On July 3, 2015, my son, my daughter, my wife and I rode our bicycles with my brother along the Panhandle trail a little south and west of Pittsburgh, not knowing that this was going to be the last time we would see my brother alive. I teased him because even on the trail he wore his florescent yellow safety vest, the same vest he would be wearing as he lay bleeding and unconscious along the shoulder of Route 51 in Aliquippa.
I had to tease my brother quietly in light of his being such a great role model for his nephew and niece. And that ride became a fond memory of us sitting on a bench along the trail after completing the outbound stretch of a 33-mile ride, eating the cherries he had brought for us, his favorite fruit, and our 7-year-old daughter asking if maybe one of those seeds we were spitting would grow into a cherry tree.
My brother was a brilliant man of 54 years with impeccable judgment; vice president of an architecture, engineering and design firm in Pittsburgh; author of multiple mechanical engineering books. He was a man who would buy my son a 4,000-piece LEGO set for Christmas and then spend Saturday evenings at our house helping him construct it, a man who had devoted more than 4,800 hours volunteering at Children’s Hospital over 23 years, a man who came and picked my family up when our car radiator froze solid on that record-setting -9 degree day the prior year.
So it was hard for me to imagine when he called me Aug. 5, 2015, the evening before his accident, that this would be the last time I would hear his voice, the last time I would have a chance to speak with him. He left a voice-mail message, and it was late, and I decided not to call him back. Sometimes we count on time we do not have.
The next morning, as I dressed for work, I received a call from my brother’s phone. I answered it, expecting it to be him, but instead it was a Hopewell Township police officer informing me that my brother was struck by a pickup truck and had been life-flighted to Presbyterian hospital. They called me because my number was the most recent one listed under “recent calls.”
My brother had received catastrophic brain injuries in the accident, and he died later that evening with his family at his side.
I tell my brother’s story, my story, our story, because it is one story of many experienced by Pittsburgh-area families who have lost family members along our roads and highways. I share it because my brother’s death was not the first along the West End corridor; it was not the last along that corridor. For some reason, we continue to pretend that bike riders and cars can safely share the same space along high-speed thoroughfares. Bicyclists are no less vulnerable than pedestrians, but pedestrians have sidewalks.
Modern society, and certainly our younger generation, demands healthy, environmentally sustainable transportation options. It is the responsibility of our elected leaders and departments of transportation to offer safe alternatives to driving. Until we do, families will continue to receive calls like the one I received in August of last year, calls telling them that the dearest people in their lives were killed on their way to work like my brother, or on their way home to their families.
Our elected officials and transportation agencies also should consider the local businesses that must bear the loss of accomplished professionals and other dedicated employees, not to mention the rest of us, as we all bear the burden in insurance premiums from medical costs for rescue transportation and emergency surgeries that can grow to upwards of $1 million in a single day.
As citizens, we need to advocate for this even if we have never clipped our feet into bicycle pedals, and maybe never intend to do so, because our sons, our daughters, our nieces, our nephews, our grandsons and granddaughters, our friends, our co-workers WILL do so. And while we can often pretend that everything will be OK, pretend that bicycles can safely ride on Route 51 (a state-designated bike route) among cars doing speeds in excess of 65 miles per hour, there is no pretending when you answer the phone to the reality of no tomorrow, no getting back that conversation you wish you had had if you didn’t count on there being another day for your brother.
No one should have to experience the distinctly present vacancy of riding the Panhandle trail, this time one rider short, hoping against hope to see a cherry tree growing alongside that bench where we sat and ate on that sunny July afternoon.
Brian Bell is an analytical unit supervisor for the Great Lakes Behavioral Research Institute and lives in Marshall.
First Published: September 25, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
