Exchange Students and Bicycle safety in the Wisconsin Dells

Recently I was going through all of the Google Alerts I receive and came across a very interesting, scary and sad story from the Wisconsin Dells that I thought I would share here on IHEC Blog. 

The headline from September 11^th on WisconsinWatch.org reads “Russian student’s death highlights lack of public transit in the Dells”.  I occasionally see such headlines in my Google Alerts and don’t investigate further but I know the Wisconsin Dells (my family and I vacationed there for a few days in summer 2009) so I decided to open the link and read the article.

 

The story is sad.  On July 9th an 18 year old exchange student from Russia named Maria Kolesova was struck and killed by a garbage truck while legally riding her bicycle on a sidewalk.

 

What I further learned from reading the article and find shocking is that “of the 21 bicycle-vehicle crashes reported in Wisconsin Dells and Lake Delton since 2008, police reports indicate 19 involved international student riders.”  This statistic is staggering to me!  According to the article, approximately 2,000 international students come to the Wisconsin Dells to work during the busy summer season.  I noticed this during our family vacation and wanted to post to IHEC Blog about this but time got the best of me and I never got around to it.

 

I won’t summarize the article further but I think it’s a good and informative read about a serious problem.  I did some additional research on this and didn’t come up with more information on bicycle safety and international students in the Wisconsin Dells but did come across an article entitled “Some foreign workers find frustration in Wisconsin Dells” also from the September 11^th WisconsinWatch.org which is also an interesting read.

Photo credit:  http://davidcomp.wordpress.com/