A Tribute To a Change.org Member

Natasha Pettigrew was never a complainer—her mother made sure of that.

"I told her, she can either complain and do nothing, or she can make an effort to do something," said Kenniss Henry, of Prince George's County, Maryland, who spoke with me on the phone yesterday in the midst of what has been a month-long whirlwind of the worst kind.

Natasha took her mother's advice to heart.

According to Ms. Henry, often when Natasha read about bad news—a more frequent occurrence since the recession—she'd contact her representatives to share her thoughts. In 2008, Natasha entered the University of Miami's law school to become a juvenile advocate. This year, at age 30 and growing more and more frustrated watching the political process from the sidelines, she decided to run for office herself. She took a semester leave from law school and joined the Maryland Green Party ticket for Democrat Sen. Barbara Mikulski's seat.  "She said she was going to do it, and when one of us said it was crazy, she said that doesn't matter," Ms. Henry said.

All of this was cut short this September 19th, when Natasha, while training for a triathlon, entered a turning lane on a Maryland roadway in the early morning hours on her bicycle. A careless SUV driver struck her and left the scene (supposedly only discovering she had run over another human being an hour later, after finding a bicycle beneath her car). Natasha died a day later in the hospital on September 20th.

Reading news accounts of her death moved me, especially when I heard that Ms. Henry had decided to continue on with her daughter's Senate race. I wanted to pay tribute to a young woman who so passionately took the fight for social change into her own hands—a person who really embodied what this website stands for (from her platform: "Maryland is a large community of several million people and we can all make a difference together. Help should not be a dirty word."). Actually, when I contacted Ms. Henry after writing a blog post last week, I found out that Ms. Henry had been a Change.org user dating back to August 2007, the early months of the site, and that Natasha had joined on this summer, after her mother had recruited her to sign petitions.

Writing about Natasha was also a chance to highlight the pressing need for bike safety reforms. As Ms. Henry asked me, why is it that, in the state of Maryland, a driver can kill a bicyclist or a pedestrian and suffer no more than some points on her license and a couple thousand dollar fine? And why is it that Natasha—a long-time cyclist and bike lane advocate who was training for a triathlon—felt too unsafe to ride on the vast majority of Maryland's roadways? Usually when Natasha went on training rides, she would strap the bicycle to her car and drive it to a place she felt safe. When she was hit in the turning lane, she was in the process of crossing over to a bike lane on the other side of the roadway.

For anyone concerned with reducing our nation's reliance on fossil fuels, like many readers of this blog, it makes sense to advocate for bike-friendly communities. But, speaking to Ms. Henry, I've realized a huge failing in many of these campaigns.

Ms. Henry told me that on September 22, two days after Natasha died, she found out it was "World Carfree Day."  "It was like a slap in the face," she said.

At first, her reaction surprised me, since she had vowed she would now take up the cause of bicycle advocacy as part of her Senate campaign. But her explanation made a lot of sense. Here was a campaign telling inexperienced bikers to ditch their car, but, as far as she could see, was not putting out a parallel education campaign telling drivers to watch out for bikes. It was a recipe for more disaster

I strongly agree with Ms. Henry's point: Making bike-friendly cities is as much about educating road-entitled drivers as it is about telling people how simple it is to hop on two wheels. In practice, as I wrote in my earlier post, we will never make everyday cycling more than a fringe movement unless an average person feels safe. That's why bike riding has exploded in cities like Portland, Oregon, that have taken safety issues seriously. That's also why bike safety and driver education should be also an environmental cause.

Right now, Ms. Henry is living through a trying time: She is mourning the loss of her daughter and best friend, and at the same time running a grassroots Senate campaign. But, in the weeks since Natasha's death, Ms. Henry has taken the time to educate herself about bike safety issues and has spoken with local advocacy groups about doing new driver education campaigns in high schools in the area. She has also received emails from groups in Portland and California offering to advise her in policy advocacy work.

Another action Ms. Henry has taken? She has signed a petition on Change.org asking state officials to make Maryland the "most bike-friendly state on the East Coast" in honor of her daughter, and she has passed it along to at least 50 of her friends and family. She told me she agrees that Maryland has the potential to set a standard in this region, just as Oregon has done in the West Coast.

Please join Ms. Henry and sign this petition, especially if you live in Maryland. You can also honor Natasha Pettigrew by leaving a comment on her Change.org page.

Photo credit: Natasha for Senate campaign

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