PORT ANGELES — A 25-year-old Kent man was killed on U.S. Highway 101 early Wednesday morning when his motorcycle crashed near Mount Pleasant Road.
Joshua David Beck died at Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles at 1:54 a.m., about 45 minutes after he apparently drove off the highway while speeding and crashed, the Washington State Patrol reported.
The wreck comes less than two weeks after a woman of Beck’s age was killed seven miles east of Mount Pleasant Road in the year’s first Highway 101 traffic death.
And it came hours after organizers of the Driving 101 Traffic Safety Project convened to discuss continuing efforts to improve safety and reduce collisions on the highway.
If the cause of the crash was “something we could get out there and fix, we would be on it in a heartbeat with [the state Department of Transportation],” State Trooper Brian George, the patrol’s public information officer, said Wednesday afternoon.
“Our goal is to make the roadway safe.”
Why cycle left the road
Troopers are still investigating what caused Beck to crash on his 2003 CBR600RR Honda sportbike, George said.
Beck, who was wearing a helmet, was driving at high speed eastbound on the highway just east of Mount Pleasant Road when the motorcycle left the road to the south.
Beck was thrown off his bike. He struck and passed through a 4-inch by 4-inch signpost and three small wooden fence posts before he and the bike came to rest against a nearby building, the State Patrol reported.
No one else was involved in the collision.