Sun Feb 05, 2012 at 00:02:00 AM EST
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Ghost Bikes
Back in the Fall just after it got cold enough that hubby had quit riding for the year, a bike similar to the one in the picture appeared by the road at a park in the city just north of us. It's on the way taking Katie to work and it's on one of hubbys favorite routes. It had a sign on it but we couldn't read it from the car. |
| Alma :: Sunday Open Thoughts |
| Me and Katie figured it must represent a rider who had died, but didn't know for sure. I had planned to look into it but never got around to it and it kind of went to the back of my mind.
Then a few weeks ago when we were going to a birthday party for one of my grand nieces hubby saw it for the first time. He'd never seen it before and like the rest of us had never seen a ghost bike but he agreed it was probably for a rider who had been killed. He also made a comment about what a bad corner that is for a biker.
Well that inspired me to look into it and I found GhostBikes.org
Ghost Bikes are small and somber memorials for bicyclists who are killed or hit on the street. A bicycle is painted all white and locked to a street sign near the crash site, accompanied by a small plaque. They serve as reminders of the tragedy that took place on an otherwise anonymous street corner, and as quiet statements in support of cyclists' right to safe travel.
The first ghost bikes were created in St. Louis, Missouri in 2003. Currently there are over 490 ghost bikes that have since appeared in over 180 locations throughout the world. For those who create and install the memorials, the death of a fellow bicyclist hits home. We all travel the same unsafe streets and face the same risks; it could just as easily be any one of us. Each time we say we hope to never have to do it again -- but we remain committed to making these memorials as long as they are needed.
They have a list of locations but the one in Trenton isn't mentioned. They ask you to report any that aren't on their list but I don't have any information about who it is for, or when it happened.
I've done searches and can't find any info about it, so I don't know whether to report it to them or not. I'll probably turn it into them as an unknown rider so they can add it to their list.
On a side note, while I was searching for info on the accident I found out something I didn't know.
The corner the ghost bike is on is right where a bridge to Grosse Ile connects to Trenton, so I had searched for bike accidents in both cities.
One of the search results came back about George H. W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld serving on the old Naval Air Station on Grosse Ile. Well as you can imagine that gave me an icky feeling. Just the names can send me into bouts of nausea. At least it wasn't Jr. It also appears that Bob Barker served there.
Happy Sunday! |
