What can you do to help…
This weekend another athlete was killed while riding her bike.
I knew this athlete.
Her name was Jessica. I met her on the bike course of Florida 70.3 in 2018 before my crash. She was strong, funny, and so kind. She was a mom, a wife, a daughter, and an incredibly talented triathlete. She was on her last ride before heading to the Ironman World Championship next week when a driver killed her.
Dreams crushed, a husband left without a wife, and children left without a mother.
WHY???
I am fed up. I can’t stand hearing about my friends getting killed or hurt on the roads for doing something they love or because they have to get to work.
If you are in a position to help, please do. Help amplify this message :
“WE ARE ALL PEOPLE. It does not matter what mode of transportation we choose. We all deserve to get from point A to point B safely. EACH and every time.
The only acceptable number is ZERO when it comes to traffic fatalities.
We need to start using the right words when speaking about traffic violence.
A car did not hit anyone on its own. A driver did.
It was not an “accident.” It was a crash.
The word “accident” takes away responsibility from the driver. It implies that it was something that couldn’t be helped rather than a person’s bad choice.
When we say someone was “hit by a car,” it does something similar. We remove responsibility from the driver. Suddenly the driver becomes non-existent in the equation. Instead, the blame is placed on an inanimate object.
Driving is a privilege, and we must acknowledge this every time we get behind the wheel and take responsibility for our actions.
Other countries have achieved Zero, and we are following a plan they have laid out that has worked. We have a commitment and over $6 billion from the current administration to make it happen.
In the meantime, people must change how they think about traffic fatalities. I feel that some people see these murders as a natural consequence of motorized mobility.
I would like to assure those people that this is not the case.
We will change the infrastructure to accommodate human error.
In the meantime, we need to become allies on the road.
We need to look out for one another.
It could be any one of us out there. It already was me in 2018, and I was one of the lucky ones. I am still here to tell my story. Jessica is not. Please do this for her and the other 42,915 people who died in motor vehicle crashes last year.
