Well work was a barrel of laughs today. I was cruising through the city at a pretty good pace, around 25-30km/h... only one job in the bag, pretty quiet day but I was having fun playing in traffic. And then suddenly ***BAM*** I'm on the ground tangled up in my bike.
Thankfully no injury other than some abrasions and nasty big bruises on my part. The old guy who stepped out from behind a parked van received some pretty deep cuts on his shit from my axle, and nasty road rash on his arm. Now I'm not gonna leave the scene of an accident when it wasn't my fault... hell, that just sets you up for a charge against your name. So I grab my bike and shift it to the side of the road, and start patching up the old guy as best I can. Find out his doctor is around the corner so when he's ready to move, I walk him down there. I didn't leave his side until he was comfortably seated in his doctor's waiting room.
Now apparently some "witness" has been ringing around the courier companies looking for this "hit and run" bike courier. Yeah right, I'm just gonna let some old guy lie on the road bleeding after I hit him. Makes me angry that people just assume that because you're a bike courier, you're dodgy... if they'd look past the stereotype someone might actually realise that just like everyone else on the street, couriers are real people.
At least I know my boss will cover for me!
Comments
Hey man... sorry to hear about the acident, good on ya for jumping up and taking care of the old guy, who was probably having even a worse day. But, hey what else could you have done?
Yes, I agree that most people misunderstand couriers (hell I am probably just as guilty). Thing is people tend to do that for anyone who they precieve as not fitting into cultural norms. In this regard, I think this attitude exists agains all cyclists, because after all non of us fit into the car is god culture.
Hearing your story has also reaffirms my decision to take a lane when there are parked cars on the road. When ever I do this, I have motorists try to run me off the road as a result. Ususally they also yell stupid things like "get off the road." But whatever. I still figure its a better option than having an incident like the one that just happened to you.
I think it should be a requirement that before you get a driver's lisence you should have to ride a bike in the city for a month!!!
Well my luck just continues to run. So I've nearly killed a pedestrian. So I've really fucked up my right leg on the day before my holiday starts. So my flatmate and I are heading back to where we're staying in Melbourne, and we're both pretty damn tired. I slow down a little until he pulls up alongside me and gesture to the left, and I say "We're going left at the lights AT THE LIGHTS!!!" the second part yelled, because he was already swerving across my front wheel...
Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch.
Anyway, the bruise on my hip is now four times as big as it was, plus extra bruises on the entire right side of my body, and a really really buckled wheel.
Lindz's bike is a Specialized P-Street, 16.5kg of man-crushing metal with stunt pegs. The old immovable object (his bike)/unstoppable force (me) thing.