27 Sep 2007
I WAS BIKING WITH A GHOST
CHLOÉ FEDIO / chloé@vueweekly.com
Recent fatalities spur campaign
I was biking with a ghost
Recent fatalities spur campaign
CHLOÉ FEDIO / chloé@vueweekly.com
On an anonymous street, on an otherwise anonymous corner, some Edmonton cyclists have affixed ghostly reminders about the need to share the road. These somber memorials, called ghost bikes, come in the wake of two fatal collisions involving bikes that took the lives of a 38-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy just days apart.
Painted white and chained into place, a ghost bike haunts the site where a cyclist has died. It’s a morbid fixture, but one that is necessary in order to remember the loss of life, and above all to call attention to road safety, explains Michael Kalmanovitch, president of the Edmonton Bicycle Commuters’ Society.
“Ghost bikes are a reminder to all roadway users that we need to share the road and respect all roadway users, because we all want to get home safe at the end of the day,” he said. “What cyclists and drivers need to do is respect each other. Both of them should be using the same benchmarks and rules to negotiate around each other safely.”
The first ghost bike memorial was erected in 2003 in St Louis, Missouri. A local man installed 15 bikes across the city at intersections where he knew cyclists had been hit, inspiring cyclists in other American cities to follow suit.
William Korol, 38, was cycling on Stony Plain Road west of Anthony Henday Drive on the early morning of Sep 16 when he was struck by a pick-up truck. The driver stopped long enough to remove the mangled mountain bike from the front end of the vehicle before driving away, leaving a man to die in the ditch. Two days later, Mathew Bensalah, 16, was hit near 71st Street and 34th Avenue. He was in a crosswalk at the time, and died of his injuries. Ghost bikes have now been erected at these sites, serving as visual reminders to cyclists and drivers alike.
Since 1990, the City of Edmonton has been placing coffin-shaped fatality signs at the site of deadly crashes, but Bill Horne, Acting Inspector of the EPS Traffic Section, said that ghost bike memorials have a purpose too.
“[Ghost bikes] are just another way to remind people that cyclists have died here—that both cyclists and drivers need to pay attention on the road,” Horne said.
Horne explained that speed is the leading cause of fatal collisions in Edmonton, and emphasized that even driving a few kilometres over the speed limit can make a difference, preventing drivers from stopping in time.
“In 70 per cent of fatal collisions last year, speed was a major contributing factor. This year, we’ve had at least 40 per cent where speed had been a contributing factor,” he said.
And while Kalmanovitch emphasized that cyclists should take necessary precautions and be responsible for their own safety, drivers have a significant role too.
“If a cyclist gets a little bit out of control and rams into a car, the driver of the car is not going to be hurt—the cyclist is going to be hurt. Therefore, the cyclist is going to take more care on their own personal safety,” Kalmanovitch said.
There have been 27 fatal crashes in Edmonton so far this year. Three of the victims were cyclists. V
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