LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Lubbock residents may see a stop sign at 42nd and Memphis and think nothing of it.<\/p>\n
For Melissa Bond, it symbolizes something much greater.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where he took his last breath,\u201d Melissa said. \u201cThis is where our life as we knew it ended.\u201d<\/p>\n
Melissa is referring to her son, Timothy.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody that talks about him says he was goofy, one-of-a-kind, and unapologetically himself,\u201d Melissa said. \u201cHe would make someone laugh and that laughter was infectious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Timothy\u2019s life came to end on March 6th of this year. Lubbock police were called out to a hit-and-run motorcycle crash around 6 p.m. Melissa says he was coming home from the grocery store when a driver blew through a stop sign at the intersection. Timothy tried to lay the bike down to avoid being hit, but his brakes locked up and he crashed.<\/p>\n
He was just 33 years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat night, he called me and our last words together were \u2018I love you mama\u2019, and I was like \u2018I love you too, baby\u2019\u201d Melissa said. \u201cIt\u2019s very hard to have to go back and find his audio messages to me and his videos to replay it and fill up the silence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additional stop signs have since been added, making the area a four-way stop. Melissa says the other person involved has not been criminally charged at this time, and a civil lawsuit continues in the non-contact hit and run.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to keep busy, but life really ended for me that day,\u201d Melissa said. \u201cIt stopped. It\u2019s just trying to help that it doesn\u2019t happen to someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Melissa created \u2018The VALOR Project\u2019. Its mission brings riders, survivors, families and advocates together to honor the lives lost as a result of reckless driving. Melissa will meet with lawmakers and advocacy groups next week in Austin to help kickstart the project and push for stronger traffic laws.<\/p>\n