SAFETY FIRST

Her Last Bike Ride

A busy intersection where speed and negligence kill

Lori Ann Memorial. Photo by the author.

“According to reports covering 2025 traffic data, traffic collisions killed 290 people in the City of Los Angeles.” — 2025 Traffic Safety Data (Los Angeles)

While riding my bike on Second Street, I noticed a crowd of people and flashing lights at the corner of Redondo. “What’s going on?” I asked a stranger.

“Some lady on a bike just got run over.”

“Is she alright?”

The stranger shook her head. “I think it was a hit-and-run.”

There was an eerie quiet. Odd for a major intersection in Long Beach, where thousands of people use bikes, cars, skateboards, scooters, and other means of transportation each day. The reason was that on February 11, about a quarter to five, a guy driving a gray Hyundai ran a stop sign and hit a woman named Lori Ann, who flew off her bike, smashing into another car’s windshield. She was only fifty-four. Dead on arrival.

I didn’t know Lori Ann personally, but we had something in common. We both loved riding our bikes, and we often pedaled down Second Street, crossing at Redondo on our way to the park. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it could have been me.

When drivers don’t pay attention and cause an accident, the consequences can be irreversible and shatter lives in an instant. A single moment of distraction or a heavy foot on the gas pedal can rob someone of their future and leave families in unbearable pain. A lack of mindfulness on the road is a blatant lack of respect for others.

The 40-year-old man who hit Lori Ann and sped off eventually turned himself in. Now he faces vehicular manslaughter and the memory of taking a life. No one can get away with it unless you’re rich like Tiger Woods, who has had multiple DUIs and reckless driving. The average person doesn’t have Tiger’s high-powered attorneys to bail him out, or a pal in Washington to give him a presidential pardon.

Someone in my family also ended the life of a biker. She was a new driver, and she said he was riding the bike while carrying a boombox and wasn’t paying attention. That doesn’t let her off the hook, however. When my father taught me how to drive, he said, “All eyes on the road.” One's mind has to be focused when behind the wheel, new driver or not. Whether a cyclist is not paying attention or someone is crossing the street and looking at their phone, there’s no good excuse.

A county outside Philadelphia had probably the worst hit-and-run incident with the most dramatic repercussions. An intoxicated driver ran over a teenager, leaving the kid’s body parts scattered across the road. Two of the victim’s closest friends were so distraught that they took grieving to a different level. They wanted to be with him in heaven and made a suicide pact. They stood in front of an oncoming train. Here, one tragedy led to another.

Why can’t people slow down?

Why do some drivers have a false sense of security while motoring down the street? At the corner of Second and Redondo, everyone seems impatient. They want to get somewhere fast. Some might get distracted, forgetting how dangerous driving can be. They could be on the phone, changing the station, running late for work, or disciplining the kids in the back seat. Others might be drunk or high. But it all results in the same potential tragedy: destroying a life. Lori Ann met her end while riding a bicycle on a pleasant spring day in Southern California. She had no clue that it was her last bike ride. The driver didn’t expect to be handcuffed and put in a jail cell.

I still ride my bike past Second and Redondo. But it’s different now. It’s not just a busy intersection on my way to the park. It’s the place where a member of my community left this world before her time. At the scene of the accident, there’s a memorial of candles, pictures, Lori Ann’s beloved white bike, and mournful letters, placed by family and friends. Two of her friends took loudspeakers and urged the drivers to come to a full stop at the four-way intersection, and some were raising money for her funeral.

Lori Ann, who has been called “the light of the community,” was an occupational therapist and lived only a block from the crash. Each time I pass her memorial, I think of how terrible it is to end your life that way.

RIP Lori Ann.

Photo copyrighted by the author.