On Dartmouth College Highway in North Haverhill last Wednesday, a person on a bicycle was struck by a vehicle and killed. We do not know their name. We do not know if they were heading to work, running an errand, or simply out for a leisurely ride after a long winter. What we do know is that this death passed without a single news report. No headline. No mention. Nothing. That silence is worth pausing on.
Spring brings people back to the roads on two wheels. After months of ice and short days, cyclists, motorcyclists, and kids on bikes return to streets that drivers have largely had to themselves. This seasonal transition is predictably dangerous. According to the National Safety Council, preventable bicycle deaths reached 1,392 in 2024, a 37% increase over the past decade, with fatalities peaking in the warmer months and remaining high through October. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recorded more than 454,000 emergency department visits tied to bicycle injuries that same year.
These are not just statistics. They are people. They are the unnamed person in North Haverhill.
The danger extends well beyond adult recreational cyclists. Parents are increasingly reluctant to let their children ride to school, and that instinct is not irrational. A child on a bike has no protection against a driver whose attention drifts to a phone. Distracted driving and hit-and-run collisions involving cyclists continue to claim lives that may make it no further than a police report. These largely preventable tragedies are opportunity to raise awareness, to educate the public, and to remind drivers and cyclists alike that these roads are shared and that the stakes are real.
All of us have a role to play. Drivers can slow down and put the phone away. Cyclists and motorcyclists can make themselves as visible as possible. Communities can push for safer infrastructure and lower speed limits on high-traffic roads. Schools can build road safety into what they teach. Reporting on these deaths matters too. When local news organizations cover them, they give the lost a name and a place in the public record, helping communities understand the full human cost of road safety. That said, there are real constraints on what gets reported and when, including the wishes of grieving families who may want to keep their loved one’s name out of the paper. Those wishes deserve respect. Even so, the broader pattern —the frequency of these deaths, the roads where they happen, the circumstances that make them likely — is something worth covering, carefully and with care for everyone involved.
The writers are members of the Upper Valley Cycling Club.