here.
Sam, it’s not always the victim’s fault, that’s insensitive of you to even say that. I have had children in PAUSD for two decades. The cars are also at fault, they run red lights, roll through stop signs, text while driving. A student got hit on Embarcadero Rd while in the crosswalk on a green light crossing to Town & Country. Driver ran the red and hit her in 2017. The ped/bike accidents are not publicized. I have heard of many bike accidents!
Out of respect for this family sclise this now.
While I would never blame the victim here, I just want to reiterate the importance of making yourself as VISIBLE AS POSSIBLE when riding, whether you think it’s dark out or not. In addition to standard bike lights (headlight and red taillight) I have done things like wrap the bike body with a string of battery-operated fairy lights (tiny LED holiday decorating lights) with sequential flashing colors, . These can be made to look cool, not just safety-oriented, so kids may be more enthusiastic about them. Anything that draws attention actively, though you also don’t want to be too distracting or so bright it blinds drivers — that’s why the fairy lights are perfect, it doesn’t depend on headlights hitting at the right angle like reflectors do, but the total light output is minimal and colored, not white; it’s something unusual and constantly changing in the field of vision, and visible from all angles as opposed to head and taillights.
This is so sad, but hopefully it can spark more strategizing on how to maximize visibility of cyclists, which is a huge factor in these kinds of accidents.
What is is wrong with whose idea of mixing vehicles and bikes?
U r deleting too many posts.
Somewhere in our city a family is suffering an unimaginable loss. I read through some of these comments and I just see coldhearted, distant, blank faces of strangers. Can we all just take a moment to have some heart? Save your bike policy suggestions for the next city meeting. Think of this family in this awful moment and think of the tragic loss of this young child.
Not sure if this related but I see a lot of kids, especially middle school kids, riding their bikes on the sidewalks. I think this should be discouraged. It is really not safe. There are plenty of high quality bike lanes that are generally in areas of less traffic and cars may usually have other bikers on them. Also, there have been many cases where the sidewalk biker was going too fast and collided with pedestrians. When my sons start biking I will definitely encourage them to bike in proper bike lanes with reflective coating.
This is sad and tragic, and I feel bad for everyone involved. As far as online comments to comfort the family, the comments section of a news site isn’t the place to seek solace. That’s what family, friends and place of worship are for. This is an online forum, not an obituary. If you want to express condolences – fine, but not everyone can attend a city meeting to discuss bike policies, nor do they want to.
Making yourself visible (on a bike or a pedestrian) is so important, especially at night. Better lighting and no turn on red makes sense. No turn on red should be more common than it is. It prevent accidents and tragedies like this.