I didn’t know Patrick Turner very well.
Though I had ridden with him a few times in the past, as we were members of the same cycling club, I don’t know if he was a father, a husband, a brother. Listening to the stories and reading the heartbreaking online commentary amongst our cycling community here in Central North Carolina, however, I do know that he was a friend to a lot of people. And I know that his friendship was snuffed out of existence when the driver of a car hit him and over 20 other cyclists last Saturday morning.
Driver faces 19 charges
Patrick Turner has been named by Capital Cycling Club as the man killed when the driver of a car collided with a group ride, at 9.30am on Saturday November 7, in North Carolina, USA. Driver Donald Robert Morris-Jones, 76, faces 19 charges, including – according to Wake County District Court records obtained by USA Today – eight counts of felony hit-and-run involving serious injury or death and seven counts of felony serious injury by vehicle, plus one count of felony death by vehicle, one count of driving while impaired, one count of driving left of centre, and one count of reckless driving.
My heart breaks for Patrick’s friends and his family. My heart breaks for our cycling community, who have lost yet another of us to a motor vehicle. Sadly, I know this won’t be the last time we have to endure this, whether locally, nationally, or universally.
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“I am each of those things I mentioned earlier – a father, husband, and a brother”
I also know that I am each of those things I mentioned earlier – a father, husband, and a brother – and because often in the wake of tragedies, our nature as humans leads us to put the focus back on ourselves, I can’t stop myself from framing this tragedy around me, around my kids, my wife, and my family.
For all of the sadness we feel for the person whose life was taken from him, for the pain that his family will have to endure for the rest of their lives, for the trauma that everyone who was with Patrick in his final moments will have to live with, the thought that I, and I know so many other people, keep coming back to is how “that could have been me.”
Reading through the comments beneath so many of the stories and social posts about Patrick Turner’s death, I’ve noticed dozens of comments from other riders remarking that tragedies like this are why people have hung up their road bikes, instead sticking to mountain, gravel, or the indoor trainer. And over and over again, it seems like the same story: this person’s friend was killed by a driver or that person had experienced one too many close passes.
Such are the ripple effects of these tragedies. Not only do they directly affect those involved, they trickle down to the rest of us, often forcing us to envision ourselves in the shoes of the victims. I can’t speak for anyone other than myself but when I read about Magnus White or Haylan Engdahl or Brayden Rogers or any of the other riders who have been killed around the country, or, in the case of Patrick Turner, when these tragedies hit far too close to home, I do my best to remind myself that the risk of death through cycling is lower than that of death through inactivity. I try to remind myself of thousands of rides I’ve taken in my life with nary an issue.
Cycling remains statistically much safer than being inactive
In the UK, 80 pedal cyclists were killed in reported road collisions in 2025, with the Department for Transport revealing that 3.7 billion vehicle miles were travelled by bike in the same year. In the US, the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report reveals that 1,103 cyclists were killed in traffic crashes in 2024, whilst an estimated 112 million Americans rode a bike at least once in 2024. While the number of cyclists killed is shocking, Sport England reports that 1 in 6 UK deaths is caused by ‘inactivity’. In the US, a study published in PubMed Central estimated that 8.3% of all adult US deaths were attributable to levels of physical activity that were inadequate to meet aerobic guidelines.
The bicycle has been a major part of my life for most of my life. It has been my salvation, my therapist, and my social network. To risk sounding maudlin, the tarmac is my church. It’s where I retreat every Sunday morning to best atone for the sins I made that week by day, be they physical, where I burn off the calories from stealing too much of my kids’ stash of Halloween candy, or emotional, which are sorted out quietly in my head as my legs turn endlessly to get me back home safely to my wife and kids. Thanks to the bike, by the time I get back to them, I’m a better person, a better husband, and a better father.
And yet, in spite of all of the data and evidence proving that any of us are more likely to come home from a ride than not, it’s an impossible feeling to shake, especially as stories like the killing of Patrick Turner become more and more common.
My road bike is hanging in my basement where it will probably stay for the foreseeable future. I look at my friends who rolled out on Sunday – the day after Patrick’s death – and in the week or so since with envy. I wish I could be so courageous, so damn the torpedoes. But for now, I’ll stick to the trainer, to the gravel roads around my area, to the venous and almost innumerable miles of singletrack North Carolina has to offer. Not riding a bike is not an option for me, I will find a way.
And I’m sure that, at some point in the not-too-distant future, my love for skinny-tired road bikes will overcome me and I’ll roll back out with my usual groups. And when I do, I’ll remind myself that the risk of death through cycling is lower than that of death through inactivity, and that cycling remains a safe and enjoyable activity
Hopefully, at some point, the mental and emotional hurdle the tragedy of Patrick Turner and so many hundreds and thousands of other cyclists will have abated enough to allow me to find my joy on the road bike again.
Hopefully Patrick Turner will be the last of us. Sadly, I’m sure he won’t.
