Driver who crashed van into German cyclists on Route 66, killing them, won’t be charged

The driver of a minivan who crashed into two German bicyclists on a Route 66 ride won’t face criminal charges, Kansas officials said.

Heinz Gerd Buchel, 71, and Harry Jung, 74, were riding their bicycles westbound in the right lane of Kansas Highway 66 about 2 miles west of Galena, a Kansas Highway Patrol crash report states. Alyssa Parker, 23, of Shawnee was also westbound in her Chrysler Town and Country when at around 11 a.m. on May 8 she crashed into two cyclists from behind, KHP said.

Buchel of Bad Nauheim, Germany, and Jung of Steinfurth, Germany, were pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the van was uninjured.

Parker will not be charged in the crash after Cherokee County Attorney Jacob Conard determined there was insufficient evidence to support criminal charges.

“The investigation provides no reason to believe Ms. Parker was under the influence of drugs or alcohol or was otherwise operating the vehicle in a reckless or dangerous manner,” Conard wrote in a letter to the Highway Patrol.

Buchel and Jung were experienced cyclists on a 4,000-kilometer bike ride along Route 66, reported the Frankfurter Neue Presse, a Germany newspaper. The pair flew into Chicago and planned to fly back to Germany 59 days later.

The men were following cycling laws when they were hit, the Joplin Globe reported after the crash.

The state troopers’ investigation included interviewing five eyewitnesses, conducting a forensic analysis of the scene and retrieving the van’s crash recorder module, Conard’s letter says. It cites Kansas statutes for vehicular homicide and voluntary manslaughter.

Vehicular homicide requires evidence that the driver operated a vehicle “manner which creates an unreasonable risk of injury to the person or property of another and which constitutes a material deviation from the standard of care which a reasonable person would observe under the same circumstances.” Conard said “material deviation” is “conduct amounting to more than simple or ordinary negligence, but less than gross negligence.”

Voluntary manslaughter “requires more evidence of criminal culpability, requiring evidence the death was caused by ‘reckless’ conduct,” Conard said. “To prove an individual acted recklessly, the State must have evidence to show the defendant ‘consciously disregard(ed) a substantial and unjustifiable risk.’ ”

Conard asked the Highway Patrol to keep its reports and records in case the families of the cyclists sue the driver.

“I offer no opinion as to whether Ms. Parker’s conduct would constitute negligence for the purposes of a civil proceeding, in which the burden of proof is substantially reduced,” he said.

Two cyclists have been killed in western Kansas crashes in the same cross country race the last two years.

John Egbers, 64, of St. Cloud, Minnesota, was riding a bicycle eastbound on Kansas Highway 96 in Wichita County west of Scott City on June 14 when a car ran into him from behind, the Highway Patrol said in a crash report. Egbers was taken to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita. He died last month when his heart stop beating, family said.

He was competing in the Trans Am Bike Race, a 4,300-mile bicycle race from Oregon to Virginia that passes through 10 states.

A bicycle rider competing in last year’s race was killed in a Kansas crash. Eric Fishbein, 61, of San Luis Obispo, California, was killed when he was hit from behind by a car while riding on K-96 east of Leoti, The Eagle reported in June 2017.

That’s the same 24-mile stretch of the highway between Leoti and Scott City where Egbers was hit.

This story was originally published August 14, 2018 at 5:11 PM.