Roger Stroble wasn’t even the one behind the wheel. He was just a passenger — someone’s friend, someone’s family, sitting in the seat next to the driver – when everything went wrong in a matter of seconds. On Wednesday afternoon, May 20, the 74-year-old Kansas City man lost his life after a high-speed crash involving a McLaren sports car left him with injuries too severe to survive. And now, the people who loved him are left trying to make sense of a loss that nobody saw coming.
According to the Kansas Highway Patrol, the whole thing went down just after 4:45 p.m., near the intersection of 34th Street and Merriam Lane. A 2019 McLaren 570S — one of those sleek, low-slung supercars built to go fast — was blazing westbound at what investigators described as a high rate of speed. Then it slammed into a 2017 Honda Accord that was in the middle of making a turn onto 34th Street. The hit was so violent that the McLaren didn’t stop there. It kept going and plowed right into a Ford F-250 pickup truck that was sitting still, doing nothing wrong, just parked in the wrong place at the worst possible time.
Stroble, riding as a passenger in that McLaren, took the worst of it. Emergency responders rushed him to the University of Kansas Medical Center, where doctors and medical staff fought hard to keep him alive. But the injuries were too far gone. He died at the hospital, and with him went a piece of something irreplaceable for the people who called him their own.
The driver of the McLaren, 28-year-old Sidney Kile, also walked away in bad shape – suspected serious injuries, according to officials, and transported to the hospital as well. The drivers of the Honda Accord and the Ford F-250 came out physically unharmed.
Authorities noted that everyone involved had their seatbelts on at the time of the crash, a detail that makes it all the more painful that Roger still didn’t make it.
What strikes people hardest about this story is the cruel randomness of it. Stroble wasn’t speeding. He wasn’t making a reckless decision. He was simply a passenger. He had no control over how fast that car was going or what turn was coming up ahead. He was just there — and that was enough for this tragedy to claim him.
Since news of the crash got out, the condolences have been steady and heartfelt.
People who knew Stroble have been leaning on each other, sharing memories, and holding tight to the time they had with him. Kansas City isn’t a city that forgets its people easily, and Roger Stroble is the kind of man whose absence will be felt for a long time.
