Cyclist carnage
Cycling really has become an extreme sport…and I don’t mean mountain biking. Other road users never see road cyclist or just don’t care. Cyclists have to dodge potholes, pedestrians, parked vehicles, moving vehicles, dogs, bricks, logs, stones, glass, other cyclists, etc, etc…
Every time I go out cycling, either myself or someone else in the group has a close call with, in most case, a motorist - car vs bicycle, I think it’s very obvious who would win.
This weekend was my turn. I had to hit the brakes to avoid being pushed off the road by a motorist who saw me but didn’t care. Hitting the brakes resulted in the cyclist behind me smashing into my back wheel and hitting tar… never a pleasant sound but fortunately this time was at low speed so no injuries.
Then we came to the traffic lights less than 500m down the road. It went green for us as we approached and the cars on my right all came to a stop and the cars in the turning lane to my left came to a stop but one idiot on my left went straight through the red light. He only came flying through after I had already entered the intersection (which means the light was red for a while). I saw him quite late and had to hit the brakes again to avoid being run over by the idiot… I would not be writing this had I not seen him… I couldn’t have been much more than 2 meters away from being a weekend statistic.
There was at least one incident over the weekend that left 4 cyclists injured. A motorist smashed into a group of cyclist and then drove away!
When will the carnage stop?
In New York cyclists aren’t even safe from the police. During a Critical Mass ride in New York City on 25th July 2008 a cop body-slammed one cyclist and then lied about it… The incident was caught on film though, lucky for the cyclist not so lucky for the cop. You can read more about that story Here
