Bicycle in a big city: how to avoid an accident

Illustration The New York Times

Viktoriia Hubareva

Recently, activists of the U-Cycle public organization independently calculated how many cyclists cross the capital's intersections. So, it turned out that the number of cyclists on weekdays increased 2.5 times, which is about 4.5 thousand cyclists per day.

On May 13, cyclists held another demonstration near the walls of the Cabinet of Ministers: for the second time, they erected a monument, a bicycle painted in white, where they laid flowers and lighted 275 lamps. That's how many cyclists died in 2020 and the last part of 2021 on the roads as a result of accidents.

Then the reason for the demonstration was the death of Veronika Vyshynska, an experienced cyclist, who'd covered 2382 kilometers by bike only since the beginning of this year, that's 47 trips. She left for the last one on May 9, as usual: in a helmet, clothes with reflectors, headlights at the back and front of the bicycle, taking into account all the safety measures prescribed in the rules. But Veronica wasn't saved; she died because the driver violated the traffic rules.

Since then, the number of accidents with cyclists hasn't decreased. Cyclists are involved in road accidents every week in Kyiv. This year there wasn't a single week when there were no accidents involving cyclists.