A Waynesboro man is on a mission to improve safety for everyone on the road after his daughter, Robyn, died tragically in New York City while doing bicycle messenger work in 2019.
Three weeks after their death, his younger daughter, Rachel, who was doing a training ride, was hit by the driver of a car in Charlottesville. Rachel, thankfully, was not seriously injured in the bicycle crash.
“Think about that for a moment,” Jay Hightman told AFP. “I nearly lost both of my children to road violence in that brief amount of time.”
Robyn [they/their] was born in Charlottesville and like their dad, was an avid cyclist. The week before they died, Robyn rode from Richmond to NYC on a single-gear track bike in just three days.
Robyn died on June 24, 2019, when they were hit by a distracted driver in a box truck who had just run a red light. Robyn was crushed underneath the truck and died an agonizing 30 minutes after the crash.
Rachel, then a student at the University of Virginia, was hit by a distracted driver when riding in an unprotected bicycle lane on Preston Avenue. The driver came out of a side street and T-boned her. Rachel survived with minor injuries; the bike was destroyed.
Last year in Virginia, 151 people died walking or cycling on Virginia roadways; 25 of them were cyclists. There were 690 crashes involving bicycles; and 138 of them were serious injuries, according to data from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. Of all the crashes, nearly 80 percent involved distracted driving.
A love of cycling
Robyn and Rachel’s love of cycling came from their Dad, who became an avid cyclist in the ’70s.
“When my daughters were born, I, of course, introduced them to cycling because it was a passion of mine. Both of my daughters, Robyn and Rachel, really took to it. Robyn, in particular, became an incredible cyclist.”
Photos of Robyn show them in their first bicycle helmet as a toddler; and on their first tricycle as a child.
A far cry from those early days, Robyn was riding more than 100 miles per day as an adult.
They had moved to NYC to serve as an ambassador for an international women’s cycle team and to work for a women’s bicycle club.
Robyn had just started a job as a bicycle messenger in Manhattan and was on the second run of their first day on the job when they died.
Today, when Hightman watches the Olympics or Tour de France, he is left to wonder if his daughter might have reached that level of competition if they were alive today.
“I really wish I lived in a reality where I could be cheering them on no matter what they were doing.
“There’s little doubt that they could have been a contender or something like that,” Hightman said. “But the thing is, Robyn was more than just a cyclist … Besides a cyclist, Robyn was an artist, a musician … so many things taken way because of things like driver distraction and bad infrastructure.”
Multi-purpose paths could protect cyclists, pedestrians
In Waynesboro and Augusta County, the safe cycling infrastructure is in one word: poor, Hightman told AFP.
In neighboring Rockingham County, a 20-year-old woman, Marilyn Good, died while riding her bicycle when she was struck and killed by a driver on Oakwood Drive last month. The driver was charged with reckless driving and not allowing a bicycle the appropriate distance when passing.
“A number of cyclists in this area have lost their life,” Hightman said. “These are things that local government, be it the City of Waynesboro or the Augusta County Board of Supervisors, can do to make conditions safer for those that elect to use transportation other than motor vehicles.”
Safe Routes to School Coordinator Steve Garon agrees that the city has “a long ways to go” when it comes to being safe for pedestrians and cyclists.
“It’s nice that they [the city] have these designated areas, like the traffic playground and the Greenway and the trails in Sunset Park, these are all great things, but you really need to have more bike friendly roads here in the city,” said Garon, the Health Community Action Team coordinator for the Office on Youth, in a previous interview with AFP.
At one time, Garon said, the city had a plan to add more bike lanes, but that never happened.
ICYMI
- Waynesboro: Creating roads safe for pedestrians and cyclists easier said than done
- Waynesboro: Significant progress on traffic garden with opening slated for December
- Waynesboro traffic garden, greenway to provide a safe space to learn to ride a bike
- Rockingham County: 20-year-old woman dead after bicycle struck by vehicle
- Six-year-old girl dead when truck backing into driveway collides with bicycle
The City of Waynesboro recently surveyed residents about traffic conditions around the Town Center and Walmart on Rosser Avenue. One big issue is that the corridor lacks connections for residents of nearby apartments to safely cross the street to reach the retail establishments.
In 2022, an elderly man was seriously injured when trying to walk across Rosser Avenue.
Hightman and Garon are both “frustrated” with the lack of accommodations for cyclists and pedestrians in Waynesboro and beyond.
“These are things that local government can do,” Hightman said. “Part of the financial issues is where we decide to place the importance of dollars … a very small fraction, if any, is put toward pedestrian and cyclist safety, and it really should be.”
Many areas along Waynesboro’s busiest corridors are nearly impossible for non-drivers to use with sidewalks interrupted by patches of grass. An asphalt, multi-purpose path, would be a better solution.
“Local governments in this area are stepping up to do improvements to really protect people’s lives,” he said. “I’d like to see the local government in Waynesboro be able to do the same.”
Turning tragedy into advocacy
Since his daughter’s death, Hightman and his surviving daughter, Rachel, have worked with numerous national, state and local organizations to improve road and vehicle safety.
Among them, Families for Safe Streets, which offers support for those who have physical, emotional and spiritual trauma from traffic violence, as well as AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety, the National Safety Council and the Vision Zero Network.
Together, the father and daughter advocate for numerous things including:
- A bicycle lane or multi-purpose path, isolated from other motor vehicles by Jersey barriers, bollards or other physical infrastructure. Good examples include the Fall Line Trail, Three Notched Trail and Franklin Street protected bike lanes in Richmond.
- Implementation of cell-phone use detection systems to help address both distracted driving and seat-belt use. Distracted driving includes talking or texting on cell phones, reading or reaching for an object while driving
He also honors Robyn’s legacy through a website and a memorial of sorts, a white bike, known as a ghost bike, mounted on the top of his vehicle.
Nothing he does, or Rachel does, can bring back Robyn, but they hope the advocacy can help someone else not have to go through the same unimaginable pain of losing a child or sister due to distracted driving and poor infrastructure.
“The greatest gratitude you will never receive, because it would come from a parent, family member or other loved one that does not have to face the grief of losing someone because of the change that we advocated for,” Hightman said. “I’d rather see someone be able to celebrate the children’s birthday or graduation, wedding, whatever, rather than face the agonizing memorial of their death date, or their birth date, year after year of them being gone.”
Video interview: Jay Hightman
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Crystal Graham
