Snobby Residents and Road Safety

 Fatal crash cyclist's brother slams 'snobby' residents

By Laura Colgan, News Reporter, Irish Daily Star Tuesday October 27th 2020.

The brother of a cyclist killed in a collision with a truck has blasted residents opposing safety bollards. 

Residents of Fitzwilliam Street in Dublin 2 are urging Dublin City Council to remove the "distasteful" cycle lane bollards put in place to protect cyclists.

The South Georgian Core Residents Association claims the wands used to keep cyclists safe are "visual pollutants" and are not in keeping with the city's conservation area.

Road safety advocate Neil Fox said the safety of cyclists should be prioritised over the appearance of the bollards.

Nonsense

His sister Donna Fox died after she was hit by a truck at the junction of Seville Place and Sheriff Street Upper (Guild Street n.f) while cycling to work on September 6, 2016. Donna (30) had been wearing a helmet and travelling in the cycle lane at the time. 

Neil said: "The subject has reached a new low when a group is opposed to the new bollards or wands because they are 'visual pollutants'. 

"What utter nonsense, which sounds snobbish. The vulnerable need protection and that should and does override such concerns.

"Bollards and wands are hardly ugly or unpleasant to the eye when compared with the reason they are put there.

   "Surely the image of an injured person or indeed a fatality and all the aftermath of that is the more difficult vision than a few wands on a road. It is a crass complaint."

Dublin City Council put bollards in place at the site where Donna died within a few weeks of the crash.

Lights

At her inquest, the jury recommended installing extra traffic lights to allow cyclists to cross junctions safely.

   Neil said: "Within a few weeks, Dublin City Council erected 13 bollards at the site. The bollards have since been replaced by a whole new system.

     "The local people who had been traumatized by what they had seen and heard that awful Tuesday morning[that Donna died] and were far from worried about how those few plastic wands looked.

   "I hope that residents and such groups will cop on.

"We need to start seeing cycling lanes as a normal part of city life."

Death of a Cyclist

The news of the tragic death of cyclist Thiago Osorio Cortes in the week of my sister Donna's fourth anniversary, both killed cycling in very close proximity, has obviously deeply saddened me.

My heart goes out to Thiago's family, loved ones, friends and colleagues, and also very much in my thoughts are the cycling and the Brazilian communities in Dublin. 

Thiago like Donna was in the prime of his life, so the mourning for what might have been and the decades of "if onlys" add a deep poignancy to the grief. I really hope each member of his family and loved one is surrounded by good people at this time and in the weeks and months to come. 

This case is heart breaking on so many levels but one kindness can be afforded his family by those who were in the car involved, and that is very simple; come forward, do the right thing and own up to the Gardai now. Nothing will change what has happened, nothing will bring this young man back, but afford him and his loved ones the dignity they deserve. I can not imagine the torture of a hit and run element to such a horror as it is. 

In the four years since Donna died there have been definitely improvements where cycling safety and indeed cycling acceptance is concerned, more needs to be done of course, but we have seen changes. But at the end of the day no amount of changes in legislation, funding or anything forces us as individuals to do the right thing on the roads, personal responsibility does however. We must look out for and care for one another on the roads. Life is fragile and precious. 

Always always always remember that IT COULD BE YOU, it could be you injured or killed, it could be you bereaved, it could be you behind the wheel, it could be you that knocks somebody down, Let us all do what we can to ensure we do all possible to safeguard each other on the roads. 

Thiago and Donna, different situations but the same in the sense they both got on their bikes and never returned home alive. They both became photographs in a newspaper. They both were too young, too alive, too loved to become a photograph.

Cowen Rightly Sacked but not for Road Safety

September 2016, the month that Barry Cowen TD was stopped for drink driving, happens to be the month that morphed me into an unlikely road safety campaigner. A couple of weeks before my sister Donna Fox became one of the 188 people to die on the roads in the State that year, the ninth cyclist. Donna's death while not connected to drink driving, stopped life as I knew it, not just hers but my own. Life after the crash is a trauma in itself from which I am finally emerging, but you never get over such a horror, and it is a horror. At best we come through it bruised and changed forever but with a loved one to live on for and try to make proud in a way I suppose. 

There was harsh criticism of many Road Safety activists and spokespeople in the last week, who were we to speak up let alone those who called for the Cabinet Minister's resignation and later sacking in my case anyhow, were seen as what was it again, oh yes "witch hunters" with a dubious agenda! 

