It was a somber ride to work yesterday morning after hearing the news of a fatal bike collision. In one of the more unsafe intersections in the city, Scott Reckord drove his pickup north on one-way Division and turned left to head west on Sprague when he hit David Squires at about 6:42pm. The truck apparently fled the scene but was followed by a witness until he returned. Reckord failed a sobriety test and was arrested for vehicular homicide and felony hit and run.

Cycling Spokane posted about the accident and now it looks like there’s an effort to create a memorial. Shallow Cogitations also posted. Hank addressed the comments in the article - including a disturbing one that said it should’ve been Councilmembers Richard Rush and Jon Snyder who were hit instead - and focused on the disambiguation since the law states vehicle drivers must yield to pedestrians and bicycles in the crosswalk outside our “retail zone.”














Flickr photo of Division and Sprague by Benjamin Lukoff.

And about that intersection. Poor lighting underneath a train trestle, couplets, potholes, and traffic whizzing by on one-ways - we know many who cross it everyday on bike. This is another tragic reminder that Spokane needs safe and complete streets for all users - whether young or old, motorist or bicyclist, walker or wheelchair user. Whoever you are out there.

Our thoughts and condolences to the Squiers' friends and family. We thought it fitting to share a favorite poem by Seamus Heaney, titled Wheels within Wheels which begins:

The first grip I ever got on things
Was when I learnt the art of pedalling
(By hand) a bike turned upside down, and drove
Its back wheel preternaturally fast.
I loved the dissapearance of the spokes,
The way the space between the hub and the rim
Hummed with transparency. If you threw
A potato into it, the hooped air
Spun mush and drizzle back into your face;
If you touched it with a straw, the straw frittered.
Something about the way those pedal treads
Worked very palpably at first against you
And then began to sweep your hand ahead
Into a new momentum -- that all entered me
Like an access of free power, as if belief
Caught up and spun the objects of belief
In an orbit coterminous with longing.

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