Our friend Alan Snel has good coverage of the “Honor the Fallen” bike ride on his blog…I walked over to the starting point with my kids to show my solidarity and to say hi to the stalwart participants I knew would be there. I didn’t bring a camera, because — and I’m going to be brutally honest here — I didn’t think enough people around here gave a crap and thought the event would be sparsely-attended, at best.
Man, was I wrong! There was a throng of cyclists ready to go…and news vans from three different TV stations as well as reporters from the local newspapers. State Representative Janet Cruz (D) was in attendance, and a local minister came to lead the group in a moment of silence. The group of cyclists was reported to be around 60 participants, but I’m convinced there were a lot more.
Six cyclists have died here in the Tampa Bay area since July 29th — we’re already one of the deadliest places in the United States to be a cyclist or pedestrian, but the recent spate of tragedies is sickening. What’s even more troubling is that a number of our elected officials in this area refuse to get tough and actually do something about what’s going on out on the streets…one prominent politician (Tampa’s Mayor) even accused the event organizers of being “inflammatory” and using the personal tragedies to spin an agenda.
Luckily, some of our other officials are starting to “get it”. And, two TV stations did a good job in getting the word out by filming the start of the event. You can see some of that coverage here:
The St. Petersburg Times also ran a good article on the situation. Check that out by clicking here.
The whole thing was a lesson for me…people really DO care around here. Now, if we could only convince our elected officials to do the same, we’d really be onto something!
Popularity: 4% [?]
