Yeah, but you should see the other guy
I had an accident yesterday. A bike accident. A bike-bollard accident. Ouch.
I was paying a little too much attention to the car on the street the bike lane was about to cross and not quite enough attention to the bollards in the intersection. Yeah... Now my heiny hurts. I blame the smoke from the 800+ wildfires burning in Northern California right now. Visibility is just so bad. It's making me run into things. ;D
It was one of those things that I could totally see coming, but it was too late to do anything about. The car and I both slowed to let the other person go first. I wish he would have just gone, but he insisted that I cross ahead of him. Alas, I had coasted a little too close to a post while we decided who had right of way. I could tell that my handlebar would hit it as soon as I started pedaling, but there was nothing I could do. Wham! Fortunately I landed on the cushiest part of me: my booty. The guy in the car just laughed at me. Granted, he probably would have been a lot more chivalrous if I'd seemed like I was in distress. Instead I popped right back up, hopped back onto Rozinante, and flashed a grin at him...
It's surprising that I haven't been in more bike accidents. I've done the whole bike commute thing for 4 years at Stanford and 2 years now in Davis (has it been that long? wow!). And college campuses are rife with kamikaze and just plain clueless bikers. (For example, friends of mine like to hang out in the middle of traffic circles on the first day of classes to watch all the froshies who've never seen a round-about before eat it.) I think this is only the 4th accident I've ever had. They've all been pretty diverse. When I was a freshman I had my requisite bike-on-bike accident (the other guy was the definition of kamikaze). My sophomore year I was hit by a car (jerk didn't stop at a stop sign) and I also had a run-in with a curb. And now I've had a bollard encounter.
The curb accident was pretty funny. My friend Steph and I were biking through the entrance courtyard to the Quad (the one with the Rodin sculpture, The Burghers of Callais) to Biology section, which was in the Psych building. Back when I was at Stanford, you were allowed to bike through the Quad :). I decided it would be fun to race Steph, so as a shortcut I took a smaller sidewalk that cuts off on a diagonal. Hypotenuse is shorter than the sum of the two sides, and all that. It would have been a great plan, except there was a short curb where the path met up with the main collonaded walkway on the front of the quad. In a split-second decision, I decided to try to jump the curb, even though I have no idea how to do that. Yeah... I totally wiped out, falling at the feet of a freshman boy. He was completely dumbfounded. He stood there in a daze as I laughed at myself, Steph asked if I was ok and laughed at me, and I got up, picked up Rozinante, and retrieved his reflector, which had fallen off. Eventually I called back over my shoulder, "I'm ok; you can go!" since he still had not recovered from his shock. I think I saw him again a year or two later in White Plaza. I really wanted to check if it was the same guy by asking, "Hey! Did a girl fall off her bike at your feet a few years ago?", but thought better of it...
Maybe I've missed two great opportunities. Maybe falling off my bike is a good way to meet people. Maybe I should have asked dumbfounded-froshie and laughing-van-driver for their numbers :D.
I was paying a little too much attention to the car on the street the bike lane was about to cross and not quite enough attention to the bollards in the intersection. Yeah... Now my heiny hurts. I blame the smoke from the 800+ wildfires burning in Northern California right now. Visibility is just so bad. It's making me run into things. ;D
It was one of those things that I could totally see coming, but it was too late to do anything about. The car and I both slowed to let the other person go first. I wish he would have just gone, but he insisted that I cross ahead of him. Alas, I had coasted a little too close to a post while we decided who had right of way. I could tell that my handlebar would hit it as soon as I started pedaling, but there was nothing I could do. Wham! Fortunately I landed on the cushiest part of me: my booty. The guy in the car just laughed at me. Granted, he probably would have been a lot more chivalrous if I'd seemed like I was in distress. Instead I popped right back up, hopped back onto Rozinante, and flashed a grin at him...
It's surprising that I haven't been in more bike accidents. I've done the whole bike commute thing for 4 years at Stanford and 2 years now in Davis (has it been that long? wow!). And college campuses are rife with kamikaze and just plain clueless bikers. (For example, friends of mine like to hang out in the middle of traffic circles on the first day of classes to watch all the froshies who've never seen a round-about before eat it.) I think this is only the 4th accident I've ever had. They've all been pretty diverse. When I was a freshman I had my requisite bike-on-bike accident (the other guy was the definition of kamikaze). My sophomore year I was hit by a car (jerk didn't stop at a stop sign) and I also had a run-in with a curb. And now I've had a bollard encounter.
The curb accident was pretty funny. My friend Steph and I were biking through the entrance courtyard to the Quad (the one with the Rodin sculpture, The Burghers of Callais) to Biology section, which was in the Psych building. Back when I was at Stanford, you were allowed to bike through the Quad :). I decided it would be fun to race Steph, so as a shortcut I took a smaller sidewalk that cuts off on a diagonal. Hypotenuse is shorter than the sum of the two sides, and all that. It would have been a great plan, except there was a short curb where the path met up with the main collonaded walkway on the front of the quad. In a split-second decision, I decided to try to jump the curb, even though I have no idea how to do that. Yeah... I totally wiped out, falling at the feet of a freshman boy. He was completely dumbfounded. He stood there in a daze as I laughed at myself, Steph asked if I was ok and laughed at me, and I got up, picked up Rozinante, and retrieved his reflector, which had fallen off. Eventually I called back over my shoulder, "I'm ok; you can go!" since he still had not recovered from his shock. I think I saw him again a year or two later in White Plaza. I really wanted to check if it was the same guy by asking, "Hey! Did a girl fall off her bike at your feet a few years ago?", but thought better of it...
Maybe I've missed two great opportunities. Maybe falling off my bike is a good way to meet people. Maybe I should have asked dumbfounded-froshie and laughing-van-driver for their numbers :D.
posted by Meg at
8:42 AM
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