August 30, 2024- Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau decided to spend the eve of their sister’s wedding bicycling near their family home in southern New Jersey. Not far away, someone else decided to spend the evening getting drunk. In a matter of an hour or so, the twain met.

Driving home, the drunken man became annoyed by the driver in front of him, who was going the speed limit, and then “inexplicably”slowed down. The careful driver eased to the left, so the impatient one decided he’d show who was boss, and passed on the inside-in Driver A’s blind spot-and…..hit the two bicyclists, killing both of them. Thus were the lives of six families- Johnny’s wife and children; Matthew’s wife and unborn child; the greater family Gaudreau; their prospective brother-in-law’s; the family of Driver A and that of the drunkard himself ( a decorated military veteran, and father of two) , irreparably upended and altered.

It is time to make passing a vehicle on the inside an illegal act, especially in areas where cycling is active. The practice used to be actively discouraged-at least in my home state of Massachusetts, when I was learning to drive. Back then, roads were seemingly half as crowded as now, and there was a lot more civility-and accountability. Errant drivers were more likely to be cited by the police, and called out by their fellow drivers, not by road rage or a raised middle finger, but face to face, in an admonishing manner. End of digression.

There is much about the culture of driving that makes no sense anymore-and it all derives from tunnel vision, a lack of awareness that there are in fact others around, whose lives matter as much as one’s own. We go about, almost on auto pilot, many “burned out” by life, or distracted by what’s next on the agenda and absolutely convinced that there is nothing more important than that next big, or little, thing.

Now, three children will grow up without their fathers and two others will probably see theirs only fleetingly. A loving couple will wed, in time, and two widows will raise their children, with a vow to “make their Daddy proud of them.” The horror of August 29, 2024 will ebb, but never completely go away-as such horrors are wont to never do.

Impatience, impaired judgment and insolence will continue to claim innocent victims, until the day comes when we look the beast in the eye and say “No more”. Such is the legacy of the Inside Track.