I rode my bike to work this morning, as I have been doing off and on this summer. I do it to stay in shape, to save gas, to train for races, and this morning, because one of our cars is in the shop. Given that Jason works about 55 miles away from home, whereas my office is only 8 miles away, it seemed more reasonable for him to take the car.
I felt a little tired when I first started out, but then I got my blood pumping and felt pretty good. Then, about half-way through the ride, a lady cut me off in traffic, forcing me to try to jump the curb to avoid her. I wasn't successful, and I crashed hard, cutting up my knee and elbow. A huge line of cars that had stopped for a light saw me go down, and it was not a delicate fall -- my water bottle went flying and I sort of bounced on the sidewalk. I got up and picked up my bike with blood streaming down my leg from the cut on my knee. I knew I wasn't badly hurt -- just a little scraped up -- but it was definitely bloody.
Amazingly, not a single person rolled down their window to ask me if I was OK. Not one. A whole line of people, sitting there gaping at me, and nobody said anything. I know Atlanta drivers are shitty to people on bikes, but jeez. That's really cold.
Interesting. I had a very similar bike wreck in Charlottesville, VA 3 years ago. Someone had stopped and was getting out of his car before I even got up off the ground. Then just a couple minutes later another person came walking up - she had pulled over at the next possible place, a gas station 1/4 mile away, and walked back to make sure I was okay. Maybe Honolulu will be more like Cville than Atlanta.
ReplyDeleteJen (aka Schmen Foocas)
I hope so. Fortunately, my ride in on Friday was uneventful and my wounds are healing nicely.
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