The driver of a moped was killed Wednesday afternoon in an accident on State Road involving a moped and a truck. The accident took place two days before the Fourth of July holiday as the Island was beginning to fill with people and traffic.
It was one of those sunlit, breezy exquisite Monday afternoons driving down State Road in light traffic from up-Island near Lambert’s Cove Road in West Tisbury. Through my windscreen I observed four rather burly young guys approaching me from Vineyard Haven on their obviously rented mopeds.
A New Jersey man was med-flighted to a Boston area hospital Friday after being injured when the moped he was operating collided with a Jeep on State Road in West Tisbury, police said.
According to a police report, Robert Czech, 47, of Clifton, N.J., sustained injuries after being ejected from his moped. His passenger, Emily McDonald, 25, of New York, N.Y., was also injured and taken to the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, West Tisbury police Cpl. Garrison Vieira said Friday.
All-Island Selectmen Association Hears Emotional Appeal
To Pressure Boston to End Carnage on Island Roads
By JOSHUA SABATINI
After listening to a presentation by Sam Feldman of the Mopeds Are
Dangerous Committee, the All-Island Selectmen Association unanimously
decided to support legislation that would require a motorcycle license
to rent a moped.
Just five days after a moped accident in Oak Bluffs killed a
Virginia woman, another accident yesterday in Edgartown has left
a 60-year-old moped rider from Florida in critical condition
with severe head injuries.
Oak Bluffs selectman Todd Rebello this week all but admitted that town officials have done a lousy job making moped dealers abide by town regulations, and selectmen agreed Tuesday night to improve local enforcement.
Convinced there's no way to make rental mopeds safe on the Vineyard, Oak Bluffs selectmen this week threw their support behind proposed state legislation that would require anyone renting a moped to have a motorcycle license.
Two middle school teachers from Florida, Judy and Barnard Lorence, should be back in their classrooms getting ready for a new school year, but there's no chance of that now.
Operators of rented mopeds suffered two serious accidents this week on the same stretch of Seaview avenue near Lola's Restaurant in Oak Bluffs. In both accidents, moped operators lost control, crossed the center line and crashed into oncoming auto traffic.
There's money to be made in moped rentals on Martha's Vineyard, but just a handful of people are counting the cash - seven shop owners and four landlords, to be exact.
