News

By Mary Hladky

A New Jersey man has been charged with DUI manslaughter in the Dec. 15 death of a bicyclist who was struck by the man’s Chevy Equinox on a stretch of State Road A1A next to Red Reef Park.

Felipe Soares De Moraes, 41, of suburban Boca Raton, was dead at the scene and his bicycle was embedded in the Equinox’s front bumper.

The northbound SUV, driven by Thomas Vayianos, 35, of Brick, New Jersey, struck Soares De Moraes from the rear, throwing him 65 feet before he rolled another 71 feet, according to the probable cause affidavit. A responding Boca Raton police officer found him face down within the northbound shoulder of the 1400 block of A1A.

Vayianos told police he had “no idea” that he had hit a bicyclist.

Soares De Moraes was married and the father of a 6-year-old daughter and an 8-month-old, according to a GoFundMe created to provide his family with financial support and to cover funeral costs.

“He was a devoted family man, a beloved friend, and someone who radiated kindness and love wherever he went,” the GoFundMe webpage says. “His loss leaves an immeasurable void and a challenging future for those he most loved.”

The family lives in the Sandalfoot Cove neighborhood west of Florida’s Turnpike, according to county property records.

A witness to the crash who also was bicycling on A1A shortly after 7 a.m. told police the SUV passed so close to him that he could touch the vehicle. The vehicle was swerving on the roadway and repeatedly veered into the bicycle lane before it hit Soares De Moraes.

The affidavit said Vayianos was swaying and unsteady on his feet when questioned by an officer. He had to be asked questions multiple times and did not answer or went off-topic.

Vayianos said he was “in rehab” that his parents were paying for, and was taking Adderall and Vyvanse, which treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Gabapentin, an anti-seizure medication.

Vayianos, who the officer said had pinpoint pupils, told him that he was “worried about the hotel people,” and seemed to think that the officers on the scene were “hotel people.” 

He agreed to participate in sobriety exercises, and failed them, with the officer concluding that he was too impaired to operate a motor vehicle safely.

During a Dec. 16 court hearing, Palm Beach County Judge Ted Booras assigned Vayianos a public defender and set bail at $150,000.

The fatal crash is the most recent example of why Boca Raton bicyclists have pressed state and city officials for years to make A1A safer for them. A January 2024 crash injured six cyclists struck by an SUV in Gulf Stream. 

At the site of the Dec. 15 crash, the bike and car lanes are next to each other with no barrier to separate them, which leaves no margin for error, said Les Wilson, a Boca Raton cyclist and contributor to the BocaFirst blog. The bicycle lanes are four feet wide there.

“If there were more space, it gives everyone more time to react,” he said.

The Florida Department of Transportation plans a $7.3 million project that will improve the nearly 5-mile stretch of A1A that runs through Boca Raton. Work is expected to start in the fall of 2027.

One component of the project is adding 6-foot buffered bike lanes to better separate drivers and cyclists.

“What they plan to do would not have prevented the (Dec. 15) accident,” Wilson said.

BocaFirst has called the design inadequate and “dangerous by design.” In an April blog article, writers said painted lines between bike and car lanes offer inadequate protection for cyclists and that barriers should be constructed instead.

The city’s Citizens’ Pedestrian and Bikeway Advisory Board has proposed that when the bike lane approaches city parks along A1A, the lane should be routed into the parks. Such a routing through Red Reef Park, where the crash happened, could have prevented it, Wilson said.