Washington University in St. Louis Runner Killed While Running

I quit biking on the roads a few years ago. I run against traffic and just tonight I was out on a country road and had to jump in the ditch when a truck made no attempt to move over. When I am out on the highway where I have plenty of room to run, I watch the drivers and 2/3rds are talking on their cell phones. Most never see me and some will catch me out of the corner of their eye and swerve because they have no idea how far away from me they are.

I wanted more details before saying it was completely the driver's fault.

Saying the driver was drunk still didn't say if it was avoidable on the runner's part.

The one article said she was running on the shoulder of the road and there was a white line that seperated the road from the shoulder.

She was running in the same direction as traffic and the truck swerved to the right, into the shoulder and hit her.

Even if she was running against traffic and the truck was coming toward her, this would still have been tough to avoid.

Running on the shoulder of a road is dangerous, but a common and relatively safe practice for running when the choices are limited.

This is all on the driver.

codger wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

Man this story sucks, the guy who hit her is an obvious dirtbag, but I swear, I don't know how many more stories like this we have to hear before people quit running on the freakin' roads.

Bike trails, parks, sidewalks, treadmills, indoor and outdoor tracks, etc. Anything but roads with traffic. To trust that all of those drivers will be watching out for you is insane.

Flaggy, what should cyclists do?

Thanks.

Well, the obvious answer to that is that they should just come out of the closet already.

The serious answer is find a bike trail (Columbus has a very long one) and ride there. We hear stories of bicyclists getting hit by motorists all the time. I know a person who was hit and has been in a coma for years. To trust your life to bad drivers out there...no freakin' way.

Not Steve wrote:

Haha, sidewalks. That's a good one. If the area is like a lot of others, there's nowhere to run but roads.

Dude, if there are no sidewalks, then you find a park or run on a treadmill. Running on a road with auto traffic is crazy.

Very sad, and very sorry to hear this.

The guy who hit her had no business being on the road at all--or even out of jail. What were they thinking to release someone who threatened people with an axe?

I hope that at least this incident wakes prosecutors up--how would they have set such a low bail for him?

Kanye North wrote:

Not Steve wrote:

Haha, sidewalks. That's a good one. If the area is like a lot of others, there's nowhere to run but roads.

Yep. Nor are there bike paths, or trails, or outdoor tracks, or indoor tracks. A lot of people don't have easy access to any of those things.

Why does protecting your life have to be "easy". If you live in the median of a highway, then either get in your freakin' car and drive to a place where you can safely run, OR get a treadmill and run on that. It would be NICE if we could all just step out our doors and run where ever the hell we want to, but for those with nothing but traffic around them, they SHOULD be doing something else. There aren't too many places in the US where you aren't a 10 minute car ride from a park with trails or a bike path or a track that is open or something, and again, if you are, then get a treadmill.

Leave it to Flagpole to turn a tragedy into a self-important advice hour

Are you guys f***ing kidding me with this "she was running on the road it's her fault, not the driver's"? She got hit and killed by a DRUNK DRIVER and you imbeciles are talking about all of the things she should have done differently. How about not driving drunk for christ sakes?! This type of bulls**t really makes me hate this website. A good friend of mine and several other posters on this board gets killed by a drunk driver and the letsrun community needs to blame her. Absolutely pathetic.

Cyclists coming out the closet was pretty funny.

But I knew a cyclist who was killed riding on a bike path as he tried to avoid a pedestrian and was sent fying.

He had a helmut but it wasn't enough.

you have got to be kidding me wrote:

Are you guys f***ing kidding me with this "she was running on the road it's her fault, not the driver's"? She got hit and killed by a DRUNK DRIVER and you imbeciles are talking about all of the things she should have done differently. How about not driving drunk for christ sakes?! This type of bulls**t really makes me hate this website. A good friend of mine and several other posters on this board gets killed by a drunk driver and the letsrun community needs to blame her. Absolutely pathetic.

You are not understanding if this comment is aimed at me. I'm NOT blaming her at all. What I'm saying is that BECAUSE there are idiot a$$hole drivers out there that it is insane to run on roads with traffic; even if a runner does all the things he or she should, you just don't win in a collision with a vehicle. The dude that killed her is an a$$hole and should be put away forever, and BECAUSE there are idiots like him (also drivers who text or are distracted in other ways) out on the roads, I wish people would stop running on the roads.

always sumpn wrote:

Cyclists coming out the closet was pretty funny.

