HOLLAND, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) – The funeral for a 20-year-old Holland area cyclist killed after being struck by a vehicle last week is today.
Family and friends of Johnathan Herlein will meet in New Richmond Baptist Church for an 11 AM service. According to the Holland Department of Public Safety, he was pedaling southbound in a lane of traffic on Waverly Road between East 24th Street and East 32nd Street shortly before 5 AM last Wednesday when he was hit by a southbound car, whose driver called 911 immediately. A second vehicle, believed to be a white SUV, may have also hit the victim; that vehicle and its driver are still reportedly at large.
The Michigan Ghostbikes group has placed a white bicycle, symbolic of the death of a cyclist, near the spot where Herlein was struck. It was the second fatal incident involving a motor vehicle and a bicyclist on Holland’s east side in a four week span; Yen Ngo, an 18-year-old college student from the Quad Cities area visiting the Tulip City, died when she apparently pedaled against a red light while trying to cross a darkened US-31 at East 16th Street on December 18th and was struck by a SUV driving through the intersection on a green light.