No athlete training outdoors wants to think about it, but the cold hard truth is that .
Maybe more inadvertent than intentional, but cars versus cyclists or runner is a no win situation.
On January 8, 2011, in Olathe, KS, a woman was hit by a car and critically injured. She was wearing running clothing and assumingly out for a morning run when she was struck by a car. The police reported they could not identify her at the scene and had to issue alerts to try and contact loved ones. She was reported hit at 8:30am and her identity was reported known by 5:30pm the same day. That’s a time lapse of 9 hours!
In Huntington Beach, CA, on January 9, 2011, a cyclist was hit after two cars crashed. You may think that’s not out of the ordinary for a cycle versus car accident, but the kicker in this story is the two cars crashed, tumbled down an embankment on to a pedestrian and bike trail and hit the cyclists as he happen to be riding by. He was riding on a designated trail and still could not avoid being hit by a car!
These stories stress the importance of carrying identification and emergency contact information no matter where you are out running and riding. Obviously loved ones would want to know what has happened, but what’s the plan if the injured have allergies to medications? It’s not that far-fetched that some people have allergies to pain medications. What are you going to give someone just struck by a car in excruciating pain? Inject someone with morphine that’s allergic to narcotics and you have a dead person.
Road ID can save your life. Not to mention, carry a cell phone with an ICE (In Case of Emergency) contact in the contacts directory or some form of identification with pertinent health information. You can peruse all sorts of stories on Road ID of athletes getting injured without a way to communicate. Everyone has a story of close calls with a car, but if you want to be able to tell your story of being hit, you better have something on you that you can be identified by!
Ryan Falkenrath writes the blog falkeetriathlon.blogspot.com, and is a married father of two, owner of three dogs and trying to balance life, work and multisport. Ryan has participated in multisport events since 2001. Ryan is also the Kansas Endurance Sports Examiner and you can read more of his triathlon thoughs HERE. Contact Ryan at: [email protected] or follow him on @TriJayhawkRyan
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