But I knew a cyclist who was killed riding on a bike path as he tried to avoid a pedestrian and was sent fying.

He had a helmut but it wasn't enough.

Can't get rid of risk completely unless you want to live in a bubble. The risk of riding a bike on a bike path is less than riding on a road with auto traffic.

Ghrelin wrote:

Leave it to Flagpole to turn a tragedy into a self-important advice hour

If wishing that more people aren't needlessly killed running on roads with auto traffic makes me "self-important" (I don't think it does), then so be it brother.

I've been in plenty of places that don't have sidewalks and don't have trails. Bike paths are even more rare. Your advice to people who live there seems to be, "don't run".

Give her the benefit of the doubt. Being a seasoned runner, she must have thought this would be a safe place to run. She was not in her home town or in her college town. And she could not have known that this drunk criminal would be on the road when she was. This could have happened to almost any of us. (Not Flagpole, who decreases his risk factors in hopes of living a longer, healthier life ;-) ) Yikes -- the risks we take in pursuit of a healthy lifestyle. I happen to love running on the open roads, with wide open spaces, mooing at the cows in the fields I pass ... looking for coyotes, wildflowers, foxes, horses, etc., hopping over road kill and rattlesnakes, tarantulas and turtles ...

Yeah, I'd blame this one on the legal system -- allowing a dangerous, violent drunk to be out on the roads after multiple offenses which endangered/threatened others' lives. And, like someone else said -- they finally get him after he hits a utility POLE??? Did he ruin the pole's future, cause unbearable grief to the pole's family?

A bright light snuffed out by a drunk loser.

The accused presented the following nugget in response to a reporter's question. From the linked article:

"...before his court date in Bedminster on defiant trespass and other charges Tuesday, Cise said Reuveni lost her sneaker while jogging along the shoulder of Route 507 and jumped onto the roadway.

"I’m very sorry that she lost her sneaker in the driving lane that I was following in, she was spooked by the car behind me and she jumped out of the way back into the passenger’s side," he told the station..."

Is there any indication whether this young lady was wearing headphones or not? I am not claiming she was, but a lot of women runners do.

PS. You can just as easily be killed by an INATTENTIVE driver as a drunk one. Usually the inattentive driver gets a pass. There should be no difference between inattentive and drunk - yes?

Ghrelin wrote:

I've been in plenty of places that don't have sidewalks and don't have trails. Bike paths are even more rare. Your advice to people who live there seems to be, "don't run".

I don't know what to tell you brother...I've said several times that a TREADMILL is what you do if your only other option is running on a road with auto traffic. If you can't have one for some weird reason, then join a gym. I refuse to believe that there are many places in the US where you aren't 10 minutes away from a safe place to run, and in those cases (I want evidence), you run on a treadmill or MOVE to a place that better fits your lifestyle.

Running on the roads, considering all the idiot drivers out there, is not smart.

Brother, I used to run on the roads too, and so I understand the appeal...doesn't mean it's smart, because it isn't. I don't know if she thought it was a safe place to run or not, but the point is that if there are cars there, it ISN'T a safe place to run. All of you runners should assume that there are drunk drivers on the roads at all hours of the day, BECAUSE THERE ARE! Drunk drivers, inexperienced drivers, OLD drivers who shouldn't be driving still, distracted drivers, drivers that simply don't see a runner on the road, etc.The thing is brother, you can blame this on the legal system if you want, or blame the guy if you want, but the bottom line is that no amount of blaming people or entities brings this young person back.It is NOT her fault that she was hit by a drunk driver, but because they are out there (and they ARE out there), it is wise to not run on the roads. Seriously, go to Google and search for "runner hit by car"; the results go on and on and on.

Flagpole, start a new thread if you want to talk about this further. I understand what you're trying to talk about, and I even agree with you (to an extent), but this was not the right thread to hijack. Hindsight isn't doing anything to help Gabby, and for all you know, she was running on trails for 10 miles and had a 10 meter section on a road where she became very unlucky.