Road Safety is something that I see as crucial to all our lives. Deputy Cowen was a TD at the time of the speeding and later drink driving offences in 2016. A TD is a lawmaker, this is why the bar is higher - let alone for a Cabinet Minister. Deputy Cowen I have heard in the last week or so, when in my opinion forced into apologies at the twelfth not even eleventh hour, said that he wishes as way of atonement really to work in the future with groups promoting road safety and those bereaved by road deaths. I would have given more faith to that were it not that three months after been caught for one road offence he was caught for another, and four years on it took front page headlines to make him, we are lead to believe, finally disclose to the Leader of his party, what anyone would imagine he would have disclosed long ago given his position. Much has been said on the many other questions that have arisen since on his license issues and whether he ever sat a test, or did he ever use L or N plates etc. The focus on drink driving and speeding was bad enough without all these additional things that led many scratching their heads.... 

Anyhow, I welcome the decision to sack Barry Cowen. I appreciated Mary Lou Mc Donald's direct questioning in the Dail and it became clear watching it that the Taoiseach had no choice but to act and act now. Within hours he had, I would hope with pressure from the Tanaiste and Minister Eamon Ryan to do so. 

It is my belief that the chuckle and wink antics of some TDs and others online in the days as this story unfolded not only showed them up, but unfortunately shows a rather juvenile attitude to road traffic offences. The amount of "but sure who hasn't penalty points, charges etc" shows an ingrained attitude that we must address. That's why campaigners don't go away quietly because we see that the message is lost on so many until sadly it visits their own door. I have no personal issue with Barry Cowen, I have never met him or to my memory had any contact with him in my own campaigns on cycling etc. Had he come out and squared with the people and took the questions in the Dail, had he made clear his wrong doing rather than try to drag it out and drip feed everyone, then start calling the gardai Pulse records into question, well maybe then I would not have been so harsh in calling for his removal from Cabinet. But he did and said as he chose to and that won zero respect from me. 

Barry Cowen did not lose his Ministerial position due to his ambivalent attitude to road safety and road traffic laws, that would have happened immediately upon the breaking of the news. No, political pressure from the opposition and one hopes also from Fine Gael and the Green Party colleagues in government, terrible publicity and farcical utterances that the Taoiseach found himself in the position of making in the Dail today (Tuesday), and what no doubt is seen as a direct attack on the Gardai from a government minister is how Brian Cowen found himself sacked earlier tonight. Ego pulled the rug from under him in the end none of our complaints, but his lavish attacks on everyone but himself. That is how I see it. 

I really hope that Barry Cowen does redeem himself in the eyes of road safety campaigners and victims by holding to his vow to be involved and of help going forward. It always comes across as blame and personal but for me it is not, it is about calling out wrong doing and trying to use it to highlight road safety and road deaths and injuries as something that can affect every single one of us. Driving comes with huge responsibility, it is not a mere right and something to be complacent about. Lives including ones own life depends on such vigilance. 

Conor McGregor Road Safety is no joke!

As a Conor Mc Gregor fan I am disappointed in him for his latest disregard for road safety, he clearly is learning nothing from past convictions. Criticisms are inevitable that we are all only complaining about him because he is a well known personality and why not say the same about the many others who do such things daily. Well the difference is what Mc Gregor does, like it or not gets coverage and is copied by his legions of fans. 

In this latest incident it is not only disregard being shown to road users and indeed to his own safety, but it is a flagrant show of contempt to the garadai and all of us involved in road safety campaigning too, as well as those who are recovering from been in collisions on the roads, those bereaved through road deaths and the emergency services and so many others who are left to deal with these tragedies.    

The onus is now obviously on the gardai to act on this. 

Conor clearly had no qualms about publishing himself breaking the law, endangering himself and others in the process. 

I wish people would get it together on road safety, it is not a sexy subject and wins no accolades, believe me, but it is vital that we continue to call out such behaviour. 

I do not wish to over personalise this but Mc Gregor is a devoted father and a great sportsman indeed business man who has shown in recent times his willingness to put his money up to help the country, with his help towards personal protection equipment at early point of Covid_19 hitting these shores. But he needs to cop on and up his game here. I would love to see him get involved in campaigning for road safety, slaps on the wrists are the norm in this country for dangerous and or negligent conduct on the roads, no matter how serious the consequences...so it might be good to see those who offend having to meet people like myself or those who work in the field directly to hear the reality of  any disregard for ones safety and safety of others while on the roads, especially driving where obviously the odds of killing or injuring someone are much higher.     

As for the offence itself here, the using of a mobile phone while driving certainly is a growing concern.

In general there are ways of proving when a text or a call was in process more or less currently, in the aftermath of a crash, I think we need to be mindful of the fact that scrolling is extremely prevalent and just as distracting indeed I feel it is even more distracting, looking down Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, scrolling away , this is crazy behaviour. 

Nobody is immune from crashes and no expensive car or designer watch or any amount of Instagram followers will prevent a crash. 

The message is not only to Conor Mc Gregor and his fans but to all of us, we have to stop been complacent in our driving, cycling, walking whatever, we must not let our love of social media and connecting with people, cloud our common sense on the roads. The consequences can be a lot more than a telling off from the Gardai or someone like me complaining, the consequences can be fatal.     

