Ghost bike

{On the notice attached to the lamppost:}
In memory of Stephanie Turner. January 20th 2015 marks the anniversary of Stephanie Turner's untimely death at this junction.

Stephanie was 29-years old and newly engaged. She was a physiotherapist who worked for the NHS, a tri-athlete, who ran marathons and climbed mountains. Her friends remember her as someone that lit up a room when she walked in.

She was killed by a driver of a HGV who was texting on his phone at the time. He was later convicted of dangerous driving.

As someone said at the time of Stephanie's death: "Crashes are still seen as unfortunate accidents rather than preventable collisions. But we don't have to let large trucks on our roads, they are banned in many European cities. We could have segregated bike lanes that would have kept Stephanie safe"!

And ROSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) have done extensive research into the use of mobile phones whist driving, that conclude that even using a hands-free mobile whilst driving is still a significant distraction, that substantially increases the risk of crashing, as the driver is trying to concentrate on 2 thinking tasks at the same time. And obviously no one should ever be texting whist driving. For more information on this see ROSPA.com's article on "Driving for work: mobile phones".

Please feel free to add flowers to this ghost bike, should you wish to - to keep it visible. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Ghost bikes serve as a memorial. But they are also intended to remind passing motorists to share the road.