An Iowa driver was sentenced to two days in county jail and a $500 fine Thursday after he hit and paralyzed a Pennsylvania cyclist who was on a cross-country trip for charity.
Jared Fenstermacher, 32, of Mohrsville, Pa., broke bones in both his arms and sustained a serious spinal cord injury that has left him in a wheelchair since the Aug. 11 crash on a rural Plymouth County road.
Michael Vondrak, 30, of Merrill, was charged with operating too close to a cyclist and driving without insurance.
District Associate Judge Robert Dull wrote in his opinion filed Wednesday that though the injuries sustained by the victim were "quite severe and life altering," the court's maximum jail sentence of 30 days, requested by the prosecution, was not appropriate.
"It's hard to compare the punishment of two days in jail to a lifetime of injuries for the cyclist," said Mark Wyatt, executive director of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition. "The driver didn't have insurance, and that's a responsibility the bicyclist has to live with — not only his injuries, but the medical expenses for the rest of his life, versus driver losing freedom for a weekend."
Jail time is rare in cases of drivers hitting and injuring — or even killing — cyclists, a Des Moines Register investigation found. Crash data found that among 22 bicyclists killed in collisions with cars from 2011 to April 2016, only one driver was sentenced to prison time. The most common result was a $250 fine.
Plymouth County prosecutors submitted photographs of Fenstermacher's injuries and called the investigating county sheriff's sergeant to testify during the Dec. 1 court hearing — an atypical move for traffic court.
"Coming into the courtroom that day, I believe (the judge) was wondering why this wasn't just going to be a fine," Darin Raymond, Plymouth County attorney, told the Register on Thursday. "It's not that ordinary — on a traffic ticket — to have a sentencing. ... It did impact the court, and it did mean something."
Vondrak's attorney, Justin Vondrak, did not immediately return a request for comment.
Wyatt hopes the sentence is a signal that courts and law enforcement are taking a closer look at dangerous driving.
"None of the other fatal crashes in 2016 had charges filed. I am hopeful that county attorneys are communicating about this and understand this is something to take seriously," Wyatt said.
Wyatt said the Iowa Bicycle Coalition plans to pursue harsher penalties for texting drivers and safer bicycle passing laws during the upcoming legislative session.
Fenstermacher's family was initially outraged by Iowa's lack of rules protecting cyclists, but they sent a letter to the judge asking him to spare Vondrak jail time, and instead require him to meet with a paralyzed person.
"I don’t really believe sitting in a county jail helps anybody. He’s not a criminal," Lynn Fenstermacher, Jared's mother, said Thursday after hearing about the sentence. "Both of them were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Should he have seen him? Yes. But we can all be distracted."
What they want now is an apology, she said.
"I think we’ve all forgiven him," Lynn Fenstermacher said. "At some point, I would like to see him talk to Jared. I know that would probably make all of us happier than him doing two days in jail."