Thousands of bicyclists from across the world will unite Sunday for a memorial ride, honoring a Boulder teenager who was killed while training for the junior mountain bike world championships.
Magnus White died wearing his USA National Team uniform on July 29, 2023, just days before his flight was scheduled to leave Colorado for Glasgow, Scotland where he would compete in the Junior Men’s Mountain Bike Cross-Country World Championships.
According to Michael White, Magnus’ father, nearly 4,000 bicyclists from all 50 states and more than 20 counties are scheduled to participate in Sunday’s memorial ride — roughly 3,000 in person and close to 1,000 virtually — and that number continues to grow.
“We don’t know what our emotions will be,” White said. “It’s going to be okay to cry, it’s going to be okay to be sad, but it’s also going to be okay to smile because this is honoring Magnus and there is a clear path to improve things that we’re fighting for.”
The bike route — which was planned and proposed by the City of Boulder — will retrace part of the training route the 17-year-old was riding before he died.
Boulder County’s Diagonal Highway will be completely closed to cars and only open to bikes, according to White. The bicyclists will ride out past the spot where Magnus was struck near 63rd Street , turn around and ride past his ghost bike before heading back to CU Boulder’s Farrand Field for the 12:30 p.m. rally.
White said the family was convinced to plan the anniversary ride despite their pain by Ride for Your Life founder Daniel Langenkamp.
“He essentially convinced us how important it is to do something like this on the first anniversary because that’s when the most change can happen,” White said, adding that the event will push for change on the local, state and national levels.
On the local level, the White family is demanding that Colorado officials speed up all bicycle and pedestrian transportation projects, starting with the North Foothills Bikeway that connects Boulder to Lyons.
White said there are also a lot of “quick-fix” solutions state officials can do in the meantime to protect vulnerable road users.
“CDOT put an emergency order in right after Magnus was killed, and they put rumble strips down the whole length of the Diagonal Highway on both sides. They did that in two days.” White said. “The driver that killed Magnus, she’s accused of falling asleep at the wheel. Would this have woken her up? We can never really know.”
On the state level, White said they’re pushing for increased penalties for vehicular homicide.
Careless driving resulting in death is currently a misdemeanor traffic offense and reckless driving resulting in death — also known as vehicular homicide — is a Class 4 felony.
Those found guilty of felony vehicular homicide receive non-mandatory sentences of two to six years in prison and a minimum $2,000 fine.
The driver that investigators said struck and killed Magnus — 24-year-old Yeva Smilianska — was charged with one count of vehicular homicide in December 2023.
Smilianska pleaded not guilty to the charge on March 24 and has her next review hearing scheduled for Aug. 28, according to court records. Her jury trial is scheduled to begin on Dec. 16.
“We have an inherent trust that drivers are sober, that drivers are paying attention, that drivers aren’t distracted,” White said. “But we very well know that’s not the case, and it could happen to anybody. We never thought it would happen to us until it did.”
On the national level, the White family is asking for a mandate requiring U.S. automobiles to have Automatic Emergency Braking that can detect and prevent collisions with cyclists and motorcyclists.
AEB for cyclists could prevent 52% of all fatal crashes between bicyclists and cars, according to a study from the International Institute of Highway Safety.
“This whole thing is so much bigger than Magnus,” White said. “The White Line Foundation has to be bigger than him, and that’s why we’re aiming big to start.”
More than 130 pedestrians and 20 bicyclists were killed on Colorado roads in 2023, up from 115 and 15 in 2022.
Across the country, more than 7,500 pedestrians and nearly 1,100 bicyclists were killed in car crashes in 2022 — the highest number ever recorded — according to the International Institute of Highway Safety.
“It’s a sad fact that road deaths have become such an acceptable part of American life,” White said. “And we know that any one of those injuries could be a death. We did the math on Magnus and a quarter-second difference — a quarter-second faster, a quarter-second slower — and Magnus would still be alive. That’s the difference between life and death.”
“I couldn’t plan his high school graduation, I’m not going to be able to do his wedding,” added Jill White, Magnus’ mom. “This is the closest I can get right now to planning something for him, to show him how much we love him, miss him and really want to fight for change for him.”
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Originally Published: August 9, 2024 at 11:00 a.m.
