Andover man hit by truck while riding bike, one year after daughter killed in crosswalk
ANDOVER - Eric Olson says the irony is not lost on him. As the Andover man rode his bicycle Wednesday afternoon, he was hit by a Ford F-150 that ran a stop sign.
"Your entire life is in slow motion and for a moment you don't know what if you're going to make it out," he told WBZ.
Hit by driver who ran stop sign
Olson is bruised. His right hand is very swollen, and he has road rash on his right side. He says he was riding his bicycle down Woburn Street where it becomes Abbot Street at the Porter Road intersection when the pickup truck ran through a stop sign and turned left. Olson swerved to avoid the truck, but the truck clipped his back tire and sent him flying into a nearby yard.
An emotional Olson then took to social media to share the harrowing experience.
"I immediately started thinking of my daughter and just unbelievable that I'm in this situation," he told WBZ.
Advocating for safer streets in daughter's memory
Olson's daughter, Sidney, was killed at the Elm Square intersection by a tractor trailer as she crossed the street riding a scooter with her mom and brother in 2023. She was just five years old.
Following Sidney's death, the Olson family created Sidney's Rainbows, an organization that advocates for safer streets in Sidney's memory. In particular, the Olsons say pedestrian safety is less about individual drivers and more about safer street and car design.
In 2022, more than 7,500 pedestrians died in crashes in the U.S., according to the NHTSA. More than 67,000 people were injured.
The Olsons are advocating for bills like H.R. 1668, which gives communities access to funding to create safer streets. Eric also tells WBZ he supports the Pedestrian Protection Act, a bill that would limit the size of cars, as studies show that bigger cars increase the likelihood of serious pedestrian crashes.
"It's easier to just blame the person in the situation," Olson explained. "It's one of the biggest challenges – you think about it, like pancreatic cancer shows up as back pain. If you're trained to treat the back pain, you're not going to treat the cancer."
The Olsons work in Andover has already created a safer Elm Square – the area where Sidney died – with better crosswalk lights and "no turn on red" signs.
"Immediately very emotional"
The driver who hit Eric was remorseful, he said. "The driver was really remorseful," Eric said. "I was immediately very emotional. It is incredibly triggering to just be in that scenario and feel the deep empathy for what people in that scenario feel. I mean you just feel so vulnerable and so alone."
He said his daughter was running through his mind. "I was sitting there on the side of the road banged up not knowing where I am physically and all I could think of was my daughter and just so sad that she had to experience that and then and sad that she didn't get a second chance like I did," he said.
The driver who hit Olson was cited for failure to yield to a stop sign.