Dublin

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In early 2009, the Dublin Cycling Campaign (DCC) began installing ghostbikes in and around Dublin, beginning with a ghostbike for Zu Zhang Wong.

Taken from an article in the Irish Times:

[the first ghostbike installation was]"...organised by the Dublin Cycling Campaign (DCC)
which is adopting the concept as a way of bringing the cycling
community together and to remind people about fatalities involving
cyclists. Eleven cyclists died in the capital between 2002 and 2006 (75
per cent of them struck by left-turning lorries)
and three died last
year.

The ghost bike idea has been discussed by cycling
campaigners for over a year. Some oppose such symbols because they
believe it sends out a message that cycling is more dangerous than it
is. But it’s clear from the volume of posts on internet discussion
boards that there was a groundswell of opinion favouring introducing it
to Ireland.

“We have held off on doing this,” says Dr Mike
McKillen of the DCC. “While it is a poignant memorial, you do need the
permission of the family.” A lecturer in TCD, he attended the funeral
of Zu Zhang Wong and received the permission of his parents and his
cousin, who lives in Ireland.

“This young Chinese man was
thousands of miles from home. At the funeral his poor parents were in
bits. Only when you see the grief do you realise how important it is to
remind people that a cyclist died there.”

McKillen’s personal
motivation to highlight the dangers facing cyclists in Dublin,
especially from lorries, began when he came upon an accident in
September 2006. A trained first aider, he went to help. “The cyclist
was under the truck. I started giving CPR, as I knelt in the gutter
with rainwater coursing down. I did the breathing. Another passer-by
did chest compression. The man died in my arms one minute after we
started.”

McKillen believes that six-axle trucks and other big
lorries such as concrete mixers are not designed for urban
traffic-congested environments, even when fisheye or Cyclops mirrors
are fitted (to allow the driver see what is happening on the passenger
side). He argues that the view of the driver is still obstructed. He
also says that traffic and road planning that places cyclists in lanes
where they are especially vulnerable to left-turning lorries is a
“public scandal”.

It’s not the first such viral campaign in
Ireland. In the early 1990s, local people placed over 20 simple white
crosses – each marking a fatality – on a notorious stretch of the N6
national road between Cappataggle and Aughrim in east Galway. The
protest was devastatingly effective, coercing the authorities into
belated action.

 

More about this ghost bike project