Man killed in crash; stop sign was down

Punta Gorda Police Department spokesman Lt. Dylan Renz confirmed the death and the victim’s name but said he could provide no further details.

Steven Pringle, 57, of Kingsford, Michigan, who owned bicycle shops in Sarasota and Michigan, was killed in the wreck at Education Drive and Carmalita Street, according to witnesses.

Attempts to reach associates at Pringle’s Sarasota and Michigan businesses were unsuccessful.

Witnesses who contacted The Daily Sun said a stop sign at Education Drive was down because of Hurricane Ian at the time of the crash.

“He was a truly good guy,” Martha Buisman said in an email to The Daily Sun. “The trailer he was pulling was full of bicycles to be donated to kids.”

The Detroit Free Press ran a story on Pringle in July that reported he gave away free bicycles in what he called his bicycle-therapy side of the business.

Punta Gorda officials said they have replaced the sign at the intersection.

“We put a sign up (Nov. 28) after being contacted by our Human Resources Department,” Assistant City Manager Melissa Reichert stated in an email. “It is our understanding that it is actually a Charlotte County sign.”

Thousands of signs throughout the region were destroyed or ripped down by Hurricane Ian. At least one other fatal crash has been linked to a stop sign being down, although the investigation into that wreck continues as well.

In that crash, a car struck a scooter in a neighborhood where a stop sign was down and led to the death of a 50-year-old woman in mid-October.

It happened at the intersection of Quesada Avenue and Birchcrest Boulevard in Port Charlotte.

At the time, Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell urged motorists to be cautious, in light of sign damage by Hurricane Ian on lights and signs.

“It is imperative that drivers are using extreme caution when navigating our roadways. We must be patient as our community gets back to normal,” Prummell said in the October statement. “During that time, we must look out for one another.”

Reichert said Punta Gorda staff has been in contact with Charlotte County officials.

“We can’t give an estimate on when all signs will be repaired as we haven’t even ordered all the street signs,” her email stated.

Tracy Doherty, public relations manager for the Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners, said about 95% of the county’s signs were “in need of correction.”

“To put that in perspective, over 70,000 signs require a technician to fix them,” Doherty said.

She said to do the necessary repairs and replacements has been hard at work to fix them.

“Our sign shop has had seven-day operations, working 11 hours daily, exhausting all the daylight hours available to those restorations since its impact.”

As of Friday, the Charlotte County Sign Shop has corrected nearly 14,000 signs, she said.