'An incredible future ahead of him': Memorial ride held for cyclist killed in Vancouver crash
A memorial ride was held Sunday for a man killed while cycling in downtown Vancouver.
Twenty-eight-year-old Agustin Beltran, originally from Mexico, and a PhD student at the University of British Columbia, died after being struck by a dump truck at the intersection of Pacific and Hornby streets Wednesday morning.
Friends, family and members of the cycling community gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery Sunday before riding over to a growing memorial at the crash scene.
“I’m just here as a fellow cyclist. It just saddens me that things like this can happen,” said Dara Poon.
Vancouver police are continuing to investigate the crash. Authorities said the driver has been co-operating with their investigation, and they do not believe speed or impairment were factors in the collision.
A damaged blue and black bicycle could be seen underneath the wheels of the dump truck in the aftermath of the crash.
"It's just a terrible loss,” said Thomas Davidoff, an Associate Professor at the UBC Sauder School of Business who said he had just hired Beltran as a research assistant.
"I was supposed to meet him in person, I had met him on Zoom, and 90 minutes before I was going to have the chance to meet him, I learned that he had passed away in this horrible accident,” Davidoff said.
Several cyclists in attendance said that intersection has become increasingly dangerous in recent years.
“It’s a bad intersection, There’s still issues with cars coming off the bridge and turning on to Hornby,” said Claude Brunelle, who lives nearby.
"I see a lot of cyclists going through there, they more or less have the right of way, but I've seen a few close calls at that corner.”.
The group of around 100 people held a moment of silence at the memorial, before a lengthy round of applause broke out.
A memorial ride was also held in Beltran’s home town of Mexico City Sunday.
"He was a really smart guy, I think he was a really nice guy, very professional hard-working. He had such an incredible future ahead of him,” Davidoff said
“It just got ended in an accident that never should have happened,”
With files from CTV News Vancouver’s Tahmina Aziz and Andrew Weichel.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
Competition bureau finds 'substantial' anti-competitive effects with proposed Bunge-Viterra merger
The proposed merger of agricultural giants Viterra and Bunge is raising competition concerns from the federal government.
Douglas DC-4 plane with 2 people on board crashes into river outside Fairbanks, Alaska
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.
BREAKING Mounties will not be charged in shooting death of B.C. Indigenous man
Three Mounties in British Columbia will not face charges in the killing of a 38-year-old Indigenous man on Vancouver Island in 2021.
Canada's favourite sport to watch is hockey, survey shows
The 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs have already delivered a fever level of fan excitement in Canada.
'It's just so hard to let it go': Umar Zameer still haunted by death of Toronto police officer
“It's just so hard to let it go. I mean, everyone is telling me, ‘you have to move on,’ but I know someone is not here [anymore]. So I don't know how I will move on." That’s what Umar Zameer, the man recently acquitted in the death of a Toronto police officer, told CTV News Toronto in a sit-down interview on Tuesday.