Last night, May 18, I participated in our local
Ride of Silence.
The event is held each year, during Bike Awareness month, to honor the memory of our brothers and sisters who have been killed or injured while riding a biking out on the road. This was my first year participating in the event. I am not normally given to public displays of emotion, but I must confess that I was moved to tears listening to the various speakers talk about losing friends or loved ones.
There was a large turnout for the ride. The riders took up an entire city block, riding the full width of a traffic lane. In memory of our fallen comrades, we all wore black armbands and rode in silence, without speaking a word; the only sound that could be heard was the whirring of our wheels rolling on the pavement and the click-click of our bike gears shifting. We were hundreds of individual riders silently riding for 12 miles as one single entity unified by our sadness over the loss of friends and loved ones.
It was a very sobering experience.
Riding a bike is fun, it is healthy and it is environmentally friendly. Riding a bike, however, should not become a death sentence. Unfortunately, too many of my fellow bike riders fall victim to aggressive, drunk, inattentive, or simply careless drivers. Last year, over 600 bike riders were killed in the United States.
This carnage must stop!
If you are a bike rider, please take precautions for your own safety:
1. Wear a helmet (I know, many of you still think it is uncool to wear a bike helmet, but it is far “uncooler” to suffer a traumatic brain injury that could have been easily prevented by the use of a helmet);
2. Wear bright clothing;
3. Install a rear flashing light on your bike (even if you don’t ride at night);
4. Install a front light (if you ride at night);
5. Always be aware of your surroundings while out on the road;
6. Make eye contact with drivers to make sure they are aware of your presence;
7. Learn good bike handling skills; and
8. Last, but not least be sure to obey all traffic rules (we have the same rights as other vehicles on the road but we also have the same obligations).
If you are a driver, please drive safely:
1. Watch out for bike riders;
2. Be courteous to bike riders, we are going a little slower than you are, but please be patient because the few extra seconds that you spend allowing a bike rider to make a safe turn may make the difference between life and death;
3. Do not drive while intoxicated (Do I REALLY have to mention this? Really?);
4. Do not drive distracted, that means no cell phone calls, no text messages, no surfing the web from your Smartphone, no wolfing down a BicMac and no drinking lattes while you are driving (For years, German cars did not come equipped with the now ubiquitous cup-holders fancied in the USA. German engineers, who know a thing or two about car safety always believed that a driver’s total attention should be focused on the task of driving and that anything that affected his attention, such as eating and drinking while driving was a dangerous distraction…Amen! to that);
5. If you should happen to hit a bike rider, immediately stop, render aid, call 9-1-1 and wait for the authorities to show up. Hitting a bIke rider may be just an “accident” but running away from the scene of an accident constitutes a “hit-and-run” which, depending upon the circumstances may turn into a felony criminal matter. So stop, render aid and let your auto insurance company sort things out.
Have fun, be safe, enjoy!
For more information and photo coverage of the May 18 Ride of Silence please go here:
May 18, 2011 Conejo Valley Ride of Silence
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