Things aren’t looking good over here. Last night two tow trucks almost ran me over going about twice the 30mph speed limit on the road I ride home from the subway station. I have two blinkies, a headlight and reflective tape. I can usually hear cars coming from far away and see their headlights before I even look over my shoulder but they came up so fast that I barely had time to break toward the curb. Oddly enough they turned into my neighborhood. Maybe to get some illegally parked cars from the apartment complex? When I caught up to them I asked them why they were going fast and informed them that they almost ran me over.

“We didn’t see you.”
With these bright ass lights I’ve got?

“How do you know it was us?”
Didn’t you just say you didn’t see me?

“What were you doing on the road?”
Exercising my legal right to ride home without dying.

“Well, I’ve got a legal right to drive however I want.”
Is that what you would have said if you killed me?!!?

“How do you know how fast I was going?”
They were going about as fast as cop cars when they’re on an emergency call. I caught the kind of wind bump that folks warn about when being passed by trucks on high speed roads. I just asked them to please be careful and drive safely. They scoffed at that and left. It was too dark for me to read the company info on their trucks.

In 1980, I was approaching an intersection with cars to the right and left waiting for a gap and traffic coming from the opposite direction on the same main road I was on. Because of the approaching traffic, the car to my left didn’t really have time to get across the intersection, but the guy on the right could pull out in front of me for a right turn. I was looking to catch his eye when the car on the left decided it could jump across. He never saw me until I was smashing in his windshield. I had almost made the right turn to avoid the collision, got my front wheel on his bumper and I got myself on top of his hood. After smashing his windshield, he came to a stop and I slid off the hood and ran for a few steps. Fortunately, my backpack kept me from getting anything worse than a single small cut. My bill was $120 for the wheel and some medical attention for the cut. His windshield was significantly more.

The incident has actually given me more confidence. To this day, I can’t go through any intersection without expecting a car to jump out as if I was invisible, whether I’m on my bike or in a car. I expect poor judgment, and am prepared for it.

I actually DO wear spandex in the summer. I have several carry options. Sometimes I slip my tiny .32 automatic and holster into a jersey pocket. It’s pretty light, and I’m usually wearing reflective vest to cover its silhouette. I have a handlebar bag so sometimes I’ll carry my 9mm. And there are days when I only carry my North American Arms mini .22 revolver on a chain around my neck. The firearm is last resort—-and there are times when that last resort will be necessary, I’m afraid. I just hope not.

wow! I guess you’re not a spandex clad roadie. how do you carry a firearm comfortably on a bike?

my immediate reaction was shock and dismay but if CCW is legal in your state I can’t say that it’s unreasonable that a sane, law-abiding, trained citizen would feel justified carrying a weapon.

I’ve seen some ugliness on the roadways and in city life in general but is it that real out there? Maybe it is.

To all:

How much of the accident aftermath can be handled on insurance claims? When do you need to bring a lawyer into the mix? I guess it’s when there isn’t consensus on who was at fault. Maybe I should avail myself of the pre-paid legal service benefit offered by my employer.

I’ve also been confronted by a motorist. Some guy in a ragged out Town Car took a corner too fast for my liking and got too close, so I yelled at him. Well, this guy turned around and came after me. He was a little guy(smaller than me and I’m 5′7″) but I managed to talk him down. I did pull over in front of witnesses so that may have had something to do with that. However, it spooked me. Now I don’t yell at ANYONE—-but I also have pepper spray and a gun(CCW, of course), and a cell phone, of course. Life is too short to let some jerk take it away—like happened to the cyclist in Minneapolis last week. Everybody LIKES to think theres some nobility or machismo in duking it out, but one good punch to the temple can render you brain dead. No thanks. If the pepper spray doesn’t get it done, then I’m certain the 9mm will.

Lesson: I have NEVER gone against traffic in the street again!!! It has been 12 years since that accident and I can still see the underside of that red jeep like it was yesterday. I strive to participate in the traffic pattern rather than attempting to evade it, and since I have been doing things like taking the lane, I feel much safer.

I was making a grocery run one morning when a large pickup came barrelling at me head-on on the wrong side of the road. It was not a busy street – a quiet neighborhood actually – so I didn’t know what this guy was doing. I waved my arm frantically to get his attention and got ready to hop up on the curb. Apparently my arm waving angered this dude because he pulled over and started cursing at me. I informed him that he was driving on the wrong side of the street then continued on my way before an “incident” occured. He was still cursing me. I shouted back at him “how would you have felt if you had killed me?”. “Bring your b***h a** back here and find out” was his response.

Right before this a Metro bus and then a schoolbus overtook me in the intersection and trapped me between them and the merging traffic on my right. Lesson: TAKE THE LANE.

I don’t know if I’m ready to start this commuting thing.