CNN
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On Thursday, Dan Langenkamp marked 12 weeks since his spouse, Sarah, was killed.
To honor her, Dan and his two younger sons do what they do daily at round 4:05 p.m., the time Sarah died: They drop no matter they’re engaged on, collect collectively, maintain arms and discuss to her, sharing particulars about their day. They inform her they love her, they miss her, and so they hope she’s happy with them.
Sarah Debbink Langenkamp was killed August 25 whereas using her bike on a Bethesda, Maryland, highway. She was touring on the biker’s lane when the motive force of a flatbed truck alongside her made a proper flip right into a parking zone and ran over the 42-year-old, police said. She was pronounced useless on the scene.
“I’ve tried to make sense of what occurred to Sarah, and since I began trying into it, I’ve realized this isn’t a freakish accident,” Dan Langenkamp stated. “What occurred to her is a part of an enormous, worsening pattern in America of individuals getting killed in site visitors crashes. There’s an epidemic of site visitors violence in opposition to folks strolling or biking.”
The accident got here simply weeks after the couple, each diplomats, moved again to the US after spending roughly a yr and a half in Ukraine and later in Poland, on the border. They have been a part of a small group of US authorities workers who stayed behind after Russia’s invasion however finally made the tough choice to depart, so they may reunite with their two sons – Oliver, 10 and Axel, 8 – whom they’d despatched to their grandparents in California when the battle first began.
The couple spent a number of weeks in Washington DC earlier than transferring to Bethesda, the place they have been eagerly getting ready for the beginning of a brand new chapter. Sarah enrolled in a grasp’s diploma course and, three days after their transfer there, attended an open home at her son’s new elementary college. A couple of minutes earlier than she obtained on her bike to return house that night, she known as Dan to share her impressions. It was the final name she ever made.
“We’ve lived in harmful locations,” Langenkamp stated. “The very last thing we anticipated was that certainly one of us would die or get harm in Bethesda.”
His anger, Langenkamp stated, has been a driving drive to push for change in bike security. A GoFundMe campaign Langenkamp created has raised greater than $289,000 to assist native and nationwide biking security organizations of their efforts to advocate for safer bike routes.
And on Saturday, lots of of individuals biked to Congress in Sarah’s honor in a ten.5-mile Ride for Your Life occasion her husband organized and led. Simply ft from the Capitol, a line of audio system, together with Langenkamp, spoke to a sea of bikers on the finish of their journey retracing Sarah’s route on the day she died.
The group’s requests to lawmakers embody funding for the Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program, which was licensed by Congress however not funded and which will help native governments spend money on bike lane infrastructure. They’re additionally asking for extra measures round truck security, together with mandating higher coaching and requiring facet and entrance guards on giant vans to stop folks from getting caught beneath.
“I get consolation realizing that, perhaps by way of all of this work, another mom will experience house safely after using her bike to work,” Langenkamp stated. “And that’s significant to me.”
For a lot of advocates, the battle for safer roads has been lengthy and tough, even amid worsening trends for biker and pedestrian security. The issues have solely been exacerbated by increased driver recklessness in the course of the pandemic and greater, heavier – and deadlier – automobiles on the roads, stated Colin Browne, a spokesperson for the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.
Greater than 930 cyclists have been killed on American roads in 2020, a 9% enhance from the prior yr, and greater than 38,800 have been injured, in accordance to data from the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration. Almost 80% of deadly bicyclist crashes that yr have been in city areas, the company stated. Not less than 985 cyclists have been killed in 2021, a 5% enhance from 2020, in response to early estimates from the NHTSA. Since 1975, deaths amongst cyclists 20 or older have practically quadrupled, in response to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
“It’s a public well being disaster,” Browne stated. “Much more so as a result of that is, from a technical standpoint, not a difficult drawback to unravel. The instruments and the engineering to make the streets safer to make use of is on the market, it’s examined, it’s confirmed.”
However creating safer streets for bikers and pedestrians and regulating giant automobiles has typically proved a politically unpopular transfer, which has led to gradual motion from native leaders, he added.
“We might give (funding) to buses and folks on bikes and scooters, however we’ve kind of constructed an infrastructure that assumes the vast majority of folks will drive,” Browne stated.
Anna Irwin additionally rode her bike together with her 10-year-old daughter at Saturday’s occasion to honor Sarah’s reminiscence. She advised CNN she was moved by the scale of the group and the sound of motorbike bells ringing to point out their help for Langenkamp.
“It was unbelievably highly effective,” she stated. “One of many issues that I discovered in a short time after I obtained into bike advocacy is that this neighborhood is so passionate. They usually present up.”
Irwin based the Bethesda BIKE Now coalition, a neighborhood group created in response to a 2017 choice from native leaders to close down a well-liked bike path which ran by way of Bethesda in the course of the development of a rail line.
In these 5 years, the group has known as for the completion of a community of protected bike routes – fashioned by two main paths – operating from one facet of Bethesda to the opposite, whereas the prevailing path stays closed. However progress has been gradual, Irwin stated.
