A driver struck and injured a bicyclist on North Carolina Highway 54 on Thursday evening, with the collision and emergency response temporarily causing delays.
A spokesperson for the Chapel Hill police and fire departments confirmed to Chapelboro that police officers responded at 7:08 p.m. to a reported crash at Burning Tree Drive along Raleigh Road. Upon arrival, officers discovered a driver had struck a bicyclist traveling in the eastbound lanes.
Chapel Hill emergency responders said the cyclist was taken to UNC Hospitals for treatment of injuries that do not appear to be life-threatening. The driver — who was not immediately identified by police — was cited on-scene for a failure to reduce speed and violating a prior license restriction for daytime-only driving.
There is no 2026 data on pedestrian or bicycle collisions on the town’s Vision Zero Dashboard, which tracks such incidents as part of the local government’s goal to “eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2031.” While Thursday night’s collision is the first driver-bicyclist crash of the calendar year, a pedestrian-involved crash was reported on Jan. 21 on Elliott Road near Fordham Boulevard that resulted in non-life-threatening injuries for the pedestrian.
The town spokesperson also confirmed the 2025 data has not been fully updated on the website either. The past calendar year resulted in 14 crashes involving bicyclists, which is down from 16 reported driver-bicyclist crashes in 2024, 21 reported in 2023, and 22 reported in 2022, according to the dashboard.
As of 9 p.m. on Thursday, traffic data indicated vehicles were still slowed on Burning Tree Drive in the aftermath of the crash.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story referenced data shared on the Vision Zero Dashboard from 2025. The story has since been updated to reflect the fact that data was incomplete.
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