Haunting reminder of 2020 hit-and-run crash that killed bicyclist created on Dehesa Road – San Diego Union-Tribune

When he wasn’t delivering mail for the US Postal Service or spending time with his family, Kevin Wilson enjoyed riding his road bike in the country, putting miles on a frame similar to the one unveiled Sunday morning on the side of Dehesa Road near the clubhouse. Singing Hills Bay in Sycuan.

Painted white from handlebars to wheels, this two-wheeled vehicle was not intended for riding, explained his widow, Nancy Cavanaugh-Wilson, but rather would serve as a monument to a few seconds of carelessness that caused pain endless. Wilson was 56 when he died.

“When people driving by see him, I want them to be reminded of how dangerous this road is and I want people to be reminded of Kevin,” Cavanaugh-Wilson said.

Family and friends gathered with members of advocacy groups Families for Safe Streets San Diego and Circulate San Diego on Sunday, on what would have been Kevin’s 61st birthday, to unveil a ghost bike at the site in which a driver knocked him down shortly after 10:30 p.m. on January 20, 2020.

Ghost bikes, explained Laura Keenan, co-founder of Families for Safe Streets, are part of a nationwide effort to ensure that such tragedies don’t simply fade from public consciousness after their immediate consequences are swept away.

After her husband Matt died at age 42, after a driver hit his bike on Camino Del Rio South in Mission Valley in 2021, Keenan said he realized more needed to be done. Drivers, she said, should be reminded of what’s at stake when speeding through areas like this stretch of Dehesa Road that is known to be a popular weekend ride for cyclists.

“These deaths are preventable and if we can put a face, a name and a story to these deaths, we can break the statistics and hopefully start to make some changes,” Keenan said.

Ghost bike memorials began appearing in 2003, beginning, according to previous media coverage, in St. Louis after a bystander saw a vehicle hit a bicyclist on a city street. As documented online at ghostbikes.org, the idea has spread worldwide, with hundreds of memorials listed and many more installed without being noted in any official registry.

Cavanaugh-Wilson said she plans to continue advocating for better protection for cyclists on the stretch of Dehesa Road where Kevin died, especially after another vehicle later left the roadway in the exact same spot, destroying a small memorial stone on which she and her family had previously placed. There.

Asked if she thought the memorial unveiled Sunday could bring closure, Cavanaugh-Wilson was not optimistic.

“I miss him every second of every day,” she said.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested Craig Wendell Nelson of Julian shortly after the collision. According to Fox 5 San Diego, Nelson pleaded guilty to hit-and-run and was sentenced to nearly three years in state prison in February 2020. Wilson’s widow said he served less than half of that time. The Union-Tribune could not immediately confirm details about the case.

Originally published: August 4, 2024 at 4:52 p.m