I feel privileged to be involved in Leading Lights RSA initiative which thankfully shows that many around the country, especially young people, are trying to make a creative and real difference in protecting us all on the roads, I wish the likes of Conor Mc Gregor had even a little of their gumption. 

After The Crash

Since my sister  Donna was the “girl on the bike” in Dublin who was killed in a moment’s collision with a lorry on her way to work, each cyclist’s death registers somewhere in my heart. It’s a strange one, aside from a couple of families who lost loved ones in cycling tragedies that I know a little; I don’t know these people at all, yet there’s a kinship there. 

I read on Twitter this morning that ten year old Adam Lyons died - barely had I digested that sad news but I learned about another cyclist killed in the same twenty four hours along with a driver. Three lives lost on our roads, so many more lives scattered asunder in an instant that can never be undone.

The moment that you are told is the moment that your life changes, it is so seismic that it defies words. A road death transports us to an unknown land of a grief like no other in my experience. Not that there is a hierarchy in grief obviously, but it is different. It brings challenges few can imagine quite aside from the horrendous shock and devastating loss itself.

Was it her fault? Was she not wearing a helmet? Bikes are far too dangerous. You take your life in your hands cycling. Why didn’t she drive her car or get the train? Far too many bikes on the roads now. These comments, made to me by those I knew in the couple of days after the crash, were nothing like the rants and assumptions that were been tweeted even before I knew Donna had been knocked down and had died. The trolls are the trolls but they also are road users like us all so these damning groundless attitudes do worry me.

Then you have the Gardaí the emergency services and in some cases the gasps of hope soon dashed in hospital corridors or the back of ambulances. “Donna is in the city’s morgue.” Aaron and John the two Gardaí who broke the news to me explained, so we didn’t have any hope to be dashed. In Donna’s case you also had the media, who hand on heart nearly four years on have always been supportive. Perhaps not everyone’s experience though. Nothing prepares you to see your sisters photo on the newspaper stands under those tragic headlines, or on the way to buy clothes for her funeral to hear her death discussed on national radio shows. Now it is not something I blink an eye about as I have used it as a platform since to campaign for greater safety measures for cycling and to involve myself in road safety promotion in whatever way I can. But back in that September week, it was all a haze, all a new world. It was surreal.

These type of deaths effect everyone, it touches people who you have never met or known, most are wonderful when they get in touch but some are crazies. Being easily accessible online as I was I had some interesting encounters let’s just say. In a way those things are a distraction from the real life horror though and I look back and smile at the nonsense now. 

Donna was coming up to her 31st birthday, very young in my eyes still, our mother Catherine had died at 51 five years earlier which was young in my book too. There was so much potential, that torturous mourning for what might have been. No matter how much we know it’s pointless; it is near impossible not to languish in such thinking, in those early days in particular. 

I think of those families this week. I wonder how they are in the maze that they’ve been thrown into. I think of those who witnessed the crashes too, the first responders. Each death on the road touches deep into the fabric of so many peoples psyche. I’m blessed to know well in these last years, Amanda the woman who tried to save Donna’s life, relentlessly doing CPR having jumped out of her car. In our mutual sharing and unusual but tight bond, I have found that not only those whose loved ones are lost have their lives altered but others too. People like Amanda who only met Donna in those last moments of her life, seconds maybe. A man on his motorbike Paul will forever remember shouting and screaming in hope of getting the lorry driver’s attention. Just two of those impacted.

Each fatal crash has differences so I only can speak of my own experience. There were two people involved in the crash that took my sisters life, Donna and Henry (not his real name but more human than saying the “driver”). There were two immediate families left shaken to the core. Two families who in this case didn’t know one another, had no connection other than those few seconds if even that, which reshaped a part of us. I didn’t meet them until in a coroners court eighteen months later. Each collision is different, but all involve people, real people, someone’s sister someone’s son. I genuinely feel for Henry even though it’s a very different process he has been through, but probably outside of those closest to Donna, he is the only other person who understands the gravity of that Tuesday morning in 2016. 

For me I found direction and healing these last years in campaigning and working with RSA and others in highlighting the seriousness we must give road safety. I went from been a guarded person to wearing my heart on my sleeve and sharing my personal journey, it’s not for everyone, but each of us find our way. Working for safer roads, new legislation and radical increases in funds for cycling infrastructure saved me from the abyss. I messed up many times in my personal life as trauma and grief complicate everything if you don’t get the supports you need or reach out for the wrong ones. But I am proud too, proud to try to do good in memory of my sister and all those who are far more than a news story. Proud of the incredible people I know now who have helped me find a new way in the world. But of course never as proud of anything as to say that girl on the bike was my sister.