A 44-year-old Cathedral City man died after being struck by a car on Monday, Jan. 27.
The driver of a sedan traveling westbound struck Guadalupe Arrez as he walked from the southside of Ramon Road to the northside between Sky Blue Water Trail and Avenida El Mundo at about 7:40 p.m.
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Authorities pronounced Arrez dead at the scene.
The driver pulled over and has been cooperating with investigators. It is not believed that speed, drugs or alcohol were involved in the accident.
Police closed the road until around 1 a.m. during the investigation.
A Go Fund Me page has been set up for Arrez, the man known as “Silent.”
This area is a noted dangerous area of Ramon Road for pedestrians and numerous people have been hit by cars over several years. Four pedestrians died on Ramon Road in Cathedral City in 2018.
This is Coachella Valley’s second pedestrian fatality this year. There were 19 pedestrian deaths in 2018, 23 in 2019.
In 2017, nearly 6,000 pedestrians died in traffic accidents, and on average, that is one pedestrian every 88 minutes, or more than 16 people a day. Most of the pedestrian fatalities, 73 percent, did not occur at intersections, and most happened in the dark. Winter evenings seem to be one of the deadliest times for pedestrians. More than one-third of the deaths occurred in December, January and February, in a given year, between 6 p.m. and 8:59 p.m.
In California alone, there were 858 pedestrian fatalities in 2017, the highest in the US that year.