If you often drive from Sag Harbor across the bridge to North Haven, odds are you have passed the artist April Gornik, who walks that stretch of Route 114 most days. The walk is usually uneventful. Last winter when the road was being repaved, she commented on a stretch she most delighted in: “There’s a little patch of piney woods I love. There is gorgeous fall color.”
The walk she took on Oct. 25 was not uneventful. At about 1:30 p.m., as she and her husband, Eric Fischl, were about to turn right from 114 onto Fresh Pond Road, Ms. Gornik was struck from behind, on her shoulder, by the passenger-side mirror of a pickup truck, which then sped by.
“It was a bright cobalt blue, midsize pickup truck,” said Mr. Fischl, also a noted artist. “I checked the Ford website, and it came closest to something they call ‘velocity blue.’ ” He was not sure of the vehicle’s make, however, and was unable to get the license plate number.
“We were right in front of Peerless Marina. That’s one of the safest places, because the marina parking lot provides extra space,” said Ms. Gornik. “We were past the outside part of the bike lane, walking next to each other. Eric was basically in the lot.”
“The truck hit her from behind and in such a way that she didn’t touch me on the way down,” said Mr. Fischl. “It sounded like the truck hit a tree. It happened so instantaneously; it was like she got shot.”
“The truck hit me, I spun and went down. His side-view mirror broke off completely from the impact,” said Ms. Gornik.
“The driver didn’t hesitate. They would have known they hit something. They didn’t even tap their brakes,” said Mr. Fischl. “Someone was either looking at their phone, or they were impaired. They didn’t swerve back quickly onto the road. They just kept their same trajectory of the curve without adjusting. It was surreal.”
The truck fled the scene, continuing northwest on Route 114.
Ms. Gornik did not lose consciousness. Men working at Peerless Marina put cushions under her head while Mr. Fischl called 911.
Austin J. McGuire, Sag Harbor Village Chief of Police, was one of the first to arrive. Just last week, he and Ms. Gornik had posed together for a photo about the Easter fire at the Sag Harbor Cinema.
“I always try to lighten the mood, especially when someone is lying on their back on a state highway,” Mr. McGuire said. “It’s a small village, and you never know who or what you’re going to find. I told her, don’t get up on my account, and she smiled. I breathed a sigh of relief then. I knew she’d be okay eventually.”
“We don’t have a speeding issue here as much as a volume issue,” the chief added. A traffic counter installed near St. Andrew’s Church on 114 counted 76,867 passing cars during a single week this past August.
Ms. Gornik was taken by ambulance to Southampton Stony Brook Hospital, where she underwent surgery for a broken elbow. The doctors think the break came not from the impact of the mirror on her shoulder, but from her elbow hitting the pavement.
“They put in a plate and screws. It will be three weeks before the splint comes off and then I’ll do physical therapy.” At least it hadn’t happened to her painting arm, Ms. Gornik said. She couldn’t even remember the last time she hadn’t been able to paint for weeks on end.
Last winter, Route 114 was repaved for the first time since 2005. Aside from Route 27, it has had more fatalities than any other South Fork road east of the Shinnecock Canal. When it was repaved, Assemblyman Fred Thiele and Jeff Sander, a past mayor of North Haven, asked Albany to conduct a study to see if lowering the speed limit would improve safety.
The state concluded that the speed limit did not need to be changed.
When the road was repaved, Mr. Thiele said, “the travel lanes were narrowed to slow traffic, and the width of the pavement markings was increased to change the look of the road and slow traffic.” Also, rather than a single line separating Route 114 from the bike lane, an additional line, about six inches apart, was added.
Chris Fiore was elected mayor of North Haven on June 21. Before he became mayor, he was a village trustee. He and Mr. Sander spoke with Richard Causin, regional director of the State Department of Transportation, requesting a reduction of the speed limit on Route 114 to 35 miles per hour; it is now 40 m.p.h.
“Mr. Causin told us they had done a speed study on that stretch of 114 [where Ms. Gornik was hit], and determined the average speed to be 47 m.p.h. He told us that number did not require a lowered speed limit,” said Mr. Fiore in an email.
“We brought up the fact that there is a plethora of heavy trucks traversing that stretch daily, especially during the morning rush, and then throughout the day. When a 60,000-pound cement truck passes you at 47 miles per hour, it is frightening.”
“The D.O.T. has agreed to do another speed study this coming spring to consider reducing the speed limit,” said Mr. Thiele. “They wanted to do the study after the pavement changes were in effect for a while.”
“A 35-m.p.h. speed limit on the entire stretch of road is my goal,” said Mr. Fiore. He has also asked the Southampton Town Police Department for “more vigilance and more attention to speed violators,” he said. “The speed violators are daily threats to our pedestrian safety.”
Ms. Gornik’s accident “would have had a much more terrible outcome if that truck had been 12 inches closer to the victim. I’m hoping this time, the D.O.T. will pay more attention,” Mr. Fiore said.
The bright blue midsize pickup truck with a missing passenger-side mirror has yet to be found. Susan Ralph of the Southampton Town police would say only that an investigation is continuing.
“I find myself looking at every blue truck now, said Mr. Fischl. “That color was distinctive.”
