People's concerns about cycling safety most commonly are centered around motor vehicles: We all hope that two tons of metal approaching is from behind isn’t steered by someone who’s intoxicated, enraged or simply careless.
The next-most common safety concerns probably are about road or bike lane hazards like potholes, sewer drains with grates that run parallel to the curb or lanes that send us directly into the path of right-turning vehicles.
Depending on where we ride, we may also need to take weather or other natural elements into account. For example, in mountainous areas, I’ve ridden directly from sunshine and summery heat into snow and sleet, and vice versa.
And while lightning can flash just about anywhere in the world, Florida seems to be a particular target for those bolts of electricity. But even in the so-called Sunshine State, I don’t think that most cyclists think about their rides—and their days of riding—coming to an end because they were struck by lightning while riding.
That, apparently is what happened to an eleventh-grader in Pembroke Pines, just north of Miami. He was rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, and there’s a hole where his body was recovered. A home security video picked up the apparent strike, and a resident of the home where the camera was positioned said that she heard the loudest “boom” she’d ever heard right about the time that video captured the unfortunate encounter.
I’ll bet that she didn’t envision, any more than the poor young man did, being struck by lightning while cycling home from school. And I’ll bet that if she thought about cycling safely before that incident, she probably thought more about vehicles crashing into cyclists—which kills more cyclists in Florida than in any other US state.
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