A lane of their own

Road accident highlights need for bike lanes

By Dean Poling

VALDOSTA — Bike lanes are coming to Valdosta, but not soon enough for Dr. Ben Hogan.

Last week, the city of Valdosta installed a bike lane along Sustella Avenue. It is to be the first of a network of bike lanes throughout the city being developed in the months and years to come.

Yet, two weeks ago, a truck struck Hogan and a fellow cyclist as they pedaled along Perimeter Road. He would like to see the city’s bike lanes develop at a quicker pace and would also like to see Lowndes County and the state implement bike lanes.

“A 3,000-pound vehicle riding up my rear end may take precedence, but, in the eyes of the law, there’s no difference between my bike and a truck,” Hogan says, referring to state law that requires cyclists adhere to the same traffic laws as an automobile.

But in a situation of a bicycle versus a car, or a truck, the cyclist is at a disadvantage.

“Bike lanes separate bicycles from other vehicles,” Hogan says, creating a safer roadway for cyclists and one where motorists do not have to worry about passing bicycles.



RIDE INTERRUPTED

Ben Hogan and a fellow cyclist were 20 miles into a bike ride. They had been training for a half-iron man competition scheduled for October on Amelia Island.

Pedaling 30 miles or more at a stretch is not unusual for Hogan and other area distance cyclists. They travel city streets, county roads, state highways. They pedal places most people would consider a drive out of town. They bike from Valdosta to Hahira, from Valdosta to Morven, then back.

At approximately 2 p.m. Sunday, July 26, Hogan and his fellow cyclist were pedaling with traffic along the southbound lanes of Perimeter Road, near U.S. 84. The road temperature had risen to 107 degrees.

Riding along. Twenty miles into the ride. Hot. A good sweat. A Sunday afternoon for two cyclists training for a competition. Then disarray. The world seen at odd angles. Sudden stops. Spins. Flight. Slides. Stops again. Dazed confusion. Pain.

A truck hit Hogan and the other cyclist. A truck reportedly going 55 miles an hour. A pick-up truck versus two lightweight bikes. Hard metal against the frail anatomy of flesh and bone.

An accident: Hogan is sure, almost certain, the driver didn’t hit them on purpose. The truck driver reportedly had been reaching for something on the floorboard at the time of the collision, Hogan says. He didn’t know the cyclists were there. Hogan recalls the truck driver puking on the side of the road. Staring at the cyclists he had hit, the driver told law-enforcement that he thought they were dead.



WRECKED IMPRESSIONS

Impressions of what Ben Hogan remembers and what he has since learned:

The truck hit him direct from behind.

His hand hit the truck grill and a headlight.

Hogan uses a heart monitor for training. It was found 60 feet off the road.

He traveled eight to 10 feet in the air.

Hogan landed on the rumble strips and slid 18 feet off the road.

Hogan remembers: Swirls of dust. Flying up in the air. Looking off into the woods.

“Like something you see in one of those Vietnam movies. I couldn’t hear anything. What just happened?”

Hogan called people on the phone. “The whole time sitting there. It didn’t register.”

The other cyclist remembers Hogan walking toward her. He does not remember this.

The truck sideswiped his fellow cyclist. A quarter-panel hit her.

She traveled several feet off the road.

She hit her head. Her bicycle helmet split in two.

By chance a family friend had been traveling along the same road, the same time. She witnessed the wreck. She stopped. She asked Hogan, “Are you OK?”

Hogan called the hospital. He got a fellow doctor on the line. The doctor said he’d seen Hogan cycling with another cyclist along the road a short time earlier.

— We’ve been hit by a car. — Yeah, right. — No, really. We’re coming to the hospital. — Are you OK?

Asked again, Hogan looks at himself. He looks down. He’s covered in blood. “There’s blood all over me. ... Where the hell am I bleeding from?”

Ambulance arrives. A trip to the hospital. A medical doctor traveling in an ambulance as a patient.

On top of all the surreal moments, comes this. At the hospital, they ask the other cyclist about her regular physician. He’s the other person who was in the ambulance.

While emergency personnel attend Hogan’s injuries, he answers questions about the other cyclist’s medical history. Even as a patient, Hogan must be a doctor.

