This piece began as a traffic report about a cyclist injured by a driver in a horrific crash. It became a story about how and why human psychology endangers cyclists on the road. Later, Gary Suydam won $52.5 million in a jury verdict.
Lisa Suydam waited just before 5 p.m. on a warm winter Friday, wondering where her husband was.
He usually left work just after 4, and the bike ride home from Golden rarely took more than 30 minutes. They were planning to have an early date at a neighborhood brewery — maybe Little Machine or Seedstock.
She knew that something could have gone wrong. She was “used to the accidents,” as she puts it now. Their son and daughter had already been struck by automobiles while cycling. “I’ve just always had a bad feeling that accidents are going to happen.”
And so she reached for phone, and turned on the app that Gary had installed — the one that tracked his rides in real-time for her.
“I pulled out my phone,” she recalls. “It showed him at St. Anthony’s Hospital. And I said, ‘Oh, that’s not good.’”
Read the full piece at Denverite.
