See also: “Family sues MS Society over fatality on bike ride,” Oct. 15, 2007
Last weekend marked the one-year anniversary of the death of 15-year-old North Carolina resident Rachel Giblin on a charity bicycle ride in South Carolina.
As the Breakaway to the Beach went off again as scheduled, Rachel's parents talked about their efforts to raise the awareness of motorists to make things safer for bicyclists on the road.
The family has launched a website entitled “Share the Road for Rachel,” and they're distributing magnets and stickers with that slogan. More than 1,000 have gone out so far.
No charges filed
Rachel died on the second day of the MS bike tour. She and her brother were riding a tandem bicycle; it fell and Rachel was run over by a trailer towed by a passing pickup truck.
The South Carolina Highway Patrol says the tandem overlapped and touched wheels with a leading bike and tipped over. The Charlotte Observer newspaper noted that an interview with the pickup driver, not included in the police report, says he heard something hit his trailer when he went past. The Giblin's attorney contended that was the trailer hitting the tandem.
In any case, observers noted that if the pickup truck had not passed so close, the fatality might have been avoided. The highway patrol never filed charges (Fog shrouds South Carolina biking fatality).
The website
The Share the Road for Rachel website has good tips for motorists and bicyclists about how to coexist on the roads they both have a right to use.
The website has explicit directions on how to safely pass a cyclist, primarly “wait until it's safe to pass.” We know how often motorists pass within inches of our elbows when there's oncoming traffic.
There are also suggestions for cyclists, among them, “Obey the rules of the road.”
A poignant section of the website is entitled “Seconds Could Mean a Lifetime.” It is a photo album of Rachel's life below the paragraph reading:
“If…if a driver had just waited for an oncoming vehicle to pass before passing Rachel, it may have meant a lifetime to her. If she were still here she might be…….”
As a parent who has taken his son, the same age as Rachel, out on the road for bicycle rides and long tours, it gives me a lot to think about. My heart goes out to them for their loss and for what could have been.
I wish them luck in making that region a safer place for bicyclists.
You can read more about the Giblin's project at the Observer's “Grieving parents push bicycle safety.”
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