APB for car involved in hit and run crash last week

There was a hit and run crash between a car and a cyclist last week and a witness got a partial license plate for the vehicle. 

please be on the lookout for a silver/grey SUV with a MD State “War of 1812″ tag when you are on roads this weekend anywhere near the Laytonsville and broader area. 

The plate number we have is: 2??3956. Again, this is missing the two letters, and at least 1 number is not correct.

Here is a link to examples of the Maryland War of 1812 license plate so you know what to look for. http://bit.ly/1AkQzMQ

Anyone with information on the striking vehicle is asked to call the Montgomery County Police non-emergency number at 301-279-8000.

Here's more details on the crash.

At midday Saturday, Zwally was near the end of a 35-mile ride in Laytonsville on Route 108 when an SUV began to pass him as he crested a hill.

"The silver SUV coming behind me starts gradually moving into me like someone pushing me with their arm. I'm like 'Are you kidding me?' and the next thing I know, WHAM! I'm unconscious in the ditch," Zwally says.

Police say the SUV swerved into the bicyclist to avoid oncoming traffic. Zwally spent a night in the shock trauma unit at Medstar Washington Hospital Center and he has a follow-up appointment Wednesday with a neurosurgeon who will continue tests on his spine.

Zwally, who also suffered a concussion and a sprained foot, has written an open letter to the hit-and-run driver.

"I just want to know what they were thinking. Why couldn't they wait 30 seconds till we had gone over the hill to see if there was traffic coming?" Zwally wonders.

As he begins his recovery, he wonders about the driver who hit him and left him in a ditch.

"Why didn't you stop and help me? Did you think I was dead? Did you give a crap whether I was dead or not? Did you even look in the mirror?" he asks in the letter.

"I doubt you heard the crack of my ribs as my shoulder and head slammed into the ground," he writes. "But maybe you heard the crunch of my bike under your tire."

Despite this, it's cyclists who are terrorists. 

Comments

[John]

Why the heck can't they just search for a plate containing those last four digits? Even if they narrow it down to like 20 cars, it should not be hard to go through them all.

[Bethesda Resident]

I agree with john. Why can't they use this combination as a starting point and then see how many cars come up in the list?

I was passed this morning in a similarly dangerous "blind passing" maneuver. A lady passed me in her black SUV on Goldsboro Road in Bethesda. We were both heading southbound and I was taking the right car lane as the pavement on the right is uneven and dangerous at speed and because there is no bike lane. The lady moved into the left lane and passed me around a blind corner.There was no way for oncoming traffic to see her or for her to see oncoming traffic. If there was oncoming traffic she would not have seen them in time and she would have had to swerve - potentially knocking me off my bike. It's INSANE and I'm super angry about it. I had a cordial conversation with her at the light explaining that her driving was dangerous and she told me to move further right. I told her the pavement condition is too dangerous all the way to the right. She protested at first and later relented that pavement conditions on the right are very bad. She never apologized or acknowledged the obvious fact that her driving was super dangerous - for me. Yet, I'm the terrorist?

It's not just me at risk. I head south on Goldsboro every morning but many mornings during the summer there is a teenage cyclist heading northbound. There is no way for this driver that young girl. Someone would have been hurt because she was too impatient to wait for improved visibility before passing me. I regret not reporting her to MoCo police.

[Bethesda Resident]

Sorry - Glenbrook Road, Not Goldsboro Road. The corner isn't totally "blind" but the trees block the view ahead. There's not enough reaction time to in the left lane.

You can see the location here: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/38.9817373,-77.1075205//@38.981463,-77.107432,17z/data=!4m4!4m3!1m0!1m0!3e0

[T]

They should search the plates. It looks like it occurred right before Johnson's Garden Center/Nursery. Sadly that wouldn't surprise me given the width of the road, hill, and that people never slow down there. Genuinely the man is lucky to be alive.

I don't think it would capture the images quite well enough, but the police should check to see if the library, post office, or synagogue had any footage that may be helpful (the latter I know had cameras following some stupid anti-semitic graffiti many years ago).

[7]

Unfortunately, it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I was riding in Howard County this weekend (crossing 108, not riding on it). It seemed like every fourth vehicle was a grey/silver SUV and quite a large number of them had the War of 1812 plates on it. (also, an inordinate number of Mercedes...things are going well in HoCo...but I digress). Best wishes for a full and speedy recovery to Mr. Zwally.

[washcycle]

T, I'm with you. They were able to track down the Boston bombing suspects with camera footage. Similarly, there was probably enough camera footage in the area to get this driver. Whether that has been recorded over by now is one question (I know from my wife that security footage isn't held onto for very long in most cases). Whether the police have the resources to find it is another.

[Kolo Jezdec]

"Whether the police have the resources to find it is another."

Whether police have the will to find it is the real question...

[Smedley Burkhart]

I believe a cyclist was killed on that stretch of 108 a few years ago. I don't remember if it was a hit and run, but the driver was obviously at fault. One notes that the comments on the victim's first post discuss the fact that he was at the extreme right of the roadway and didn't defend his lane.

Bethesda Resident, I ride that stretch of Glenbrook on the way home every afternoon and the pavement is indeed horrendous. As you know, a contractor is laying water main all up and down that thing and no one should be passing anyone without extreme caution. If you have her tag number I'd phone her in as an aggressive driver.

7, that Merc 450 SUV is the latest addition to my "asshole car" list.

[T]

You're probably right WC that the tapes may be gone and the police don't have resources (or the will, as KJ points out) to figure it out.

I should add that the stretches of road on GA Av (97) and Rt 108 outside of Olney have always had some issues. It doesn't excuse anything, but they're fairly poorly designed. I grew up there and recall seeing probably a dozen accidents in Sunshine off 97 right at the traffic light. The old design of the road would have southbound travelers seeing only the top of the traffic light before they crested the hill at it. After a certain number of accidents, MDOT moved it onto some list to fix and they leveled it out.

The section of 108 where this guy was hit has a rolling hill right before the nursery. I suspect that's where this occurred. It probably doesn't help that it's a 50 mph zone there (unless they have changed it with all of the housing, parks, etc added) and people routinely fly.

[Smedley Burkhart]

Agree with T. I'll defend anyone's right to ride anywhere, but 108 is not a road such as I'd undertake except as part of a pack-o-freds in a fast paceline, especially when the network of small roads to just to the north is so friendly.

[tdcjames]

And by the way, what genius came up with a license plate where the letters are half the size of the numbers? Isn't "being able to identify a tag in traffic" the #1 criterion for any decent design?

[Mike]

@John: I take "at least one number is not correct" to mean that they already tried that and got no hits.