(Coincidentally, bike lanes were a brief topic of discussion at the Master Plan Steering Committee meeting last night. - promoted by Brian)
My quest to ride my bike to work every day this week ended abruptly in Dedham Square this morning as I crashed into a Jeep Grand Cherokee that turned left in front of me to get to a parking space in front of the Coldwell Banker office. The woman was extremely apologetic and offered to give me a ride home (an offer I later wished I had accepted) and I do not think she was at fault, but I wanted to describe this situation here in the hope that cyclists and motorists will be extra careful. The big irony is that I am in the midst of forming a Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Comission in Westwood--see westwoodblog.org...
Here's what happened: I approached the square on Washington Street after passing the fire station and saw a long line of cars stopped or approaching the light. This is a wide area and I believe the traffic was still moving where I was, so I was continuing along to the right of the cars, but a truck or large vehicle of some sort stopped to allow the Jeep to turn left into a parking space between the bank and the realtor office. I had no warning. I could not see her and she could not see me. All of the sudden, she was in front of me and I hit her at about 10-15mph.
I didn't flip or anything, but just crumpled over the hood and onto the street in front of her. I picked myself up and felt OK; no obvious cuts or pains. Even the bike seemed OK. She offered to give me a ride, call someone, etc. but I was sure I was fine, so I said don't worry. A bystander saw all this and started yelling at her for cutting me off, but I said, no, I could probably have been more careful too. A police officer noticed the discussion and came over, but as everyone appeared ok and I didn't want to make a complaint against the driver, we all just let it drop. |
| I ride my bike into Boston a lot and I see a lot of behavior that is stupid and dangerous. I watched two cars collide the other night at Forest Hills because one was running a red light and the other was trying to turn left through the yellow that they didn't quite make. Cars cut me off in the merge at the Washintong Street bridge construction, so I have decided to take the lane--still they pass against oncoming busses, just to get around me and save 10 seconds before the road becomes 2 lanes. But the woman turning into a parking space here is not the cause of this accident.
As a cyclist riding next to cars, you must always be alert to the possibilty that some idiot, hoping to be "helpful," will stop and wave a left turner across. If the cars are stopped, you really have to be careful because no one is expecting you to be coming along on the right like that. In the city, you have to really careful with crosswalks because pedestrians can suddenly appear from behind stopped cars and nobody seems to realize that bikes move as fast as they do.
Motorists who wave people across are more dangerous than inattentive motorists. You don't know what the people behind you are going to do. A bike could be coming up on your right or an impatient car might pass you on the right--and you are waving the motorist or pedestrian right into a crash. We all have to be more careful, but so often, attempts to be helpful and courteous have unanticipated consequences. Things work best when the traffic flow proceeds uninterrupted.
So I will add this to my own mental checklist. I hit a car several years ago in a similar situation and it taught me to be careful where there are cross streets and lines of cars. So now, I'll add "angle parking" as another category of area where you have to watch for the unexpected car appearing from behind a truck.
Unfortunately, after everyone left, I realized that my front wheel was bent, so I had to carry my bike 1.5 miles home. And I lost my glasses somewhere along the way. But apart from a thigh that feels like I just did 500 squats, I'm fine. Also, this accident reinforces the value of bike helmets. I banged my helmet into the hood of her car pretty hard, but suffered no ill effects. If I had not been wearing the helmet...I'd be in the emergency room now. |
