Erin Sparler’s Blog

So I’ve started riding my bike to work. And on the way I’ve begun photographing “road kill”. Now undoubtedly a lot of people will say, “Eww, that’s gross! Why would you take picture of road kill!?” Well here’s why…

Recently I bought a new house close to work. With the economy the way it is and the short commute to work I decided to buy a bike and try riding to work. I’ve really enjoyed commuting to work on a bike as it gives me time to think and I get some much needed exercise all in addition to saving gas and lessening my carbon foot print. But then the other day, as I was riding home, I came across a dead blue bird on the side of the road. Its head was turned to one side and its wings were perfectly spread in a U. It was really beautiful in is tragedy and it reminded me of a photo that I saw recently at John Paul Caponigro’s workshop.

The day after I saw this bird, as I was on my way into work, I was signaling to turn left into the Boyer house when a big blue pickup truck decided that they couldn’t wait 2 seconds for me to make my left hand turn and passed me on my left! I was about 2 inches from ending up like that poor blue bird.

I thought to myself, “Wow, that was close.” as I gave that driver the finger. I was mad for next couple of hours at people’s lack of patience and inconsideration, but on my evening ride home I got to thinking about road kill. How we steer around the carnage when we see it on the road. Or how when we do accidentally hit a poor innocent animal, we don’t even stop. And then I started thinking about the number of car related deaths that occur each year and how even bikers, (motorcyclists and cyclists) and pedestrians are not exempt from becoming “road kill.” And finally, I thought that perhaps road kill wasn’t such an appropriate name for these poor dead souls. It seems to me that the phrase, “road kill” removes the personal responsibility of the driver for hitting and killing something or someone else traveling on the same road. It seems to imply that that animal or person shouldn’t have been on the road in the first place, rather then the driver having a responsibility to proceed cautiously knowing that they are not the only ones utilizing said road. So perhaps we shouldn’t refer to there poor dead animals on the road as road kill, but instead we should call them “car kill”.