Last Wednesday night I joined about 80 fellow cyclists in a memorial ride to honor seven cyclists recently killed in the streets of San Francisco. The Ride of Silence, first held in Dallas in 2003 after endurance cyclist Larry Schwartz was hit by the mirror of a passing bus and was killed, is an annual silent procession to honor cyclists who have been killed or injured while cycling on public roadways that has spread to cities and towns across North America and the world.
Co-organized by my friend Anthony Ryan, himself a victim of having made the painful acquaintance with 3000 pounds of automobile mass a couple of years ago, the Ride of Silence SF had its 5th anniversary. The fact that it was the largest and most organized ride so far made it a particularly moving experience, but unfortunately also indicates that the tragedies in our streets are still common occurrences, despite efforts to make our streets safer for everyone. Last year alone, 25 pedestrians and bicyclists were hit and killed by drivers in San Francisco, the highest number since 2007.
Anthony showing off his brandnew set of front teeth, while his original chompers are mixing it up with the San Francisco pavement.
This year's route took us through parts of the Mission, SoMa and up Market Street, a particularly hairy patch of urban jungle, to memorialize six cyclists and a wheelchair-bound pedestrian that recently lost their lives during unsolicited encounters with cars and trucks. For the first time ever, the ride was accompanied by an entourage of motorcycle cops, who were going to make the streets just a bit safer for us than we're used to on a daily basis.
Seeing them sitting there waiting for us as we were gathering on the street behind Sports Basement added not only a sense of safety but symbolism, as it might signal a shift away from the common practice by the SFPD (and police across the Bay Area and the country) of treating non-motorized traffic participants as expendable inferiors. The "blame the victim" default that unfortunately still applies to most collisions involving cyclists and pedestrians not only makes it very difficult to get a real investigation into what actually happened, but it perpetuates the deep-seated privilege afforded to motorized vehicle operators on streets that in actuality belong to all of us.
A little after 6pm our procession on two wheels set off towards the San Francisco evening commute.
Memorials, moments, and impressions from the ride below the mangled orange bicycle rim...