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'It's a hard thing to wake up to': Pair of deadly overnight collisions shock Edmonton motorcyclists

Two people were killed in separate motorcycle crashes in Edmonton Sunday night. The first happened on Groat Road around 9 p.m.

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A man and woman were killed in separate motorcycle crashes Sunday night in Edmonton.

A 23-year-old woman who was a passenger on a motorcycle died around 9 p.m. when it collided with a car near the bottom of Victoria Park Road hill at Groat Road. The 30-year-old male rider suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries. 

Two hours later, a 29-year-old man was killed on Parsons Road when his motorcycle also collided with a car.

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The deaths have shocked Edmonton’s close-knit motorcycle community, one advocate said. 

Investigators said the two riders were travelling westbound down Victoria Park Road hill when their Ducati struck a Toyota Yaris headed in the same direction. Both riders were flung from the Ducati and the female passenger died instantly. The man was hospitalized for his injuries. The driver of the Yaris was in shock but was not injured. 

A memorial of flowers at the bottom of the hill had been erected by Monday morning. 

Around 11 p.m., police responded to a second crash, which happened on Parsons Road south of the Anthony Henday overpass. 

A male rider was heading northbound and collided with a southbound Chevrolet Malibu, police said. Emergency crews found the rider dead in the middle of the road, while the car landed in a ditch on the east side.

Five men who said their friend was the same age as the Parsons Road victim and had gone for a ride in the area the night before showed up at the scene around 9 a.m. Monday. They had not heard from their friend, and were picking through leftover bits of plastic and glass to try to identify the bike. Police said the man was riding a Suzuki GSX-R600. 

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Liane Langlois, president of the Alberta Motorcycle Safety Society, said riders in the city are grieving the deaths. 

“I know people who know those people,” she said. “(Motorcyclists) are very close-knit. If somebody goes down, the whole community feels that.” 

She said the deaths highlight the need for drivers and riders to share the road.  

“It’s a hard thing to wake up to,” she added. “Waking up to two fatalities, it’s ‘how did that happen and how can we prevent that going forward?’ It doesn’t help the friends and families who are suffering now … but what could have been done to prevent that in the first place?”

Police continued to investigate both fatalities Monday. Anyone with information about the cases was asked to contact Edmonton police or Crime Stoppers. 

jwakefield@postmedia.com

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