Banner's message: Be kind to cyclists »

by SHELTON GREEN / KVUE News

Posted on April 16, 2010 at 4:42 PM

Paul Carrozza, the owner of RunTex on Riverside Drive and South 1st Street has put up a large banner which he hopes raises awareness among the estimated 70,000 people who pass the South Austin business everyday. 

The ghost bike in the banner on the side of RunTex was put up on Loop 360 for Gay Simmons Posey, a 40-year-old Austin woman who was killed April 17, 2006 when she was riding her bicycle on Loop 360 while training for a triathlon.

A trailer accidentally clipped Posey’s bicycle and stopped.  The driver of a small, gray car — which ran over Posey and killed her — kept going.

“We need to have that closure. He didn’t mean to do it.”, said Al Bastidas who founded “Please Be Kind to Cyclists” a few days after Posey’s death.

“You really don’t want the cultural energy to shift away from thinking it’s safe to go for a bike ride to stay in shape.”, said Paul Carrozza, owner of RunTex.

According to the Texas Bicycle Coalition, an average of 50 cyclists are killed every year in Texas.  In 41 percent of those crashes the cyclist is hit from behind by a car.

The Texas Department of Public Safety told KVUE that the agency is still looking for leads in the hit and run death of Posey.

The banner reads “Please Be Kind to Cyclists.”  It features a picture of a ghost bike, a bicycle painted all white which is put up as a memorial at the sites where a cyclist is killed, regardless of who was at fault.