I hit a bicyclist with my van the other day.
This was in busy downtown San Diego. In short, at 3 pm, I was stopped first in line at a red light on a one way street, preparing to turn right on another one way street. I looked both ways and saw no pedestrians around. I edged forward a bit so I could see left for traffic to clear so I could make my right hand turn. I saw an opening and started to move into the lane. Just as I did this I hit a bicyclist. He was in the street, riding against traffic with no helmet. I was going about 3 mph, and basically just knocked him off his bike. He was taken away by ambulance. I couldn’t see any visible damage to him, his clothing, or his bike. Not a scratch on my van either. But I do hope he has no serious injury. Or any real injury.
I consider myself a good and aware driver, and have never hit a person before in 46 years of driving. The lesson I take from this is to look for the unexpected!
I ride my bicycle in those very same downtown streets at least once a week. I do NOT trust drivers to see me and when I ride I pretend I’m invisible to them. BUT! I wear a helmet, and obey the traffic laws as any other vehicle. If that bicyclist was obeying traffic laws he would not have been hit.
The police took an incident report, and weirdly, were somewhat sympathetic to me. Like, how was I did I need to talk to someone about this, and spoke about how the guy was going the wrong way, no helmet. They seemed blasé about it. It does happen a lot, and I hear too often of ‘cyclists getting killed.
A couple of weeks ago on my bike, I came to an intersection with a 4-way stop. There were cars at all stops but mine, and we all took our turns moving forward per traffic rules. When my turn came, the drivers waited while I went through, and I used a hand signal to turn left. All cool right? No! Some selfish idiot bicyclist came barreling through the stop sign on my left about 20mph, waving me out of the way! Fucker. Of course he had no helmet on. We both could have been seriously hurt.
Most bicyclists are conscientious riders, but those who don’t obey traffic laws or ride carelessly make the rest of us look bad. We need all those drivers on our (the bicyclist’s) side. If you ride – be safe and aware. And if you drive be safe and aware plus share the road.
Anyway, now I feel better. Thanks for reading this.
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