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Ghost Bikes (Memorials to Cyclists Killed) - Have You Seen One?

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Myrtlee

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Maybe this is old news, but apparently there's a trend for putting a bike, painted white, in any spot where a cyclist has recently died. Bristol recently got its first one (yay :roll:) and I only just noticed it and then googled it today.

from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/8149075.stm
A so-called "ghost bike" has appeared in Bristol as a tribute to a cyclist who died in January. Nicholas Abraham, the 29-year-old son of the city's former lord mayor Peter Abraham, was hit by a car and killed on the A4, Portway.
The bike, spray-painted white, has been chained up near the accident site.
Ghost bikes, which first appeared in the US in 2003, commemorate the dead as well as drawing attention to the dangers on the roads. An old bike is stripped down so it is left with no pedals, chain or brake cables. The frame is then sprayed white and chained to railings or a lamp post. Mr Abraham said he was very touched by the tribute to his son. **

So... anyone seen one near them? Do you think they are just a keep safe message to drivers and cyclists or is there something more to them? The one in Bristol doesn't seem to have any ULs attached to it YET, but I'll keep an ear out.

**sorry I can't seem to get the quote or URL functions to work properly!
 
Heard of them but never seen one.

Ghost Bikes Website

Video about them from the Guardian

and

Nice Guardian article

I first noticed the shiny white bike, chained to a black lamppost near Farringdon station in London, shortly before world leaders descended on the city for the G20 in April.

Was it, I wondered while pedalling past, some covert landmark to guide supporters from one of the myriad of protest groups gathering during the talks?

No it wasn't. The G20 leaders came and went but the bike, painted white from saddle to tyre, remained tethered at the junction of St John Street and Clerkenwell Road.

A few days later I chanced across a site on ghost bikes, roadside memorials to cyclists, and the penny dropped. This was part, it was now clear, of a low-profile campaign to raise awareness of cycling fatalities, and it has been going on for a number of years.

The ghostbike website says:

They serve as reminders of the tragedy that took place on an otherwise anonymous street corner, and as quiet statements in support of cyclists' right to safe travel.

The one I saw has been named the Ghost Bike of St John Street. A number of incidents have occurred at the junction, including the death of Harriet Tory in 2005. And there are many other ghost bikes around the country.

But not everyone agrees that they are a fitting tribute. A colleague pointed out that spectral memorials dotted round the roads were hardly likely to tempt those already cautious about cycling into the saddle.

And police recently removed, on grounds of road safety, a ghost bike near a Sussex beauty spot. The bike marked where James Danson-Hatcher died and his family supported its presence.

His sister, Alison Swann, told the BBC: "I think it is a very effective message because it is symbolic. Everyone can for a split second at least visualise what has happened."

Likewise, they strike me as a canny way of moving cycling deaths from the realms of the statistical to showing the real consequences of motoring mistakes.
Click to expand...
 
Ghost Bicycles

:smokin: This is a new one on me.I have never seen this while driving around San Antonio.
Now I have a course seen the white roadside crosses, but not bicycles.
In fact, on Ritterman road, near where Ackerman runs into it, there is a white roadside cross which always has flowers,mainly artifical ones.
One time, I saw they had a tshirt on a hanger, hanging from the tree there.
I thought that was rather odd.Something was printed on the front, but I couldn't read it.
 
I just heard about ghost bikes for the first time in a news article yesterday - the ex Attorney General of Ontario killed a cycle courier in the most freakish case of roadrage on Monday night (driving 100 metres the wrong way along one of the busiest streets in Toronto trying to shake the cyclist off his car).

The bike courier community are putting a ghost bike there today apparently!

Story if anyone's interested

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/689771
 
No Ive never seen one, heard about them though, I am very glad to say that I have only ever known one person who was killed cycling and I only knew him slightly.
It was a strange case last year when someone ran into the back of this group of cyclists on the itchen bridge in Southampton, it turned out the driver had 9 people in a nisan micra all high on crack cocaine.Its a nasty bridge and i would never ride over it.
 
There is one in Washington DC, in the Dupont Circle neighborhood for a young woman who was killed riding her bike to work in 2008. There was a bit of an uproar this summer when some city workers took it down. It was immediately replaced by the local cycling community. I am a bike commuter myself and seeing such things just leaves me feeling very sad.

http://www.ghostbikes.org/washington-dc/alice-swanson
 
I've now seen the ghost bike on Bloor Street in Toronto, debated taking a pic to post here but the idea creeped me out.
 
I live in NYC, and unfortunately there are Ghost Bikes all over.
Probably more than 60 at this point.
Here, they usually add a little sign with the name and age of the cyclist, the date of the accident and a short description of how they were killed.
I think the most pathetic one is where a driver was so drunk that he thought a paved, off-road bike path was the actual road and drove down it at around 50mph, striking and killing a cyclist.

http://nymag.com/news/features/47819/
 
For some reason this has saddened me a lot, being an occasional cyclist might be why and the fact I have had many near misses with idiot drivers. However, have never seen one of these ghost bikes in the Lake District where I live.
 
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