'Ghost bikes' mark crash sites
By Dan Nephin The Associated Press
PITTSBURGH -- Late on a May night, a mangled bicycle
painted a ghostly white was chained to a pole along a
downtown intersection, with a large sign reading:
"Cyclist Struck Here -- Ghostbike.org." The group behind
the project hoped it was an effective way of drawing
attention to bike safety -- even if the bike display and
others like it ran afoul of city sign laws. Makeshift
roadside memorials to victims of drunken drivers and
other car accidents -- often simple displays involving
crosses, small signs and flowers -- have been around for
years. Now, biking enthusiasts around the country are
spreading their own message of road safety. Organizers
of the Pittsburgh "ghost bikes," which have been put up
near 14 spots where cyclists have been hit, drew their
inspiration from a similar project late last year in St.
Louis that seems to have sparked the campaign. A St.
Louis cycling organization was unsure about what to do
with a donation of several hundred bikes until group
member Patrick Van Der Tuin, 25, saw a cyclist hit by a
car in front of his house -- and the idea clicked for
"Broken Bikes, Broken Lives." In August, Van Der Tuin
put up a bike in memory of the crash near his home. In
the fall, he and his friends put up a dozen more bikes,
all painted white, around St. Louis. This spring,
another 15 or so went up. "I was expecting it to gain
attention to the problems we were having in St. Louis,"
Van Der Tuin said, but word of the campaign spread
beyond the city's borders via the Internet. In
Cleveland, Kevin Cronin, 42, helped place 10 bikes
around the city in May, National Bike Month, after
learning of Van Der Tuin's project. He put up the bike
displays on private property to avoid permit hassles,
removing them when the month was over. Cronin's bikes
did not mark the sites of accidents. They bore signs
reading, "Share the Road, It's the Law," and "Same
Roads, Same Rights, Same Rules." "Bike safety shouldn't
be just a one-shot deal when somebody's hurt or, God
forbid, killed in a car crash," he said. Melinda
Preston, whose son, Matthew Preston, 23, was killed in
October 2001, couldn't get bikes, but put up posters
last month saying "Cyclist Struck Here" at 12 sites
around Tucson, Ariz., where 10 cyclists have been killed
and two seriously injured. She placed the signs with
another woman whose child had been killed riding a bike.
"I probably would not have done this had I not been the
mother of a child killed," said Preston, of Tempe, Ariz.
"We're hoping for people to start taking a look at how
to be safe." Most people don't realize how often
cyclists are hit by cars, said Brad Quartuccio, 23, who
works at Dirt Rag, a mountain-biking magazine published
in Pittsburgh, and who helped organize the local
project. In 2002, 662 people died in accidents involving
bicycles, tricycles and unicycles, according to the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The
agency doesn't track injuries. After Dirt Rag ran a
story about the St. Louis project, "a handful of us in
Pittsburgh took a look at it and said it would be cool
if we could make that happen here," Quartuccio said.
Quartuccio calls the Pittsburgh area initiative, which
is not affiliated with the magazine, part public art,
part safety campaign. One of the area memorials is to
Jim Rihn, an avid cyclist killed two years while riding
in a Pittsburgh suburb. He was 55. His widow, Carmella
Rihn, said the project helps make drivers aware that
cyclists also have a right to the road. Public works
crews have taken down most of the bike displays in
Pittsburgh because of a city ordinance prohibiting signs
on any city right of way, said Guy Costa, public works
director. Costa said he supports the public safety
message but that the sign ordinance must be enforced
consistently. Costa said no tickets would be issued for
bikes still on display but fines of $350 would be levied
for any put up in the future. Government agencies
elsewhere have also removed bike displays. In Pittsburgh
and St. Louis, organizers said they would continue with
their bike safety projects, but also hoped their
campaigns would start making some difference. "I don't
want to be doing this, is the thing," Van Der Tuin said.
"I can put out 160 bikes in my city. And I don't want to
put out that many."
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