Sad
At 4pm today Danika called me to check if I was alive.
It seems that there was a fatal bike accident a few blocks from our house this morning. As I bike into work most days (and today) Danika had been checking the pictures to see if the bike was mine.
I looked at our local blog MyBallard (*) to find some salient details on the story, which is – of course – sad and I don’t even want to consider the what-ifs involving my mode of transportation. What also saddens me though, is how quickly the comment stream on this story degenerates into amateur lawyermanship and random comments about bikes, riding in streets, intersection layout, the rules etc. (160 comments at this moment, many of which are relevant and factual and very sensible and not whiny or conjectural or lawyerly). I don’t even read them, just flinch at some of the words and the thought of how it could be.
Be careful out there.
(*) Along with many others I will claim to have had an idea of a neighbourhood blog along these lines years ago. Of course I did nothing and probably saved a lot of energy in the process, lost streetcred and may not have made my fortune. Not so the Geeky Swedes. Congratulations.
February 5th, 2009 at 8:01 am
When I followed your link for ‘Geeky Swedes” and began reading a bit about Ballard, I skimmed too quickly and thought that Ballard was a Scandanavian word for “almost alive.”
Attenzione!