On Thursday morning, February 16th, a female Northwestern senior, Archana Sriram, was riding her bike from her apartment in Rogers Park to Northwestern. A yellow Hummer H3 ran the intersection of Lake and Sherman and hit her. The impact threw her 10 to 15 feet and causing facial fractures, a broken jaw, a hip fracture and a broken leg.
This was an unfortunate accident due to driver carelessness. But it’s what follows next that makes this accident more than ordinary.
Hit and run
The driver did not stop. "(The witness) said that after (the driver) hit me, he just slammed the gas pedal and fled," Sriram told the Daily Northwestern. It is appropriate that the Hummer was yellow. Yellow is the color of cowardice, and there are few things more cowardly than leaving an injured person by the side of the road and driving away.
The Daily Northwestern reported on February 21st that Sriram and her family were frustrated with EPD’s handling of the investigation, saying it is too passive. Sriram said her father went out and talked to witnesses on his own Monday.
"EPD says they can’t look up registered yellow Hummers in the area, only license plates," Sriram said. "Hopefully people can keep their eyes out."
On Tuesday, February 22, the Evanston Police Department issued a statement Tuesday asking the public to help them find the driver of a yellow Hummer H2. The EPD said they could not give an estimate of when the list of yellow Hummers would arrive from the Secretary of State’s office because the office fields many requests from police departments statewide.
By Friday morning, February 24th, 8 days after the accident, the Illinois Secretary of State’s office had still not responded to EPD’s request for yellow Hummers. It has been a bad few decades at the Secretary of State’s office, between Paul Powell’s shoeboxes, license selling at several offices in the late 1970’s, George Ryan’s licenses for bribes scandal in the 1990’s, the recent Sun-Times reports that people whose licenses are suspended are continuing to drive with impunity -- even in and out of the Secretary of State’s parking lots -- and evidently a somewhat lackadaisical attitude toward modern computer database capabilities.
Press conference
Friday morning, February 24th, there was a press conference at the accident site. Randy Neufield of the CBF talked about safe streets initiatives and the need for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians to share. Neal Nye, EBC president, echoed these concerns and noted the importance of good design and good community attitudes. EPD police chief Frank Kaminski repeated the plea for information about suspicious yellow Hummers, thanked those who had given earlier tips, and fielded the expected questions about the slow pace of the Secretary of State’s office in providing information. 
In addition to the media, there were a number of EBC members. Ben Schapiro took this picture. I'm in the green jacket just to the right of the police chief. Neal Nye is fashionably attired in leather and sunglasses, the Budde's are in the background to Neal's left and right. Randy Neufield is in the green fleece on the right.
The Frozen Snot Century riders, headed from Chicago to Milwaukee, ran late but showed up in a large group just before the end of the conference.
I checked channel 7 news later in the day, because their crew was the first to arrive, but didn’t see the story. Searches of the web sites for the Tribune, and channels 5, 7, and 9 showed nothing. Perhaps Neal should have set his hair on fire.
The press conference did show up on Fox (channel 32) and the video is at http://www.blip.tv/posts/?search=archana
Updates
March 3: The Daily Northwestern reports that the EPD received the list from the Secretary of State's office this week and “We’re looking at that information and trying to put it into usable form,” said Deputy Chief Joe Bellino of EPD. “It’s quite extensive.” This conjures up a vision of information mailed from the Secretary of State's office in dead-tree form, perhaps sorted by the middle initial of the owner's name.
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