What the car was doing on my bike, I’ll never know. rimshot
Well, I suppose I should be glad I’m posting this in MPSIMS of all places. I work in downtown Seattle and live in the suburbs; and today was the first day this year that I’ve felt was nice enough to justify riding my bike to work, and I took advantage of the opportunity, so of course something bad happened.
I was heading home, only a few blocks away from the office, when I had the audacity to attempt to ride through an intersection when I had the green light. I had just begun entering when the driver of an oncoming car decided that right that moment would be a good time to make a left turn without looking first. I got that sinking feeling you get when you can see someone about to do something stupid but it’s too late to do anything about it. Then I slammed on my brakes, but being on a racing bike that didn’t get me very far. Or rather, it did: I slid right, canted left, put out my arm, hit the hood of the car on my left side, and then there followed an indistinct second of tumbling end over end whereafter my bike and I both hit the pavement in interesting ways.
As I was collecting myself and my poor bicycle, the driver of the car leaned her head out of her window and said something that sounded very apologetic. I was understandably distracted and did not catch it. Then, apparently having exhausted her sense of duty under the circumstances, she quit the scene.
After shaking myself off, I seemed to be mostly uninjured, aside from a scraped knee and elbow. My bicycle was less unscathed. More scathed, as it were. The brake levers were bent rather badly on the handlebars, and the left one had had the gear lever broken off and the cable completely severed. The handlebar assembly was out of alignment with the fork, and both wheels were bent. Salvageable, hopefully not more than a few hundred to fix, but for the moment completely inoperable.
Anyway, to make a long story short, SPD was on the scene in about 90 seconds (kudos!) and several people actually stopped to make sure I was okay, which I very much appreciated. I made a police report, although considering that neither I nor any of the witnesses was able to give much better description than “new-ish silver sedan, possibly a Corolla,” I kinda doubt they’ll find the culprit (who, by leaving the scene, turned a mere civil infraction into a criminal offense). In the end I came away only slightly damaged and having learned yet again that even if you obey all the traffic laws, you can never be too careful as a bicyclist on city streets. :o
I feel like we take our lives into our hands every time we hit the road. I never fail to be amazed when I am stopped at a light and some other biker goes whizzing by me through the red light…dude, I’m not stopping here because I like it, I’m stopping because as is evidenced by your story, they are crazy out there.