Jealousis “JD” Pereira

 ‘Ghost bike’ to serve as reminder near Geneva intersection

Finger Lakes Times

By MIKE HIBBARD
mhibbard@fltimes.com
Mar 17, 2016

Note: a slide show of images accompanies this original article.

GENEVA — Like many people, Doug Reilly was saddened to hear of the
death of Jealousis “JD” Pereira, the local teen killed last summer when
his bike was hit by a tractor-trailer.

“I think a death like this
is tragic in the truest sense of the word,” said Reilly, one of the
founders of a bicycle advocacy group called GoBike Geneva. “When I heard
about JD it was just horrible, but I asked myself what meanings do
these deaths have unless we can take something from it?”

With that
in mind, Reilly and other members of GoBike Geneva — along with JD’s
family and friends — are placing a “Ghost Bike” near the spot where he
died last August. The ceremony is planned for Saturday near the
intersection of County Road 6 and Routes 5&20 at about 5:30 p.m.,
around the time he was killed.

Ghost bikes are memorials for bicyclists who are killed or
hit on the street. An older bicycle is painted all white and locked to a
street sign near the crash site, serving as a reminder for cyclists and
automobile drivers to be careful on the roads.

Reilly,
programming coordinator for the Center for Global Education at Hobart
and William Smith Colleges, said this will be the first ghost bike
dedicated by GoBike Geneva. While he called ghost bikes a “global
phenomenon,” he said the concept is somewhat new to the area and the
only other ghost bikes he knows about memorialize two cyclists who died
in Musselman races in 2013.

The first ghost bikes were created in
St. Louis in 2003. There are now more than 630 of them at more than 200
locations around the world.

JD, who died at the age of 17, would have been a senior this
year at Geneva High School. His mother, Daisy, said her son had attended
Geneva and Marcus Whitman schools and was leaving from work at
Ponderosa when he was hit.

“I’m still in shock and can’t believe
it happened, but I am taking it one day at a time. I have other children
and grandchildren, and I have to be strong for them,” said Pereira, who
plans to attend the ceremony. “I think it’s an honor to have this done
for my son, and also think it’s a good thing to raise awareness for
bicyclists and drivers.”

Reilly likens ghost bikes to roadside
memorials put up by family members whose loved ones are killed in
automobile or motorcycle crashes. He and other members of GoBike Geneva
hope to start a campaign similar to one that has lawn signs asking
drivers to be aware of motorcycles.

“In our mind, we really think
cyclists need the same thing,” he said. “We need people in cars or
trucks to be more patient and prevent this from happening again.”