A New Non-Profit for Bicycle Research & Safety

2019 was a lousy year for car/bike crashes in Ohio. WAY too many cyclists killed on the roads… You can read what I wrote about 2019 here – we had 23 cyclists killed in Ohio.
 
The last fatal crash of 2020 in Ohio occurred on September 27… a drunk driver slammed into the back of a cyclist – Peter Paul Brown – in Columbus and then kept going. The motorist, Dashawn Finroy, drove along and slammed into two more vehicles before getting out & trying to run off. He was captured by police & charged with Aggravated Vehicular Homicide, among other things.
 

The crash & charges were reported widely – The crash happened at 11pm. Mr. Brown was riding home from work. He had all the required lights & reflectors on his bike when he was killed by the VERY  impaired Mr. Finroy.
 
In October 2020 Finroy entered a Guilty plea to the AggVehicular charges. He will be spending several years in prison.
I didn’t find any mention of the plea/sentence in media reports. Just another number in the system, I guess… but Mr. Brown is still dead… still the victim of a hit/run by a killer who blew a 0.241% BAC…
 
Mr. Brown’s family tells me that he had ridden his bike to and from work for some five years. He was saving up for a car. The bike was his only means of transportation. His mom wrote a letter to the Judge for sentencing telling the COurt about Mr. Brown’s insistence on making sure he could be “seen for miles” while commuting on his bike at night. Mr. Brown was a husband, a father and a grandfather. His Mom told the Court that he was a “happy person” with a “big heart” who loved life and was just trying to “make a living for his family …”
 
I got behind on tracking bike crashes last year & had a hard time keeping up with all the fatal crashes we saw in August/September. I really regret that. Working as a solo trial lawyer I had a number of cases heating up in various courts at the end of 2019 and I wasn’t able to stay on top of the crime wave of idiot motorists slamming into cyclists. We were ultimately able to track down all the crashes & I wrote a brief report, cited above, about 2019… but I didn’t really have the ability to follow all the crashes as closely as I would have liked.
 
We had SIX cyclists killed in September in Ohio … THREE cyclists killed on September 27, when Mr. Brown was killed. In addition to Mr. Brown one other cyclist was killed when he was hit from behind by a hit/run motorist. The third fatality on 9/27/2019 was 88 year old Clyde Enrsberger who, like Mr. Brown, was killed in Franklin County. Clyde was in the intersection of Tamarack and Morse Road at 3:30 in the afternoon when he was run down. Police blamed Clyde for not being “discernible” … at 3:30 in the afternoon… on a big old TRIKE 
 
These crashes don’t involve “numbers” … these are crashes in which PEOPLE are killed … people who left grieving widows and kids and grandkids… people just trying to move about the city when they were killed. 
Now, I’m certainly not saying that every bike crash involves an errant motorist. Not in any way. But… we’re certainly seeing an Uptick in errant motorists… speeding motorists… impatient motorists… angry motorists… On September 27, 2019 we saw two HIT & RUN motorists kill cyclists. In Clyde’s case, I’m still not sure what happened as we are still awaiting the full and complete crash data… he was in the intersection and got hit broadside. A witness said the motorist had the green light, but if Clyde entered the intersection when HIS light was green he had the right to clear it… Hard to imagine a guy who lived for 88 years just up and decide to blow a red light on a busy intersection but, hey, I guess it could happen…
A NEW NON-PROFIT GROUP TO INVESTIGATE CRASHES
We are putting together a new group – a non-profit dedicated to tracking, investigating and researching bicycle & pedestrian crashes, researching data, and providing information to the cycling & general public. I am hoping to have this new group up and running by 1/1/2021…
 
Stay TUNED here for more information!
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