The driver who struck and killed Kirkland resident Kyle Warnick while he was in a crosswalk in September will not be charged. The Kirkland prosecutor has concluded that the incident was an accident with no proof of negligence.

State law defines negligence as “failure to exercise ordinary care, and is the doing of some act that a reasonably careful person would not do under the same or similar circumstances.”

Warnick was killed while out walking his dog when a woman in her 50s turned left onto 119th Place Northeast and struck him in the crosswalk. Warnick was sent to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with life-threatening injuries, where he later died. The driver claimed not to have seen him.

In addition to the driver testing negative for alcohol or another substances, the investigation concluded that she was also driving under the speed limit at the time of the collision, between 14-19 mph in a 25-mph zone. Witnesses at the scene told investigators that she did not appear to be driving very fast, nor did she seem distracted.

Investigators attempted to recreate parts of the scene with the same make and model of the suspect’s vehicle. The officer driving the vehicle found it difficult to see an officer, standing in the same place as Warnick was when he was hit, due to both the position of the sun as well as the windshield pillar in the vehicle, which blocked the driver’s visibility.

“While a very tragic accident occurred, the city does not believe that we can prove (driver’s name removed) failed to exercise ordinary care or acted in a manner that a reasonably careful person would not have under the same or similar circumstances,” stated a letter from Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Blakeley Warbinton while consulting the KPD on the investigation.

The investigation conclusions seem to corroborate a comment Ron Zoeller made online on a letter to the editor published by the Reporter in which he claimed to have been at the scene of the accident.

“My only observation as to a cause (of the accident) would be that the car at the stop sign would have been in bright afternoon sunlight coming from the west,” he wrote. “The crosswalk the man was using happened to be in shade due to a couple of tall fir trees in just the right spot to shade the crosswalk. Not that it is anything the lady could have done anything about but her pupils would have been constricted and it’s easy to not see individuals in adjacent deep shade. He would have been walking basically towards her so even his motion might not have registered.”

Some people who commented on the Reporter story about the accident noted that the intersection is known to be dangerous.

“This is one of the worst intersections ever made,” Arian Lori-Amini wrote on the Reporter website. “We have complained to city multiple times and they won’t add speed bumps cause it’s a major route to the hospital.”