We Won’t Stop. But We Need More

 When I crashed and was “doored” three months apart, people asked me whether I considered giving up cycling. 

That was four years ago. I’d been riding practically all of my life and a dedicated cyclist for nearly half a century. My response then is the same as the one I’d give now: “No!”

I therefore understand Jakob Morales’ assertion that he will continue to cycle as his primary means of transportation, even after being slammed by a hit-and-run driver in his hometown of Indianapolis. “I was on the bike the next day, so you can’t stop me,” he declared.

It’s as if he’d been answering the question I was asked. For all I know, someone may have asked him. But his testimony underscores something he said in response to hearing about his city’s plans to extend protected bike lanes on a major thoroughfare. It’s good, he said, but not enough. A careless or aggressive driver can literally get away with murder unless the incident is caught on camera. In Morales’ case, it was his own camera that recorded the impact, which shattered the driver’s windshield.

Fortunately for him, he came away with only a couple of scratches. But the fact that he just happened to have that device on his helmet may be what prevented the driver’s liability from being turned into blame against Morales.

And that, to him, is one of the issues his city needs to address. “It shouldn’t take a $500 camera to capture their information and hunt them down,” he says of drivers like the one who struck him.

And we shouldn’t have to live in fear—or have to answer the question of whether we’ll continue to ride.