Response to cyclist's death in North Center, 9/26
**I live in North Center and commute downtown to work every day. I just finished crying in my office after hearing about this. I wrote this thing on Facebook that I thought was worth sharing because writing it felt slightly more productive than just sitting in my computer chair and fuming. But honestly guys, what are we going to do about this???**
I TAKE THIS ROUTE ALMOST EVERY DAY. This cyclist was killed on Damen and Addison. I live on Damen and Irving Park.
But this is not me, even though a lot of what I want to say is spurred on by my personal rage and devastation that this these deaths have become run-of-the-mill this in 2016. Why is this still happening? I said to a friend the other day that Bobby Cann, who was killed by a drunk driver in 2013, should have been the last cyclist death in our city. Cann's totally preventable death -- if the man who killed him had been locked away for his multiple PREVIOUS drunk driving offenses like he SHOULD HAVE been if only he wasn't white and privileged and equipped with good lawyers and enough money to get his record wiped clean, Cann would still be here today -- should have been enough to show our city and our mayor that building miles and miles of bike lanes is not enough to protect cyclists. Because this isn't just about bike lanes. Lisa Kuivinen was killed while she was biking in one of Chicago's supposedly safest bike lanes on Milwaukee Avenue and a truck driver veered into her lane without looking. This is not about bike lanes. This is about a culture, and a conversation we are not having about the relationship between drivers and cyclists in our city.
Chicago was just named the most bike-friendly city in the country and I know that for me personally, and a lot of other cyclists I know who use bikes as their main form of transportation of every day, that designation feels like a joke. Why?
Because today's death marks the is the SIXTH (I had to edit this after learning about the *****18-year-old****college student who was killed in a crash with a cement truck on Thursday night) CYCLIST DEATH in FOUR MONTHS caused by a COMMERCIAL VEHICLE in our city/around our city.
I am sick over this. I ride these roads every single day. I wear a helmet, I ring my bell when I'm riding in unprotected bike lanes adjacent to parked cars because I know a driver could open their door without looking at any second, I use hand signals, I wear bright colors, I yell when drivers start encroaching into the bike lane without looking, I wear lights at night, I communicate with other cyclists, I stop at red lights, but NONE OF THESE THINGS WILL KEEP ME ALIVE IF A CARELESS (AND MOST LIKELY, COMMERCIAL, GIVEN THE RECENT TREND) DRIVER MOVES INTO MY LANE AND HITS ME.
We also need to realize that even the cyclists who do NOT wear lights, who do not stop at stop signs, who do not wear helmets, STILL DESERVE TO BE PROTECTED AND RESPECTED ON THE ROADS AS HUMAN BEINGS. BECAUSE THEY ARE HUMAN BEINGS. OK, so some cyclists do not follow all the laws. Show me a driver who respects and follows every law every time they are behind the wheel. Human beings all have the ability to be careless and irresponsible, but somehow cyclists are the category of human beings that many of us have decided DESERVE to lose their lives as a result of carelessness.
The article about the 18-year-old college student mentioned that she was not wearing a helmet. This to me feels a little bit like victim blaming. I encourage everyone to know to wear helmets, but the fact is in many crashes a helmet is not going to save your life. We do not immediately ask if victims of car crashes were wearing a seatbelt and then feel vindicated when we find out they were not because that somehow means they deserved to die.
And the worst thing is knowing that if I were to be injured in a crash with a vehicle that hundreds of drivers and internet trolls would be waiting to comment on the news article about the things I should have been doing to prevent my own injury or death.
I'm sitting at my desk in my office looking at my green Surly crosscheck and thinking about how today I will probably take the Red Line home after work. I'd rather bike. It's my favorite way to get around this city. To be very honest, after spending most of 2016 in a deep depression that I'm just now climbing out of, I'm pretty sure that riding my bike - combined with a great therapist and the right antidepressant dosage - saved my life a little bit. But today I'm too sad thinking about how my favorite thing to do in the world could kill me someday. I'd rather have a day where I can get home safely without thinking overtime and looking around me, every second, wondering if the next car that cuts me off is going to be the last one.
(Anyone who comments on this post with any "helpful" comments about what this cyclist and the four other dead cyclists could have done to prevent being killed by careless vehicles will be immediately deleted.)
