Cris Barrish, and Melissa Nann Burke

WIL

The clock was ticking toward midnight Friday when Johanna Bishop of Hockessin began worrying for her son Phillip's safety.

The 27-year-old supervisor at PureBread deli in Greenville usually rode his bicycle home from work, and should have arrived before 9 p.m.

As she was about to grab her keys to drive around and look for him, she heard a knock at the front door.

"I thought it was Phillip and I was thinking, 'Thank God,' " Bishop said from her living room Saturday in Stuyvesant Hills in Hockessin. "So I ran down and opened the door and I saw the policemen there.

"They told me there'd been an accident and it was a hit-and-run and Phillip didn't make it. The world changed in just a split second.''

A passerby had found Phillip Bishop, gravely wounded and unresponsive, at 8:45 p.m. on winding, narrow Brackenville Road near Horseshoe Hill Road, police said Saturday. He was pronounced dead at the scene, less than a mile from his home.

Phillips was southbound on Brackenville when he was hit by the northbound driver who fled, New Castle County police said. They would not say whether they believe it was a head-on collision or discuss other details of the ongoing investigation, said Sgt. Jacob Andrews, county police spokesman.

Based on evidence found at the scene, Jacobs said authorities think the car that struck him was a black Audi A4 or S4, possibly a 2002-2004 model. Police ask anyone with information to call them at (302) 573-2800 or provide tips at ww.nccpd.com.

Bishop was the 87th traffic death, and the second cyclist fatality, on Delaware roads this year, state records show. The other cycling fatality occurred about 8:30 p.m. on July 26, when police said a 44-year-old man was struck by a drunken driver who was speeding on Del. 273 near Ruthar Drive in Ogletown.

Concern for cyclists

Bishop's death spurred many in Delaware's cycling community to take to social media to condemn the driver who killed him and fled the scene.

Several urged cyclists to exercise special caution, noting that many drivers speed on back roads in northern New Castle County and that narrow roads such as Brackenville lack shoulders or bicycle-friendly features such as special lanes.

Mike Dienno, who worked with Bishop at PureBread, urged the motorist "to turn yourself in now. You had an accident. Now you got to own up to it.''

Bishop's father, Ed, a retired chemist who teaches a course in ethics at Wilmington University, said the driver should have stopped and checked on the person he hit, then called 911.

"It was probably a young kid and he panicked,'' he said. "I would hope they have a conscience and come forward. But from a personal standpoint, I get no satisfaction because it's not going to bring Phillip back."

At the crash scene Saturday afternoon, a bouquet of yellow flowers sat a few feet off the road, which was dotted by reddish police chalk from the investigation.

James Wilson, executive director of the advocacy group Bike Delaware, said the death of any cyclist or pedestrian on the highway is tragic.

"The problem for bicyclists and pedestrians is the consequence of a brief moment of distraction, or a mistake in judgment, is that people die," Wilson said. "In any other kind of engineered system, that kind of level of frailty would be professional incompetence. But that's the way we've set up our roads."

The issue of bicycle safety was discussed last week by U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. Speaking at a conference in Pittsburgh, Foxx pledged his agency would re-examine policies and practices that have unintentionally resulted in road designs that "shut out" people on foot or bicycles.

The new national initiative, which includes an educational component targeting motorists, aims to reverse a recent rise in deaths and injuries among pedestrians and cyclists.

"We can't just tell pedestrians and bicyclists, 'Be safe,' without recognizing that in many places there is no safe space for them to be," Foxx wrote later on his blog.

Bishop's mother, an administrator at Wilmington University, said her son was a safety-conscious cyclist who took extra precautions on back roads, and even had lights on his backpack so approaching traffic could spot him at night. Bishop often rode his bicycle on the back roads to and from the deli about five miles away, she said.

"He was very, very well lit,'' she said. "There's no way you wouldn't see him. There's no reason for him to get hit.''

Police said that when they found Bishop, he was wearing his helmet with a head lamp, with a flash light and rear flashing red marker light on his bicycle.

An employer's praise

While they mourned Bishop's tragic death Saturday, his family, friends and co-workers celebrated the life of a man who loved nature and people.

A 2004 graduate of Salesianum School, he studied environmental sciences at the University of Delaware and recently was taking classes at Wilmington University. Asked recently by his mother what he was going to do with his life, he said he wanted to be a science teacher, inspired by his younger sister, Lili, who teaches high school English.

The third of four children, Bishop and sisters Lili and Sophia took a hiking trip this summer out West, spending time at Olympic National Park in Washington state and in the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.

At PureBread, where he had worked for three years, he was a night supervisor who served as barista, counter worker, cook and counted the money. He also was known as an employee who took genuine interest in his fellow workers and the customers.

"He was the most beautiful soul I've ever met,'' PureBread owner Michael P. Nardozzi said. "He made a new definition of listening. He was totally compassionate about everything you were talking about, whether it was the weather or education or the earth or biking.

"At every orientation I give to new employees I talk about Phil and how he speaks to your soul. He was the gentlest, kindest human being.''

Staff reporters Melissa Burke and Esteban Parra contributed. Contact Cris Barrish at (302) 324-2785, cbarrish@delawareonline.com or on Facebook. Contact Melissa Nann Burke at (302) 324-2329, mburke@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @nannburke.