Dans les Rues de Paris - Vélo Fantôme

RIP yellow biker

Yellow Bike, Hurting Heart

I put on Clement le Casque, hopped on my Vélib and biked up avenue Parmentier on my way to work this morning.  While no one was on Parmentier, as soon as I turned left onto rue du Chemin Vert, the traffic was at a stand still.

I whizzed down the left-hand side, past the idling cars, and wondered what the major hold up was all about.  As I passed a moving van and some road construction, I figured it was just bad timing - too many things going on at the same time during rush hour.

Then I heard the sirens.

Then I saw the people watching.

And then I saw the paramedics pulling a white sheet over a lifeless body.  

A yellow bike crushed under the wheels of a large truck.

My heart leapt into my throat, my eyes welled with tears. Two lives changed in an instant - the biker's and the driver's. Someone is dead and someone else killed a human being today.  I am speechless.

I know these kinds of things happen every day. I come from a family of police officers, firemen, nurses...but I  shield myself from these horrors. I don't know how my brother pulls people from fires or how my sister relays her colleagues giving CPR. The sadness of it all would completely break me. 

I can't even watch scary movies. I avoid the news and sad events. 

I called Copain after parking my bike and begged him to start wearing a helmet, to stop running red lights when he rides. He told me we would buy one together.  Part of me never wants to ride a bike again, but I know that's silly. It would be like not taking the metro when Paris is on a high terrorist alert. You can't live in fear. And biking makes me so happy. But still...

My heart hurts for all of the lives affected by what happened this morning - biker, driver, their families, friends. I only hope that the universe will take care of them all, in whatever way they may need it.


Update about this horrible accident found here. The biker was a 26 year-old woman who lived in the 11th arrondissement. The vehicle was a 32 ton garbage truck that was turning right and didn't see the biker in his blind spot.