| Two feet from the ER |
[Nov. 3rd, 2009|02:11 pm] |
Last night, I came close to being put in the emergency room. Damned close. Usually, when people say this, they are offering an abstract concept of how things nearly went bad. I'm not. I am giving you a physical distance here. That distance is two feet. I came, quite literally, two feet from an ambulance ride.
For a little backstory, I should mention that one of my two panniers broke last week, and while I wait on a replacement, I decided to see if I could fit the bare necessities in my trunk pack instead. Turns out...I can! This is great news, as my panniers are not very aerodynamically sound items. They're basically big ol' bricks sitting on my rear wheel, costing me speed and effort and blowing me around. To give you an idea of how much they drag me, changing them out raised my average speed on my morning commute by 1 mph. That may not sound like a lot, but realize that's a figure that accounts for stopping for traffic lights. My actual speed for a given level of effort is probably 2 mph faster, and I can sprint my speeds up easier and hold them longer. The ride home, which is gently downhill, is now considerably faster...somewhere around 24-25 mph without trying too hard.
So, I was heading home. It was dark, but my light was on...in strobe mode...and my light is bright enough that I can see signs reflect the light back. Nonetheless, I wasn't visible to a full-duty diesel pickup with an interest in turning left. I was watching the truck close, because full-duty pickups are generally driven by douchebags and douchebags have a shocking tendency to think that they can turn in front of me or that I'm supposed to slow down for them. Yeah. I've had people admit to me they thought that bikes in the road yield to cars. Go figure.
Anyway, the driver of this massive vehicle, whom I will now refer to as Mr. Overcompensation for my own amusement, did the typical douchebag maneuverer. I see it all the time. It's this little feint of a left turn...maybe six inches of motion. It's either caused by starting a turn and then suddenly seeing the cyclist or (somewhat less commonly) as an act of playing chicken...a sort of "I'll go if I feel like it" move. Usually, it stays at that, since it's usually just someone who didn't see me. Of course, upon seeing this, I got out of my drops and kept my eye on the truck. I didn't slow down, though. Believe it or not, the one time a car has hit me, it's because I slowed down and allowed the car time to attempt a maneuver.
Mr. Overcompensation continued to sit there, and I thought I could go through. That's when he decided to go for his turn after all, and did so in a totally balls-to-the-wall way. I started to yell at the top of my lungs. I've found that people respond to a human screaming better than a bell. Beside that, I needed my hands. I didn't see a safe option to ditch at my speed (you don't want to ditch in traffic with nothing protecting you but a small helmet and lycra shorts), and the space for me to engage in an evasive turn was limited at best. Thanks to the laws of physics and the actions of Mr. Overcompensation, I was losing my options and was pretty much now barreling into a collision at 24 miles an hour.
Of course, while screaming at Mr. Overcompensation at the top of my lungs, I'd started to brake. I'm sure I should have used my front brake and found out what my stopping distance is, but at that speed and given there was no time for me to get out of the drop bars and get my weight back, I had real concerns about my ability to maintain control. Even though the rear brake causes skidding and fishtailing, on dry pavement, I know how to handle that. The skid was going to give me one last chance to at least set up for the collision. I couldn't crank the bike around without risking a loss of control (read: taking a very nasty fall in front of a truck showing no signs of stopping), but I could buy a few more feet and try to get myself in a position to take the hit well. I knew I didn't want to take the first blow with my face and I wanted to fall so my pedal bindings would come free. I knew I didn't want to get thrown in the air where I'd have a harder time making a safe fall. I pulled a couple feet of distance from the Overcompensationmobile and rode the oncoming swerve so as to make sure I'd be perpendicular to the point of impact.
The Overcompensationmobile loomed over me, so large the front grill looked like the orthodontia-ridden maw of a hulking steel predator designed in Detroit and manufactured mostly in China. I found myself curious as to what brand of truck would be mangling my body today, and in the waning twilight and glare of furious headlamps, glanced for a logo before realizing that, if I could see the logo, I'd be hitting hit with my head and face leading. I turned my body away as my momentum began to run out. I screamed louder one last time as if such a vociferous supplication to the god of friction would make the truck's brakes work harder.
I'm incredibly calm in the face of potential death or serious injury. I remember thinking "Well, I guess this is my turn," by which I meant it was my turn to become a car-bike crash statistic. I've been cycling since 2003 or so...six crash-free years is a pretty good run.
Of course, I gave away the ending at the beginning. I don't know why, but eventually Mr. Overcompensation slammed on the brakes. I looked back up, and the nose of the massive Overcompensationmobile was two feet from my made-of-meat body. Two feet. Like, I could reach out and touch it. I was at boxing distance from the nose of a two-ton machine that was recently in the last inevitable moments of running into me. I don't remember feeling too much about it. In exasperation, I screamed out "FUCK?!" It was exactly as written...half question and half exclamation. I moved on before things got worse. Not but a few feet down the road, I had a moment to process what had happened, and I thought about turning around to go pick a fight with Mr. Overcompensation. I didn't, largely because doubling back while in traffic would have been difficult, Mr. Overcompensation was already leaving sight, and I didn't get a clear look at the cab and knew I could find myself outnumbered.
I did somewhat console myself that Mr. Overcompensation might have had a good scare out of the whole thing, too...you know, what with the whole part where I'd press charges and ensure the book was thrown at him and spend my days talking to every reporter I could find. Today, biking back by the spot where my night almost took a very shitty and possibly lethal turn, I don't feel that way any more. See...part of the problem from jackass motorists is that they think cyclists are pussies. I eat the bullshit of motorists daily. Most of it isn't critically unsafe, but it is illegal, unnecessary, unsafe, and rude. And the same attitude that leads someone to think they can cut me off, squeeze out my lane, or blow their horns because I don't give them the right of way on a silver platter...that same attitude is what leads to my nearly getting hit. And the fact of the matter is that it boils down to someone thinking that their minor inconvenience is more important than my fucking life.
The hilarity is that, despite what my anger might suggest, I'm not damaged nor scared. I suited up and rode in today like nothing happened. And I'll ride again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. Not the next, though, because that's Saturday. |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
roadriverrail's journal
