Biking advocates call for efforts to prevent fatal crashes

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indianapolis biking advocates reeling from the deaths of seven people this year in collisions between vehicles and cyclists are calling for the city to do more to try to prevent such crashes.

About two dozen cyclists held a moment of silence for seven minutes — one for each crash victim — at a downtown plaza Sunday evening to mark World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims.

The candlelight vigil was organized by Bike Indianapolis, a nonprofit group which says that, by its count, seven cyclists have received a fatal blow from a vehicle in Indianapolis since mid-July.

“This was too many deaths,” said Sylva Zhang, Bike Indianapolis’ marketing director.

In each of the previous six years, the city recorded between one and five fatal crashes with cyclists, according to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization’s crash dashboard, The Indianapolis Star reported.

Biking advocates want the city to establish a crash response team of city-county employees and independent citizens to examine crash sites involving cyclists and pedestrians and recommend preventative infrastructure and policy improvements.

They also want the city to respond to those recommendations with plans and to create a database of crash data and reports immediately after they are submitted.

City engineers currently review all fatal crashes with the police department’s traffic investigators looking for potential infrastructure changes.

But Bike Indianapolis is pushing for a team that includes city-county councilors and residents.