Silver Lake Daily Newsletter.com

Another Driver Stopped in Golf Course Greens:

Amherst man ticketed in car-motorcycle crash in Batavia including video by NY Trooper

• By BRIAN QUINN, bquinn@batavianews.com

An Amherst man was charged with failure to yield the right-of-way at a left turn following Wednesday’s accident on Clinton Street Road that sent a motorcyclist to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester with serious injuries.

Dale R. Gillmer was attempting to turn left from the parking lot at Terry Hills Golf Course, 5122 Clinton Street Rd., at 3:42 p.m. Wednesday. The Chevrolet Equinox he was driving struck a motorcycle ridden by Brandon M. Pfeifer of Rochester, which was headed east on Clinton Street Road, the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday night.

The accident occurred at the driveway going into Terry Hills Golf Course. Another driver was ticketed afterward, allegedly for driving through a barricade on Clinton Street Road, saying his tee time at the course was too important.

Genesee County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Kyle Krzemien said the county Emergency 911 Dispatch Center got multiple calls at 3:45 p.m. about a car-motorcycle accident with the motorcyclist down in the road, initially unconscious. Town of Batavia firefighters and county sheriff’s deputies responded.

W“When they arrived on scene, they were able to get the motorcyclist up and talking,” Krzemien said. “It appears, initially, a 2004 Honda motorcycle was eastbound on Route 33 (Clinton Street Road) ... when the operator of a 2020 Chevy Equinox apparently didn’t see the motorcyclist and entered the roadway, causing the two to collide. The operator of the vehicle failed to yield to the bike (while) pulling out of Terry Hills.”

Krzemien said that as of Wednesday afternoon, alcohol was not believed to be a factor. Mercy Flight landed on the edge of the golf course and flew the man to Strong. The driver of the Equinox was not hurt in the accident.

“I would say, with the amount of fatal accidents I’ve been on, he’s probably pretty lucky,” Krzemien said of the motorcyclist. ”I would say it probably would have been a lot worse if the Equinox was further out into traffic at the time that they collided. They hit at the front of the Chevy Equinox.”

The accident was initially reported on the scanner as a head-on collision, but Krzemien said it was a right-angle collision more than a head-on. The Equinox appeared to be making a left turn onto Ellicott Street Road to head toward the city of Batavia.

Krzemien estimated the motorcyclist was down 3 or 4 feet away from the motorcycle after the collision.

“The handlebars were almost underneath the front end of the vehicle,” the sergeant said at the scene. “He had a helmet on. It appears (the man has) a left-arm injury as well a lower-right-leg injury right now.”

Krzemien said he believed the injured man is from Chili and the driver of the other vehicle is from Amherst. The driver of the Equinox will be ticketed for failure to yield right-of-way entering the roadway.

The sergeant said he has not responded to many serious accidents in that area.

“Further up the road, Stafford, Bergen, but not through here,” he said. “I haven’t had one through here in awhile.”

Krzemien said a fire chief approached the county Sheriff’s Office and said there was somebody possibly walking through the barricade at Seven Springs Road and Route 33.

“It turns out, he wasn’t walking. He drove through the barricade and told the fire department that his tee time was two important and didn’t care that there was somebody fighting for their life in the middle of this roadway,” Krzemien said. “He was written tickets. One of our deputies actually initiated the traffic stop in the middle of one of the greens. We don’t take too kindly to (someone) trying to punk off our fire department, especially when somebody’s literally laying in the middle of the roadway ...”