July 13th, 2006 by R.J.

A 21-year old man riding a 2006 Kawasaki sportbike was pronounced dead at about 2pm on Wednesday.

Chad S. Linton, of Solvang, CA, was riding his brand new motorcycle along Alamo Pintado Rd. when he crossed over the double-yellow line, lost control of his bike, and crashed. As he lay in the road he was struck by an oncoming SUV. Linton was ran over, pinned underneath the SUV, and died at the scene.

The section of road where the crash occured is straight and relatively wide. There are no intersections and there were no other vehicles involved in the accident. Linton did not have his M1 endorsement. I believe the CHP are going to attribute the cause of the crash to rider inexperience.

The thing that bugs me is that the lady driving the Explorer that killed Linton said she had only caught a glimpse of him for a second before she hit him. I just don’t see how that’s possible… Bike accidents are pretty noticeable, they leave debris and dirt everywhere. They even explode or smoke sometimes. And bodies laying in the road are also pretty noticeable… Was she on her phone? Doing her makeup? Nobody really knows…

The fact that she wasn’t able to stop in time and only had a second to see Chad before she hit him tells me what she wasn’t paying attention or traveling much too fast for the road. I highly doubt they are going to bring any charges against her, though.

Whatever the case may be, we’ve lost another rider due to lack of skill and (probably) a cager not paying attenton…