When I was growing up, we lived in a neighborhood in a small town in East Tennessee. Every afternoon after school, mom would send us out on bikes to roam the neighborhood with friends. She bought me a special Mickey Mouse watch and taught me to be home when the hands read 5:30 every day. As long as we were home for dinner and didn’t get too dirty, miles and miles of neighborhood subdivisions were open for our adventures on bikes.

I’m sure my mom told us to watch for cars and stop at stop signs….but I don’t ever remember being scared of cars or having close encounters. My worst incident was going down and scrapping up the entire side of my leg when my shoe string got tangled in my chain. Coming from an era where mom thought dumping peroxide on any open wound was the solution, that was more than a bit traumatizing.

In my childhood, my bike gave me freedom. It helped me gain independence and confidence. It took me on adventures with friends.

Granted, that was a long time ago. It was before drivers had cell phones, when it was normal to watch for kids roaming solo through the neighborhood after school let out every day, and before the age of massive SUVs in every garage.

As I reflect on those days, I was heartbroken to see this headline from Bicycling Magazine (written by former podcast guest, Molly Hurford)

8-Year-Old Hit and Killed Riding a Bike in Houston, Department of Public Safety Blames Child

Of course, when the headline read Houston, I thought the kid must have been riding on a busy city street…but no, the child was riding his bike in his neighborhood in Kingwood, TX, an affluent suburb of Houston.

This is the place where families move so their kids will have good schools and safe sidewalks. It's the kind of place where you have playdates with your neighbors and run into each other at school functions. It’s a neighborhood full of streets where people go for jogs, walk their dogs, and kids play.

Let’s be clear, ALL children deserve a safe space to ride and play. It’s just that when I read about Kingswood, it reminded me of the streets where I rode freely as a child. It made it personal - less of a distant tragedy. When I saw the little bike in the police photos, I wanted to weep. It’s the same size as the bike that my little niece Lydia rides around her neighborhood.

We don’t know what happened with the driver. We don’t know if the person ran a stop sign, if they were driving distracted, if the kid bolted out in front of the car, or if they just couldn’t see this little bike over the hood of a large SUV.

Kingwood Street where the child was killed — Google map image from the intersection where the child was killed.

But blaming the child, an 8-year-old kid who probably just wanted to go play with his friends, for riding his bike in his neighborhood, that’s inexcusable. If kids are blamed for riding their bikes in ‘unsafe streets’ of a community that proudly advertises itself as a place providing ample opportunity for folks to exercise, relax and socialize., then we have no hope of being protected by law enforcement in places where kids don’t have the same access to sidewalks and protected neighborhoods.

And yes, the department of public safety did walk back those comments, but the fact that they said it at all tells us something about who has priority on the roads.

This news came on top of a tragic week. A triahtlete was doing her final training ride before heading off to race the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii when she was killed by a car in Tampa earlier this week. Professional triathlete Kat Matthews is in the hospital after a car cut in front of her during a training ride on Sunday, ending her run at the World Championship.

Of course, we hear it over and over again, that’s why I went to gravel cycling....because the roads aren’t safe anymore. But it’s not like we’re immune to tragedy just because we ride off-road. A cyclist was killed riding the gravel roads around Emporia the night before UNBOUND in June.

The fact is, we shouldn’t settle for riding off-road because the roads aren’t safe. (I can go on a whole different rant about how we should ride gravel because it's way more fun, but that's another story.)

We shouldn’t settle for the police blaming a victim because his neighborhood streets aren’t 'safe'.

We shouldn’t settle for the fact that drivers are rarely held accountable for killing a cyclist…..that in most cases, they don’t even lose their license.

We shouldn’t settle for shoddy detective work as was the case for Lauren Davis, who was hit by a car in New York City in 2016

We shouldn’t have to pray that we come home alive every time we head out for a ride.

We shouldn’t live in a world where a little boy can’t ride his bike through his neighborhood.

And yes, cyclists have responsibilities. They (we) often don’t obey the laws of the road. They roll through stoplights and stop signs, and they weave through traffic or even ride on the wrong side of the road. They are often the ones creating bad juju with drivers. I’ve had some near misses with cyclists when driving because of those things and I can raise my hand to say I’ve also been guilty of doing a few of those things as well.

But if we settle for a world that says, this is just the way it is, riding isn’t safe, we’ll never strive to create a better world for cyclists.

And even though we primarily ride off-road, we should be working to create a world that’s safe for cyclists. A world where cars and riders aren’t enemies. Where whether we ride for pleasure or transportation or out of necessity, we don’t worry about losing our life on the road that day.

We should create a world where a little kid takes out his green and black bike to play and comes home again that night.

Maybe I’m naive, but I think that world is worth creating.

Are Streets Unsafe for Cycling?