“Right here we’re, in 2022, and neither one of many routes is accomplished,” Irwin stated. “They’ve carried out some work, however in 5 years they will’t construct a protected bike lane to cowl two miles of closely trafficked space?”
The Montgomery County Division of Transportation advised CNN it just lately accomplished the primary part of two segments within the community and extra bike lanes are both being designed or beneath development, including “we’re constructing them as quick as we are able to.”
The division can be working with the Maryland Division of Transportation State Freeway Administration, which controls River Street, the place Sarah was killed.
The freeway administration stated Friday it’s dedicated to the security of all freeway customers however didn’t reply CNN’s particular questions on bike path initiatives, together with if there are plans for development on River Street. On Saturday, the division added it has begun a “complete wants evaluation” for a stretch of the freeway which is able to assist establish methods to “deal with pedestrian and bicycle community wants, improve security, and enhance journey circumstances.” Within the meantime, officers are contemplating options together with a pace restrict discount or signal upgrades in that a part of the highway, it famous.
The company last month introduced it began development on one other highway in North Bethesda, the place an 18-year-old cyclist was killed in June and a 17-year-old cyclist was killed in 2019.
“These items might have been prevented,” Irwin stated. “We have now obtained to simply preserve educating folks concerning the want for protected bike lanes. You possibly can’t simply paint the highway after which anticipate vehicles to present us the area that we’d like. It’s not protected.”
Langenkamp has stated his fundraising effort may also assist advocate for the state’s transportation division to create a safer bike lane on River Street, the place Sarah was killed.
“Such bike lanes – missing correct obstacles, truck/auto driver training, legal guidelines, and regulation enforcement – are solely dying traps,” Langenkamp wrote on his GoFundMe web page.
The battle for change has given Langenkamp function in what in any other case has been an insufferable three months. Adjusting to life as a single father hasn’t been straightforward, he stated. Just some days in the past, his son famous he had no clear pants for college, and Langenkamp realized he hadn’t carried out laundry for every week. He typically worries what holidays and Mom’s Day will seem like for the kids.
Sarah cherished their two boys, he stated. Even amid a demanding job which took the household all world wide – together with to Baghdad, the Ivory Coast and Uganda – she was at all times in a position to flip off work and concentrate on her household, Langenkamp stated. Whereas working from Poland throughout Russia’s battle on Ukraine, Sarah flew to California for a weekend over the summer time to shock her oldest son on his birthday. She returned to Europe when the weekend was over. And within the weeks earlier than her return to the US, she wrote heartfelt postcards to her boys, sharing she couldn’t wait till they have been reunited.
She was equally unimaginable at her job, her husband stated, including, “She was all people’s favourite colleague.”
The 2 met of their International Service orientation class in 2005 and have been married a yr later. “She had this quiet confidence, and a really down-to-earth, pleasant demeanor that simply actually made her straightforward to get together with,” Langenkamp stated. “She was the form of boss that everyone loves. Simply actually sensible.”
And he or she was by no means afraid to go to the locations the place different diplomats have been generally unwilling to go, telling her husband it was “the place we have been wanted.”
Throughout their time in Ukraine, Sarah headed the US Embassy’s packages on corruption and regulation enforcement and was chargeable for equipping and supplying its nationwide police and border guard. And he or she was a “essential participant” in Ukraine’s protection efforts and helped Ukrainian police and border guard forces obtain tools like helmets and physique armor after the invasion, Langenkamp added. After her killing, letters of appreciation poured in from US leaders together with President Joe Biden, Lawyer Common Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“She was our guiding mild, actually, and our ethical compass,” Langenkamp stated. “It was her judgment that helped us by way of every little thing.”
Three months since her dying, reminders of Sarah are in all places across the household’s Bethesda house, Langenkamp stated.
There’s a nook – part of the house Langenkamp refers to as a “shrine” to his spouse – the place a candle stays lit by her urn, surrounded by photos of the household, notes Sarah’s sons wrote to their mother after her passing, jewellery she used to put on, playing cards from household and mates. Close by, photos of Sarah are taped proper as much as the ceiling. “We simply attempt to have her round, in all places,” her husband stated.
There’s additionally an image Sarah gifted to her husband at their wedding ceremony. It’s an image of a motorbike with the phrases, “Life is a lovely experience. Dan and Sarah, est. 2006,” the yr of their wedding ceremony.
“Biking was a factor for us,” he stated. “It was a central a part of our lives,” a mode of transportation which was “down-to-earth, wholesome and environmentally pleasant,” Langenkamp added.
Wherever the couple discovered themselves, they tried to commute by bike when doable, he added. Selecting this battle for security since his spouse’s dying was virtually like an “impulse,” Langenkamp stated.
“If the least I can do to honor her, an individual who had a lot potential in her life. If we are able to perform a little bit of excellent because of this, I’ll have been consoled barely,” he stated.
“It gained’t carry her again,” Langenkamp added. “However at the very least it should assist, just a little bit.”
