I'm back
I took a hiatus following my car crash, but now I’m biking and blogging once again. With the chaos that occupied the last few months of my life finally subsiding, I can hopefully return to my previous rhythm.
My crash was ill-timed for the Bike Walk Life blog because there was a lot of bicycle news following it. Most notably for me was that I was elected president of Bicycle Columbus, my city’s nonprofit bicycle and pedestrian advocacy group. This position comes with some big shoes to fill, but I’m looking forward to leading the next chapter of bicycling in Columbus Georgia.
In statewide news, Georgia Bikes hosted their first in-person Bike Walk Summit in several years. I was unable to attend, but I’m eager to try some of the topics they covered, such as walking audits, here in Columbus. Georgia Bikes also released their 2023 impact report, which covers their accomplishments in education, advocacy, and more. You can view the impact report here.
In more recent news, our local TV station WTVM published a report on a pedestrian who was struck by a car in September and just died a couple of weeks ago. You can read it here. Most news stories on crashes and traffic deaths are dreadfully clinical at best and are victim-blaming at worst. This one focuses on the victim’s family and the emotional costs we all bear for these crashes.
“How can you be at fault if you’re in the crosswalk? It doesn’t make sense,” said Marcus.
The story doesn’t acknowledge the structural issues that enable these kinds of tragedies to continue, how we continue to build our streets to maximize vehicle speed at the expense of the safety of everyone else. But it also doesn’t try to normalize the tragedy or make excuses, which is better than most stories.
As for my own crash, it’s my hope that my healing will continue and all of that will be settled and behind me soon. Even though I wasn’t at fault, experiencing a crash first-hand has certainly given me a new perspective on what it means to be safe on the road. Be on the lookout for more from me about it in the coming year.