The Ghosts At Norwich

  “Ghost” bikes originated in Amsterdam during the 1960s. Anarchists painted bicycles white and left them on the streets for people to use.

Around the turn of this century, artists began to make “ghost” bikes from abandoned bikes, some of which were stripped of their parts.  They were purely artistic expressions until October 2003, when Patrick Van Der Tuin placed a white-painted bike and a sign reading “Cyclist Struck Here” on a St. Louis street. 

Within a couple of years, “ghost” bike monuments began to appear on streets in New York and other American cities. Soon afterwards, they started to show up in other parts of the world.

Nearly all of those monuments have been placed on or near the sites where cyclists were struck by motorized vehicles.  Members of the Norwich Cycling Campaign decided that members of their English city’s council need a daily reminder of the six cyclists who have been killed on city streets this year.  So, Campaign placed six “ghost” bikes outside the Council’s offices.

“Each of the white bikes symbolizes a failure to keep people safe on our roads,” declared Campaign chair Peter Silburn. He added,  “These deaths are not accidents, they are the result of policies that prioritize the convenience of car drivers over people’s safety.”

The Campaign wants the city to install more cycle lanes, lower speeds on urban roads and fewer cars. I hope the “ghost” bike installation helps to deliver the message—and results.

Stealing, And Recovering, A Memory Of Him

Yesterday I wrote about Kevin Hebert, the disabled US Air Force veteran whose specially-made bike was stolen--and, thankfully, recovered. In telling about his ordeal, I paraphrased Tom Cuthbertson, who wrote that stealing a bike from someone is one of the lowest things one human can do to another.

That got me to thinking about the question of whether some bike thefts and thieves are more depraved than others.  Almost anyone who rides a bike loves or depends on it--or both.  But some bikes, victims and methods of stealing provoke more disgust and outrage than others.

I'm thinking now about--are you ready for this?--the swiping of a "ghost" bike.  If you ride in almost any city, you've seen one:  painted entirely in white, usually with a sign commemorating a cyclist killed by a driver attached to it.  Of course, they're almost always locked to a signpost or other immobile object.  Even so, they aren't invulnerable to pilferage.  

Such a fate befell the "ghost bike" left at the corner of 134th Street and Pacific Avenue in Parkland, Washington.  Nearby, at 134th and State Route 7, 13-year-old Michael Weilert was crossing on his bicycle in July when a someone drove into the crosswalk and struck him.

As if losing her child weren't bad enough, Amber Weilert  went by the intersection, as she often does, and "was shocked to see it wasn't here" after someone cut the locks and absconded with the memorial to her son.

Fortunately for her, and her family and community, an employee at a local scrap yard recognized the bike and returned it to Weilert's family.

So...while stealing one bike might or might not be worse than stealing another, it's hard to think of a more morally bankrupt bike theft than that of a disabled veteran's wheels--or a "ghost" bike.