With the approach of Dayton Bike Week, bikers waved signs and stood together in the cold at Colonial Drive and Rouse Road, urging people to be watchful for motorcycles and to look twice before changing lanes or turning right at a red light.
Bike Week, the 10-day, rumbling homage to Harleys that is reputed to be the world's largest motorcycle event, filling Central Florida's roadways with hundreds of thousands of visiting bikers.
Cullen Ryan, 28, of Oviedo, was killed a few weeks before Christmas when a 77-year-old man turned his SUV into the path of Ryan's motorcycle. The Florida Highway Patrol is still investigating the crash on Alafaya Trail.
Almost all of those braving the chilly air Sunday knew a rider killed or injured by an inattentive motorist. Mike Wilcox, whose brother, Bryan, died in a crash in 2011, held a sign that read, "Da 4 Deadliest Words ... I DIDN'T C Him."
Heidi Weclew, 34, said she has lost three friends in crashes and sometimes mounts a camera on her bike to capture reckless motorists. She said she recently called the inattentive driver of an airport taxi to tell the woman, "You almost killed me today."
Hector Rivera, 51, who has been riding motorcycles since he was a boy, said he rides more carefully than ever on Central Florida's highways as, more and more, he has to share the road with careless and distracted drivers.
"They are texting and doing everything but watching," he said.
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