(Editor’s note: this letter was submitted to the Squirrel on September 23, two days before the writer spoke about the issue at a Board of Selectmen meeting.)
To the editor:
Last week as I was returning from driving my child to soccer, two middle-aged men drove their bicycles through the stop sign on Sandy Pond road into the five-way intersection. Before these bicyclists arrived at the intersection, I had stopped at the sign and began to proceed straight on Lincoln Road. Fortunately, I had been driving quite slowly and was able to stop again quickly so there was no collision. My child, who was in the car with me, yelled out the window, “There was a stop sign there.” Our family is intimately and painfully aware of the chaos, loss, and trauma bicycle collisions cause.
Last year, a bicyclist drove through a stop sign at a 90-degree intersection. He veered into the opposite side of the road, crossed the yellow line, lost control of his bicycle, and collided with the side of the car. Despite efforts to save him, he died immediately.
There were two families who were victims of this tragic accident: the bicyclist’s wife and children, and my family. I did not know this bicyclist, but over the past year, I have had many conversations with him in my mind. I wanted to be angry at him and tell him that what he did was unfair and irresponsible. I wanted to tell him that whatever joy he obtained from bicycling was not worth the enormous pain and loss he caused our families. When I have these thoughts, sadness and grief quickly overcome anger. From what I have read about the bicyclist, he was a very good human being, a responsible, loving, supportive father and husband. He simply made a mistake.
For several weeks after the accident, I walked to that turn and videotaped numerous bicyclists per hour drive through that stop sign, taking a wide turn and crossing the yellow line in the same manner that the bicyclist who died did.
I commend the Thornberg family for creating the ghost bicycle memorial. However, these memorials never recognize the pain and trauma that car drivers experience with such collisions.
Involvement in a fatal accident is traumatizing. Performing chest compressions on a person who has experienced blunt force trauma to his head is terrifying. You want so much for the person to live. When he doesn’t and when you learn that he left behind children who were the exact same ages as children in your family, it is extremely painful. These images are repeated in your head. You wake up in the middle of the night crying and screaming. You repeatedly ask yourself whether there was anything you could have done to save him.
The psychological trauma is made worse by the evening news, which had a headline, “Bicyclist Struck, Killed by SUV in Massachusetts.” Initial statements from the media and district attorney’s office lacked any knowledge of the facts and immediately sought to assign blame to the driver of the car.
In addition to the psychological trauma, there is the chaos that such accidents impose on the driver’s life and her family members. In accidents that involve a fatality, the driver’s car is automatically impounded and the driver’s license is suspended until the state police can complete the accident reconstruction report, which usually takes at least 10 months. In our family’s case, it took 13 months for the district attorney’s office to notify us that the state police accident reconstruction report clearly found that the car driver was not at fault and no charges would be pursued.
I have spoken to bicyclists about this tragedy and our family’s trauma. They have explained that quite often, the state of mind of the cyclist is to minimize events that cause them to lose speed or momentum—which clearly, obeying stop signs does. Evidence from the speedometer that the bicyclist was wearing indicated that his average speed was 14 miles per hour and maximum speed was 31 miles per hour, which was the same approximate speed that cars drive on the road where the accident occurred. Yet bicycle drivers are not required to be licensed or insured.
If bicyclists who died were here today, I wonder what they would say or do to change the number of families who are traumatized by fatal bicycle collisions. The eyes of the bicyclist who died last year will forever be in the mind of the person who tried to save his life.
I ask the families of deceased bicyclists, the Lincoln community, and current bicyclists to expand their concept of ghost bicycle memorials to include two children, to represent the family who lose their parent to fatal bicycle collisions, and another figure to represent the person who tries to save the bicyclist’s life. Often, this will be the driver of the car. Such recognition may make the ghost bicycle memorial less traumatizing for the driver of the car.
Sincerely,
Julie Lynch
5B South Commons
Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.
