25.9.07

Bike Safety or, as Dad used to say, "Lotta idiots on the road."

No, but seriously.

Spike and I almost got hit a little bit ago - approaching College towards campus, I had the green light and several oncoming people were waiting to turn left in front of me, including a bike who was first in line. I glanced up one more time to make sure I still had green and that they were all still stopped, then wanted to hurry and get out of their way so they could turn so I upshifted, stood up and cranked.

About the 4th crank, a maroon car who apparently hadn't seen me after all starts to turn behind the bike and just gets his front end in my lane before he puts on his brakes, giving me -miraculously- enough space still to swerve enough to avoid him but not to wipe out completely on the curb (which was the freakiest thing - he was still only just barely into the intersection when he started moving out - if he had actually gone ahead and turned w/o obstacle, he would have been cutting thru about 1/4 of the intersection - nowhere near the sweet spot for turning left - now I think that was probably his goal: to cut off the bike that was in front of him) altho my pedal did graze his bumper. Fucking Fiberglass probably won't show any damage tho.

Meanwhile I coasted down to Haley, adrenaline pumping, my heart racing, and stress tears cresting in my eyes. I can only hope it made the car guy at least partly as freaked as I. I know a pedestrian in the crosswalk was fairly alarmed since my swerve made me veer towards the curb (the other miraculous part of the whole thing - my having about 2 feet to spare since the car was out so far in my lane by then) a second and I heard him emit an "Oh my god." I, myself, just said, "Fuck" kind of quietly - I think my brain knew not to waste too much energy on expletives when it needed to control the bike.

I'm still really really hoping for a big scratch on his car.

I'm kind of amazed to be even slightly glib about this now; I was seriously messed up when I got off my bike and was thinking I'd have to walk Spike home since I felt leery of riding. It's a good thing I had my helmet. It's an even better thing I didn't need it tho. It's also a good thing this didn't happen when I first started riding again earlier this summer; I never would have swerved in time, or if so, I never would have recovered in time not to hit the curb.

I know one thing; everyone else will be suffering for this asshole. That's the last time I hurry thru an intersection for anyone besides myself. They can wait for me and if they miss their precious turn light so be it.

Stupid crap town. Stupid crap drivers. Stupid crap non-bike-friendliness. Stupid crap everything.

3 commentaires:

Anonyme a dit…

brick - one thing all bikers should have at their disposal to throw at unyielding cars. you have no idea how glad i am that you are ok.

-nn

Applecart T. a dit…

bricks, yes, or anything.
dang.
thank you for surviving.

our state is doing a "crackdown" on bike/car unsafe interactions. you know, since some cyclists don't follow the rules and try to slink around and give rules-of-the-road followers (on two, manually-propelled wheels) a bad name.

i am afraid of cycling.

Jessica a dit…

Oh my goodness! Poor you! I know all to well the quality of drivers in your neck of the woods. Poor honeybunny.

Dang it, Dude! So glad you are okay.