Introduction to the (2024 edition of) the DC Ride of Silence, as prepared:
Good evening.
For those who are not familiar, the Ride of Silence is an annual, worldwide event, held at 7pm local time on the third Wednesday of May in cities across the country and around the world—over 230, in 40 US states and a dozen countries this year. In (most of) the US, at least, May is Bike Month, and this week is Bike Week—as you may have heard, Friday is Bike-to-Work Day, and even if you still aren’t going in to an office to work, I encourage you to go out for a spin Friday morning and get that t-shirt. (It’s orange this year!)
But tonight is an opportunity to pause during the great joy of Bike Week and Bike Month and honor and remember those who cannot be here to celebrate with us.
Tonight we honor those killed while riding bikes and scooters in DC—over 20 in the last ten years, including Michael Goldstone, Edwin R. Morales-Martinez, Peter Black, Nijad Huseynov, Carlos Aguiar, Samuel Kesselman, Shawn O’Donnell, Michael Gordon, Michael Hawkins Randall, Allison Hart, Jim Pagels, Armando Martinez-Ramos, Michael Williams, David Farewell, Dave Salovesh, Tom Hollowell, Carlos Sanchez Martin, Jeffrey Hammond Long, Dominique Antonio Lewis, Malik Habib, Burgess Johnson, Dan Neidhardt, Jerrel Robert Elliott, Christopher Brewer, Tonya Reaves, Andre Brands, and others whose names were never released—and the hundreds killed while riding in the United States each and every year. As the national Ride of Silence coordinating site puts it, “Although cyclists have a legal right to be on the road with motorists, [drivers] often [aren’t] aware of these rights, and sometimes not aware of the cyclists themselves.” So, this ride is a combination of a funeral procession and a statement: People on bikes are here, where we have every right to be. We are here and these are our streets, too; we are not going anywhere.
But, as a friend of mine wrote a few years ago, “Vision Zero isn’t a cycling program. It looks like that here because [the cycling community] is vocal about it, but the tens of thousands of people a year who die in car crashes all deserved better laws, practices, and designs.”
And so tonight we also honor the 330 people killed on DC roads in the last decade—53 just since this ride last May, one every week, 28 of them walking, biking, scootering, or simply sitting or standing near the street. We honor too the nine hundred people killed on Virginia roads last year, the over 600 people killed on Maryland roads last year, and the over 40 thousand people killed, and the many, many more gravely injured, on US roads each and every year. Whether biking in a street, motorcycling on a road, driving on a highway, walking along an avenue, or just sitting in a roadside park, restaurant patio, or bus shelter, they all—we all—deserve better.
We begin tonight here, across from the Wilson Building, DC’s city hall and statehouse, and we’ll pass by the US Capitol, because we need better laws from both our local and national leaders. We will pass through Judiciary Square, home of our local and federal police and courts, because we need better practices from those who are supposed to enforce those laws—which doesn’t have to require putting people in cages, but does require taking their vehicles and driving privileges away when they misuse them. And our ride tonight will end in Navy Yard, outside the headquarters of our District and US Departments of Transportation, and the offices of many of my colleagues in private transportation firms, because we need better designs from our local, national, and consulting planners and engineers, designs that make spaces for people, not just the cars some drive.
We will ride slowly and silently, as in a funeral procession. Please turn on your lights, at their low and steady setting if you can. Much like a funeral procession, if the front of the ride reaches a yellow or red light, we will stop; if the light changes while we are crossing, we will continue, as a mass. However, if we do get separated or stretched out, we will pause and regroup.
Please keep alert and aware of the people and pavement around you! While we have tried to avoid known construction areas and bad roads, you may encounter bumps, plates, utility cuts, and other hazards. Be aware of who’s around you if you need to dodge a pothole, and use hand signals to point out problems to the riders behind you.