Cyclist Deaths Lead to Push for Safer Streets

The Safe Routes to School program encourages kids to walk and bike to school in the hopes that a physical commute will cut down on childhood obesity. But most Mississippi roads aren’t exactly bike-friendly. So advocates are hoping the tragic death of a Tupelo teen cyclist will spur legislative reforms to make the roads safer. In today’s health news, MPB’s Cari Gervin reports.

When 12-year-old Max Gi-uns started back to school earlier this month, for the first time, he did it on wheels. Two shiny, dark blue bicycle wheels.

“Um, I think I like the freedom. I can do what I want to do. And it feels better to ride my bike.”

Max is a seventh-grader at Oxford Middle School. Like a lot of his classmates, Max lives just a mile or so from school. But no one else rides their bikes.

“I’m the only person in seventh and eighth grade. But the sixth graders ride their trick bikes to school.”

There aren’t many more students riding their bikes to high school in Oxford either. And that’s why University of Mississippi nutrition professor Melinda Valliant brought Safe Routes to School to Oxford.

“Well the fact that Oxford’s such a small town, but so few people use any form of alternate transportation, like cycling and walking. And many of our schools – not all, but many of our schools – are located so that kids can walk to school.”

They can walk, and they can bike, but they don’t. So the national Safe Routes program provides federal funds to help make communities more pedestrian and bike-friendly. So far, 24 communities throughout Mississippi are participating in the program – they’ve built sidewalks, improved crosswalks and installed bike racks.

Valliant says that in Oxford, they’ve had some success getting kids to walk to school, but that’s it.

“And a lot of that, I think, is just parents. Parents don’t feel like it’s safe for their children to bike.”

And Oxford is the state’s only certified bicycle-friendly community. The only one – although Ridgeland and Starkville are working on it. But when you hear about deaths like John Paul Frerer, you can see why parents might worry.

Two weeks ago the 18-year-old bicyclist was killed by a truck in Pontotoc County. The day before he was supposed to start his senior year at Tupelo High School. And Frerer was a tri-athlete. He knew what he was doing.

Max Gines says he knows what he’s doing too. He’s on Lamar Boulevard, one of Oxford’s busier roads – and a road he bikes every morning and every afternoon with his heavy backpack. He says the cars don’t scare him.

“Not really, cause I pay attention to most of the cars. I’m pretty sure they’re not gonna hit me.”

But they do scare his dad. Brian Gines is an experienced cyclist who taught Max his street smarts. But he says as a parent, he can’t help but worry.

“I do. I am concerned about it but I try not to be to overly concerned about it. And try to get on to him about following rules and being aware that he is not seen by vehicles. Just to assume that every vehicle that he sees does not see him, is the rule I tell him.”

Mississippi has averaged about six cyclist deaths a year over the past 15 years. Pedestrians are much more likely to be hit by a car and killed, but last year, the number of cyclists injured by drivers rose by 21 percent nationally.

Karen Mogridge of Bike Walk Mississippi says many of those accidents could have been prevented.

“I think most of the accidents are more of the case of the motorist not necessarily expecting a cyclist to be where they are.”

Bike Walk Mississippi is working with Safe Routes to School to offer bicycle safety classes across the state. And while those classes might help some of Max Gines’ friends, they don’t solve the whole problem, says Melinda Valliant.

“A road lane is plenty wide to share with a car and cyclist and in fact a walker on the side. But people in cars have this perception that it’s so tight and so close. So I think we need to do some education from that perspective.”

Karen Mogridge says Bike Walk Mississippi is working on that education. But she says some changes to the law wouldn’t hurt either.

“One of our main goals is to designate a safe passing distance of at least three feet when a motorist passes a cyclist. And again, it’s to allow us to educate the motorist, that’s an arm’s length. So this is what you should pass a cyclist at, an arm’s length.”

The group was unsuccessful in getting the three-feet legislation passed last year, despite similar laws in states across the country.

But Mogridge thinks this year will be different. She met with members of the legislature’s transportation committees earlier this week. And she says the two chairs, Representative Warner McBride and Senator Tom King, are both supportive.

For MPB News, I’m Cari Gervin … in bicycle-friendly Oxford.