UNC Professor's Widow Speaks Out For Pedestrian Safety

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Dr. Maeda Galinsky and her husband, David, were together for 47 years -- practically a lifetime.

"He was my love, and he was there for people, and for me," she said. "He was a lively, wonderful human being with all of the goodness and all of the faults. And he was my love."

It took less than two minutes for her life to unravel.

On Jan. 25, Dr. David Galinsky, a 71-year-old professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was walking to the Dean E. Smith Center to attend a UNC-Boston College basketball game when he was killed after being hit by a car at the crossing of Manning Drive and Fordham Boulevard.

"It's senseless for someone to get hit by a car, and it's senseless for the driver to have to live with this for the rest of their life," said Maeda Galinsky, a professor of social work at UNC-CH.

The only way for Galinsky to make sense of her loss is to talk about it, and to advocate pedestrian safety. For her, that means right from the planning stages of any thoroughfare.

"Those who do this have to take into account that they're dealing with human beings, and that they're going to need to know which way people will go, and what chances they might take," Galinsky said. "But make it where it's easier for them, so they don't have to take chances."

The driver involved with the fatal collision was not charged. It was one of three fatal accidents involving pedestrians or bicyclists within a one-week period in Chapel Hill.

Galinsky said that indicates that there is a problem.