Cyclist killed on familiar route in Oak Creek

About 6 p.m. Sunday, Sam Ferrito told his wife he was heading out for a bike ride on his "south route," the eight-mile ride from his home in Oak Creek toward the Root River Parkway.

She expected him back soon, but instead learned hours later that he had been struck by a car and killed, almost instantly, on Nicholson Rd., about 100 feet north of the county's southern border.

The details of how the crash happened are sparse in the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's report.

Ferrito, 56, was traveling southbound and was hit from behind by a car traveling the same direction. The report raises the suggestion that Ferrito made an abrupt move into the path of the car but describes that scenario as an assumption.

The driver, an 18-year-old man, was quite shaken and could not recall the details of the crash, according to the report.

Detectives from the Oak Creek Police Department are investigating.

Marcia Ferrito described her husband as an avid cyclist who did not wear a helmet on his rides. He has two children.

On his blog "Over the Bars in Wisconsin," Dave Schlabowske describes the area of the crash and the lack of a bike lane or paved shoulder on what is a connection to different segments of the Oak Leaf Trail.