You can find an edited version that includes links posted to Medium here: https://medium.com/@erinvogel/most-bike-friendly-city-in-america-te...
Views: 2761
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Elizabeth Blalack on
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Thank you for sharing this! I was trying to explain this concept to my children, one of whom rode through this very intersection on his way to school that morning, and now I have a visual that will make sense to them. I have always just told them never to go on the right hand side of a large vehicle.
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Permalink Reply by Rebecca on
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We are getting organized and will have some kind of event at the intersection THIS FRIDAY AT 6:30pm
FACEBOOK EVENT: https://www.facebook.com/events/1366501743360058/
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Permalink Reply by Erin Vogel on
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yes yes yes yes yes
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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Bloyd-Peshkin on
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Thank you for writing this. I think you speak for many of us.
I'm sitting at my desk in my office looking at my green Surly crosscheck and thinking about how today I will probably take the Red Line home after work. I'd rather bike.
I remember feeling this way after witnessing the aftermath of Lisa's death on a route I ride multiple times a day seven days a week. I was angry, sad, and terrified by what I'd seen and felt utterly powerless. Riding my bike is what I do, and it's a major component of who I am. And that day all I could think was that it could have been me. I could have done everything right, been hit by a truck, and all that would be left would be a scathing editorial in the tribune blaming me. It made me want to not ride my bike.
There wouldn't be much left of me if I stopped riding my bike.
That's the power of #rideyourbike. It's our tool to fight back. When the weather is good and there isn't much traffic, we ride our bikes. When the weather is bad and the drivers are angry, we ride our bikes. When people yell at us, when they hit us, when they kill us, we ride our bikes. We are not going away, we cannot go away, and the way we make that point is to ride our bikes through thick and thin. Take that famous oath from the postal service - "neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail..." - that's us. That needs to be us.
Ride Your Bike.
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Permalink Reply by David Barish on
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I had accepted the randomness of things and have told a story about being doored at a storytelling show. In that story I acknowledge that being prepared, wearing a helmet, wearing lights, reflectors etc., being aware and having the zen approach to traffic will minimize but NOT erase the risk of terrible things happening. Sometimes terrible things happen on the road and there is nothing that can be done in that moment at that time. Rolling back time to ask what the city could do to make the road safer, to ask the driver to make a better decision, to make the rider make a different decision may work in the post mortem world but does nothing in reality. The trolls who live under the bridge of the post mortem world will never be able to answer the question of how wearing a helmet will make the crash not occur. ( I am a strong helmet advocate but know that helmets do nothing to make a crash not happen, they can only help after a bad thing has already occurred) Sure, I had accepted all that until the epidemic of this Summer's loss of lives. I am having a harder and harder time accepting that events are random and am starting to wonder about connections between seemingly separate events that always seem to involve a truck these days but am still putting my feet on the pedals. I wonder if there will be a point where I will simply get the heebie jeebies and become to scared to do that any more. I hope not.
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Permalink Reply by Jessica Kwiatkowski on
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Very well said Erin - I too am physically ill over this. I am not sure what the solution here is but feel as a fellow bike commuter I need to do something. I will still bike home today though the thoughts of taking the L or even walking my bike home do occur to me as well. #rideyourbike
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#rideyourbike <3
Thanks Jessica. I'm glad you're still biking. I think we should all still be biking. I'm going to take a night off but I'll be back on it tomorrow. :)
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Permalink Reply by Skip Montanaro 0mi on
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Erin, if you want, I'd be happy to ride home with you today (or any day I can, for that matter), if it will help you feel safer on the roads. Ellen is out of town for a couple days, so my schedule is a bit more flexible than usual.
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Skip, thank you so much for this kind offer-- this mean so much to me and is such a great example of why I'm so grateful for the Chainlink community. I'm going to do the Red Line today, but I'll be back on the bike tomorrow and will definitely be in touch!
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Permalink Reply by Babs Owca on
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I feel you so much. While all the deaths are heartbreaking, when it's one on a route you take everyday it hits that much deeper. I bike past Lisa's ghost bike twice a day and I'm very much aware that it could have been me. I also still have a lot of close calls in the vicinity of it...it's like drivers already forgot what happened there. It's very frustrating to feel like a second class citizen just because you choose to ride a bike. We're all people and I'm sick of feeling like the death of a cyclist isn't as tragic or important as other deaths.
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