*CA*
Watch for bikes with angel wings
In 2003, in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, a man named Patrick Van Der Tuin had the great misfortune to witness a fatal car-bike accident. He was horrified by the accident; afterwards he bought an old bike, painted it ghostly white, and chained it to a pole near the accident site, along with a sign that read ‘Cyclist Struck Here’.
Over the next few weeks, Van Der Tuin and some friends researched the locations of other bike-versus-car fatalities in St. Louis; they put a ghost bike at each location. In time, the ghost bike concept spread out from St. Louis, across the United States. And Europe. And Asia. There are ghost bikes in Belarus and Cyprus, in Guatemala and Lithuania, in Japan and Turkey and Finland.
This is a ghost bike. Some cyclist died here. Last year more than eight hundred cyclists were killed by motor vehicles. More than fifty thousand cyclists were injured. In most of these cases, the driver is charged with a traffic offense. Not a crime; a traffic offense. Most often the punishment is a fine; maybe the loss of the driver’s license.
Nobody knows how many ghost bikes there are in the world. Too many. Very few of them have angel wings. More of them should.
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