| Re: My Close Call 2007 (1)
Close call 2002
I'm moronically riding the wrong direction up the bike road. Hugging
the curb only helps slightly when you consider I'm sharing the road
with about a million bikes. Near the McDonald's another bike's
handlebars hit me across the hand and I get a nasty scrape and bruise.
I don't have that much farther to go and given my general fear of the
big scary trafficness of the car road continue riding the wrong
direction.
Close call 2003
I'm riding my pretty pink city bike. No special clothing. I think I
had a helmet when I lived in Shijiazhuang but from this vantage I don't
remember if I actually wore it much. The bike has just had an odometer
installed so we're talking about four weeks after I bought it and two
weeks before it was stolen.
Bike road approaching a reasonably large intersection properly built
intersection. This city has good bike road (minimum 1.5 cars wide),
nice lines of sight, and really good intersections with separate
traffic lights for cars, bikes, and peds.
I've got a tailwind and a bit of attitude so I'm going faster than I
ought to be (about 20kph). Not a whole lot of vehicles on the car road
or bike road.
Taxi making a left hand turn (with turn signal and permission from
the light) misgauges my speed (since when do _bikes_ go that fast?) and
two vehicles (him and me) come to a screeching halt. If either had
been two inches farther along the other would have hit.
Close call 2004
Discover while going downhill (again in the bike road, again the
wrong direction) that the brakes on my borrowed bike don't do a very
good job of STOP. Nothing happens but it scares me and I vow to never
again ride a bike without thoroughly inspecting it first.
Close call 2005 (1)
Riding the wrong direction in the bike road (does anyone begin to
sense a theme?) I'm passing a bus stop when a small child, in the midst
of a temper tantrum, bolts from her mother and right in front of me.
I've got time to pull on the brakes but I still go down and she still
ends up with a wet tire track all the way from toe to hairline.
Close call 2005 (2)
I'm decked out in full touring gear, with panniers. I'm making a
legal U-turn. I'm checking out the scary beasts of doom (cars) coming
my direction when a putt putt motorcycle going the wrong direction down
the middle of the lane strikes my rear wheel. She flees the scene but
is later apprehended. (I was the first foreigner to ever have a
traffic accident in that city. I believe the entire police force
mobilized to find her.)
Close call 2006
I'm merging across a four lane highway. Checking out the scary
beasts of doom behind me. An elderly man with mental issues riding a
work bike has come the wrong way up the U-turn and is crossing
diagonally the wrong direction across traffic. I glance to check that
my front is clear in time to see him and think "oh ****" as a I hit the
side of his bike, and do an endo over him, cracking my helmet on the
pavement. Due to some minor issues with things like counting and
homonyms I think I may have had a minor concussion but was unwilling to
go to a Chinese hospital during a national holiday. My shoes probably
cost more than he makes per month. Needless to say I get no
compensation.
Close call 2006 (2)
I'm outside of town coming back from an all day ride on new roads I'd
never previously been on (including unexpected cyclocross and
hitchhiking on a tractor incidents). A black sedan comes up behind me
and starts honking until I move out of his way (rather than pass me in
the totally empty lane to our left). Having succeeded in forcing me
onto the shoulder/bike lane he notices that it's a foreigner on a bike
going fast and doesn't actually pass me. I'm debating sprinting and
sitting in front of him at 10kph or whether or not I should come to a
complete stop when it becomes apparent that a) I will not be able to go
around the van parked in the shoulder up ahead and b) that van isn't
parked because c) it's driving the wrong direction towards me and d) OH
****.
Sedan flees the scene.
Van driver takes me to the hospital and pays the bills for 14
stitches (leg and forehead), and new front fork (visible to the
uneducated naked eye as being scrap metal). I also broke the
windshield and left a dent in the bumper.
-M
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