Hogan suffered a separation in his left shoulder, a possible chipped bone to his left elbow, injuries to the fingers of his left hand, and numerous cuts and road rash along his body.



CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

Through the years, Hogan the cyclist has had several encounters with cars and trucks. Nothing as physical as the recent collision, but strange encounters with motorists.

It’s not uncommon, he says, for some cars to play a kind of chicken with bicycles by seeing how close they can get while passing a cyclist.

He says a friend once had a Whopper tossed at him by a passing car. Spit cups have been tossed at Hogan so often that he can tell whether the tossed cup contains Copenhagen or Skoal.

One time, along one road, an adult driver slowed down so his children could pelt Hogan on his bicycle with items tossed from a truck.

On another occasion, a motorist stopped his car and wanted to fight because he felt Hogan was cycling too slow along the road.

“Still, those folks don’t scare me as much as a regular person not paying attention, or texting, or talking on a cell phone, or the radio, or a GPS, at 55, 65 miles per hour,” Hogan says.

“Had that been my daughter or son hit, instead of me,” Hogan starts, “... or imagine your son or daughter on the bike, or your wife, or yourself, or imagine your son or daughter, or yourself driving the car. I don’t think the driver meant to hit us, but it bothered him so bad he threw up.”

No one wants someone they love to be hit by a car, and most folks wouldn’t want to live with themselves if they hit someone with a car, or have their loved one hit somebody with a car, Hogan says.

“To prevent it, you have to separate pedestrians and cyclists from other vehicles,” he says.

That’s what the city is starting to do.



BIKE LANES COMING

The Sustella Avenue project is the beginning of Valdosta’s network of bike lanes, says City Engineer Von Shipman. It ties into the Azalea City Trail, and will hopefully soon tie into additional bike lanes that should give Valdosta State University students from the Blanton Commons and Remerton area direct bike-lane access to campus.

In the months and years to come, several more bike lanes will be added throughout the city as part of the city’s Comprehensive Transportation Master Plan. This network of bike and pedestrian routes may be seen on the city’s Web site (www.valdostacity.com, click on Departments, then Engineering, then Transportation Planning, then “TMP-Bike-Ped-Projects-Map”).

These routes were discussed extensively and were part of several public hearings prior to being approved by the Valdosta City Council, Shipman says.

“It is a commitment the city has made,” Shipman says. “We heard it loud and clear. People want bike and pedestrian lanes.”

For some streets, a bike lane will be as simple as paint. Lanes can be altered to provide room for a bicycle lane, with any additional alterations to the street’s current width, Shipman says. These streets will be the first to see the addition of bike lanes. Other bike lanes will come when the city makes infrastructure changes to a street.

These lanes will take time, but the process recognizes a need.

“We’re woefully inadequate when it comes to having a safe passage for bicycles,” he says. However, mutual cooperation will be necessary for bike lanes to work.

Cyclists will have to use them and adhere to the rules of the road as much as motorists will have to respect the bike lanes. While many cycling enthusiasts, such as Hogan, work to follow the rules, there are many bicycle riders who do not follow the rules. These riders, Shipman says, are “putting themselves and the public in dire situations.”

He believes the five-foot lanes on Sustella and coming to other city streets will “be friendly and comfortable for cyclists.”



HE’LL RIDE AGAIN

Safety and comfort are part of what Hogan would like to see with the provision of more bike lanes. He would like to feel that he, his friends, his wife, Leigh Ann, or his children, Pate, 9, and Haley, 7, can enjoy exercising in the outdoors.

“People ought to be able to enjoy this town,” he says. “For people to exercise, they feel they have to join a gym or drive several miles to walk around a track. This is a beautiful place and people should be able to get out and enjoy it.”

As for himself, at the time of this interview last week, Hogan had only been on his bike once since the wreck. He took a ride with his daughter.

Hogan and his fellow cyclist have had to cancel participation in October’s iron man event. He’s being treated for his injuries. His fellow cyclist is doing well, but is also being treated.

Things could have been much worse. Hogan knows this as a cyclist and as a physician.

“Some people have told me, it’s a miracle I wasn’t killed,” Hogan says. “They say, I should quit riding my bike now.”

Hogan has no plans to quit riding his bicycle. He plans to continue advocating the implementation of bike lanes.

Hopefully, in the months to come, the city will have a safer place for him to ride.

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