Author: Ed B

One moment of a driver’s inattention…

Joeri Gorter 1970 - 2008
Joeri Gorter 1970 – 2008

The inscription reads “One moment of a driver’s inattention made and end to his trip, his dreams, his life”. Joeri Gorter, a Dutch visitor touring the US, was killed by a careless delivery truck driver near Page, AZ, in 2008.

Joeri’s parents Klaas and Marijke Gorter are the kind people who donated a significant portion of a legal settlement to the CAzB to try to help make Arizona a more safe and enjoyable place for bicycle riders. The photo above is the memorial to Joeri that the local Native Americans have allowed to be placed on tribal land near the site of the crash that took Joeri’s life.

Dennis Dempsey, Marijke Gorter, Bob Beane, Klaas Gorter. Sedona, AZLinda, Dennis and I (Bob Beane) hosted the Gorters in the Sedona area after they completed re-tracing the route that Joeri had taken from the west coast. It was our attempt to thank them for their donation and to try to put Arizona, and our bicycling opportunities, in a more positive light than what they had experienced through the loss of their son. We gave them a tour of the just recently completed Highway 179 project, and subsequently shared with them our cover article in the LAB’s American Bicyclist magazine regarding that project.

Joeri Gorter's parents: Klaas & Marijke Gorter
Klaas and Marijke Gorter

I’m sending this to you so that this history is shared and carries on with the newer members of our team, and so that you share in my sense of obligation to the Gorters and to all who ride their bikes in Arizona…whether they live here or are just visiting or passing through.

 

Here’s of video of Joeri with a group of “rowing” bikes taken in 2007… At about 3:15 there is a close-up of Joeri. Then you see him at a café and biking more from then on in his white shirt and gray cap.

 

Please visit www.joerigorter.nl for more about Joeri’s life.

Joeri's plaque at Page
Joeri’s plaque near Page, AZ

Time to raise penalties for distracted, negligent driving

The following guest commentary by Bob Beane was published in the Ahwatukee Foothill News 12/28/2014:

Recently, a bicyclist was killed on Pecos Road. Then, this past week, another cyclist was killed and two others hospitalized following an accident.
Nationally, driver fatalities appear to be declining (due to increasing occupant-oriented safety measures built into vehicles), but there is evidence that pedestrian and bicyclists fatalities are headed in the other direction. In fact, the U.S. Department of Transportation has just been tasked, by a rarely bipartisan Congress, with developing a separate metric to assess this very issue.
There are a number of new campaigns (Nissan red thumb band, It Can Wait, etc.) that ask motor vehicle drivers to stay off their cell phones while driving. And, there are other campaigns that attempt to address DUI, speeding and the need to slow down and move over when approaching public safety vehicles at roadside.
BobBeane-h4It is now time in Arizona to combine these informational campaigns with more significant penalties for negligent and inattentive driving, including much higher fines, longer suspension of driving privileges and serious jail time when crashes are caused that result in injury or death. Be it a pedestrian, a bicyclist or another vehicle driver, everyone deserves our full attention to “job one” when we drive: which is the safety of the driver, passengers and other roadway users. Nothing less should be acceptable, and we should back that up with commensurate legal consequences.
As a society, we need to emphasize the point that driving is a privilege, not a right, and we should legally enforce the expectation that sharing the roadway with others requires a higher standard of care.

Bob Beane is an economics graduate of the College of Wooster and an MBA accounting graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He is also a bicycling advocate and has been a resident of Ahwatukee since 1992.

Arizona Specialty License Plates

Bicycle Colorado’s “Share the Road” plate

Arizona currently has a mechanism for groups to sponsor and fundraise by ‘selling’ specialty plates to motorist who pay “an extra fee, $25 above the basic cost for a plate. The state keeps $8 for administrative costs and passes along the other $17 to sponsoring charities”. This is a per year fee. Continue reading Arizona Specialty License Plates