Rich Broome was riding his regular route near Country Diero Drive and Hualapai Way in Summerlin when a driver making a left turn cut directly into his path. The impact fractured his vertebra and left the woman behind the wheel nowhere to be found, since she fled the scene without stopping to help.
Broome, who has cycled for more than 13 years, said he saw the danger coming just seconds too late. “All of a sudden realized that the car coming the other way was turning into me, not going straight or waiting for me,” he said, describing the moment the driver turned into him instead of yielding, according to KTNV. He described the vehicle as a boxy red car with a distinct front grille, a detail he hopes jogs someone's memory.
His partner, Kristine Mastrodonato, wasn't with him when it happened, but she found out almost instantly. Broome's crash-detection gear picked up the impact and automatically fired off an alert with his location, and she rushed to the scene. “I was shocked,” she said. Devices like his rely on built-in accelerometers to sense sudden deceleration and immediately relay GPS coordinates to a pre-selected emergency contact, according to Garmin, a safety net that depends on the rider having programmed contacts in advance and an active cellular signal.
A Plea for the Driver to Step Forward
Broome and Mastrodonato filed a police report and are now urging the driver, described only as a woman, to come forward. “Turn yourself in,” Mastrodonato said. Broome said he hopes his story reminds drivers to stay alert when sharing the road with cyclists, noting the stark mismatch in what's at stake for each side of a collision like his: a roughly fifteen-pound, fully exposed bike against a two-ton vehicle.
Under Nevada law, leaving the scene of a crash that causes injury is a Category B felony, carrying two to 20 years in prison and fines between $2,000 and $5,000, with no option for probation, per Justia Law. Nevada statute also requires drivers turning left to yield to oncoming traffic close enough to pose a collision hazard, and requires drivers passing cyclists to move over or keep at least three feet of clearance. Broome's account matches the fact pattern the law is built to prevent: a left-turning driver failing to yield to an oncoming rider.
Recovery Ahead, With Surgery Possibly Looming
Broome said he could need surgery in the near future to address his injury. In the meantime, he's been forced away from the activity that structures his days. “I need activity desperately to feel whole,” he said. Cycling isn't a casual pastime for him; it's central to how he stays healthy and grounded, which makes the forced pause especially hard.
Part of a Larger Pattern on Local Roads
Broome's case lands amid a documented surge in hit-and-run reports across the valley. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department logged 2,796 hit-and-run crash reports through early June 2026, a 61.9 percent jump over the 1,727 reports filed in the same stretch of 2025, according to KSNV News 3 Las Vegas. Police have attributed part of that rise to an October 2025 state law that broadened hit-and-run investigations to cover crashes on publicly accessible private property.
Even before that surge, clearing these cases was difficult. In 2025, LVMPD investigated 4,634 hit-and-run crashes and closed only about 23 percent of them through citation or arrest, according to the De Castroverde Law Group. Investigators point to a lack of license plate information or video footage as the biggest obstacles, which is part of why Broome and Mastrodonato are making their appeal for witnesses public.
Southern Nevada's roads have long carried an outsized share of the state's bicycle deaths. Nevada Department of Transportation data cited by People Powered Movement shows that 34 of the state's 41 bicyclist fatalities between 2015 and 2019, or about 83 percent, happened in Clark County. That statistic sits alongside broader improvement: Clark County recorded 239 traffic fatalities in 2025, a 19 percent drop from 296 the year before, and logged 92 traffic deaths in the first half of 2026 compared to 137 during the same period in 2025, per reporting referenced by the Nevada Independent.
Summerlin itself has invested heavily in cycling infrastructure, with a community trail network exceeding 200 miles connecting residential areas to corridors like Hualapai Way, according to the community's official site. Clark County has also broken ground on Phase 1 of the 19-mile Red Rock Legacy Trail, a paved path meant to separate cyclists and pedestrians from vehicle traffic near State Route 159. For Broome, none of that infrastructure was on the stretch of road where he was hit — leaving him, for now, still waiting for the woman who turned into him to come forward.
