Husband of woman killed in Rice-area bicycle accident seeks court order

Sudipta Roy, 30, is pictured with her husband, Ujjal Bhattacharjee. Roy died on April 24, 2018 in a bicycle crash. Sudipta Roy, 30, is pictured with her husband, Ujjal Bhattacharjee. Roy died on April 24, 2018 in a bicycle crash. Photo: Robert Kwok Photo: Robert Kwok Image 1 of / 27 Caption Close Husband of woman killed in Rice-area bicycle accident seeks court order 1 / 27 Back to Gallery

The husband of a woman who died in a fatal bicycle crash near Rice University last month is seeking a temporary restraining order against the trucking company that operated a dump truck involved in the wreck.

Ujjal Bhattacharjee has requested a restraining order on E Cruz Lazo Trucking, prohibiting them from changing, altering or destroying any evidence related to the crash, according to court documents filed on Monday with the Harris County District Clerk.

Lawyers representing the husband said they intend to use evidence preserved through the restraining order and conduct an investigation separate from police, determining who was at fault in the death of Sudipta Roy, 30.

“In the end, our goal in this case is to clear Sudipta’s name,” attorney Rob Kwok said at a news conference Tuesday morning. “This tragedy was not her fault. She did not cause her own death.”

On April 24, Roy was biking onto a crosswalk on Sunset when a dump truck driver turned right from Sunset onto Main, hitting and killing her, police said. She was leaving a lunch date with her husband, who works at the university, Kwok said. Both Roy and the truck driver had green light signals, police said.

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Who was at fault in the crash has already been a point of contention. Police initially said that Roy might have been responsible because bicyclists have to abide by all rules of a motorist. Bicycle safety advocates have pushed against that claim.

Some of the evidence Kwok hopes to preserve includes the dump truck itself, the driver's cell phone and a "black box" data recorder, which could also divulge information such as the speed the truck was traveling. Kwok also asked that the dump truck be temporarily taken out of service.

E Cruz Lazo Trucking could not be reached for comment, as a phone number listed for the company appeared to be disconnected.

Bhattacharjee is in India and wasn't present at the news conference.

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Kwok joined with several of the bicycle advocates at the news conference and said that the Houston Police Department most likely didn’t take into account rules outlined in Texas Transportation Code, which states that operators making a right hand turn have an obligation to yield the right of way to anyone lawfully in the intersection.

Kwok and other attorneys at the meeting said that the police department might have overlooked Houston’s “vulnerable road user” ordinance, which prohibits vehicles from overtaking road users and making a turn in front of them unless there’s a certain amount of distance between them.

Kwok’s team believes that the truck attempted a “right-hook turn," where a vehicle attempts to overtake someone and turn in front of them, Kwok said.

“The investigating officer in this case made a rush to judgment … that somehow this crash was Sudipta’s fault,” Kwok said. “It’s very easy to blame the victim, point the finger at the victim, because the victim is not there to represent himself or herself.”

Representatives with the Houston Police Department declined to comment because the crash is still an ongoing investigation.

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Advocates at the news conference cast some of the blame on the intersection, which has been the site of two fatal bicycle crashes in about 14 months.

Scientist and Rice professor Marjorie Corcoran, 66, also died there on Feb. 3, 2017 when she biked over a set of Metro tracks along Fannin and Sunset and was hit by a crossing light rail train.

Sunset crosses both Fannin and Main, bridging Rice University and Hermann Park. Fannin and Main run parallel to each other and are a short distance apart.

“Both of these women were familiar with what is a very complex, very confusing, very busy intersection that divides two idyllic, people-oriented environments,” said John Long, executive director of bicycle safety group BikeHouston. “You’ve got these two urbane, people-centric environments separated by this dangerous no man’s land that’s designed for motor vehicles and not for people.”

The city of Houston and Houston Metro have been working on a plan to adjust the intersection, although those plans aren’t finalized, officials with both groups said.

Mary Natoli, president of the Rice University Cycling and Triathlon Club, said she and others in her group will continue pushing the city to implement the blueprints made last year.

“All road users are inevitably going to make mistakes,” Natoli said. “We need to engineer our roads to ensure that those mistakes aren’t fatal.”

Roy, who was a nurse, was an “expert cyclist” and appeared to do everything right on the road, Kwok said.

“She was where she was supposed to be,” Kwok said. “She was where she had every legal right to be. And yet, her life was ended prematurely.”