A motorcycle and a sedan crashed on Southwest 13th Street Tuesday night, and the motorcyclist died at the hospital from injuries.
Imanual Lopez, 24, was driving north on Southwest 13th Street on a black motorcycle and a white sedan, driven by Mary Sowich, 18, was headed south and tried turning left into Bivens Cove apartment complex, located at 3301 SW 13th St., at about 6:30 p.m., Gainesville Police Sgt. Tony Ferro said. The car drove in front of Lopez, and he crashed into it, Officer Ben Tobias, a GPD spokesperson, wrote in an email.
Both drivers were taken to UF Health Shands Hospital. Lopez was in serious condition, and Sowich had non-life threatening injuries, Ferro said.
Pieces of debris from the motorcycle covered Southwest 13th Street as GPD investigated. Traffic was blocked from Southwest 14th Drive to Southwest 36th Place for about two hours.
Tobias said the investigation is ongoing and could take months to complete.
Friends of Lopez commented on a post he shared on Facebook Tuesday morning.
“That moment when you want to just hop on your motorcycle and just go for a long drive for the day but you can't cause you got to work,” he posted.
Members of the Gainesville Sportbike Rider organization came to the scene to see the condition of the motorcyclist.
Jessie Converse, an unofficial member of the group, said he and other members of the group try to respond to motorcycle crashes to see who was involved and let the person’s family know what happened.
“Motorcycles are cars. We have the same rights as any other vehicles,” Converse said. “We’re smaller. We have less protection than cars. Look for us twice.”
Contact Robert Lewis at rlewis@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter at @Lewis__Robert.
