On November 19th 2021, Edgar Daniel Draper, 63 years old, was hit and killed by the driver of a Baltimore City Department of General Services Ford F-150 pickup truck just minutes from his home in the Hanlon-Longwood neighborhood.
Retired from the computer tech department of the Social Security Administration and a proud member of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, Edgar is survived by his companion of 16 years, Gloria Jacobs, his children, and his grandchildren. The bicycle was his transportation in the neighborhood, where they had recently moved. Edgar was returning on his bicycle from shopping at Big Lots when he was hit and killed.
Although the driver stayed at the scene, the city has been less than forthcoming about the crash, with nothing reported in the news and an unusual two week lag between the fatality and the city acknowledging it to Bikemore.
It is difficult to deal with the loss of the person you plan to grow old with, the person who has become grandfather to your grandchildren. The family’s grief over this unforeseen tragedy has been made worse by Edgar’s death going publicly unacknowledged by Baltimore City.
Between the funeral expenses and Gloria’s loss of Edgar’s retirement revenue, her grief is further exacerbated by the financial burden suddenly thrust upon her. Bikemore has set up a fund to assist Gloria in this time. 100% of funds raised will be passed on to assist with this financial burden.
At Gloria’s request, Bikemore has placed a ghost bike supplied by Velocipede Bike Project as a memorial to Edgar at the crash site. Unfortunately, COVID-19 precautions prevented us from hosting a memorial ride to the site for the ghost bike placement, but there will be a memorial ride and gathering there in the near future.
The site of this fatal crash is a poorly designed intersection on a road with a major speeding problem. Gloria has asked us to use her loss to continue to increase awareness for the need for traffic calming, high visibility crossings, and separated bicycle infrastructure–treatments that could have prevented this death. Baltimore City must address this and other dangerous corridors, and should use revenues from automated enforcement on those corridors to do it.
In the meantime, we ask that you please make a contribution to help offset the financial burden taken on by Edgar’s partner Gloria Jacobs.