#3 in a series that will hopefully not conclude with my death
I was chugging upgrade through downtown Portland this morning when some commuter decided that they really needed to pull into a parking lot right then and did so, not noticing the bicyclist wearing reflective clothing (including a red jacket) and with a lit eDelux headlight. Fortunately I got a split seconds warning and was able to start turning away before the car hit me, so I just bruised the fuck out of my left forearm as the car and I shuddered to a stop inches before a bicycle-rider-eating curb.
Need I mention that I was in a bike lane? OF COURSE I was in a bike lane, just as I was the last two times I got right hooked (the first time, on Oahu, the bike lane was actually physically separated, except for at the driveway where the right-hooker caught me.) I think the vehicular cycling people are fairly obnoxious, but on days like today I begin to see their point; if I’d have been rocking up the middle of the for-all-vehicles-except-bicycles-thanks-to-the-mandatory-sidepath-law lane this driver would have been behind me where I couldn’t get scraped along the right side of their car when they decided to pull into a parking lot.
(I hope that I just bruised my forearm; I’m going to pop into the doctor’s office this afternoon to have someone take a look to verify that I did not actually miss broken fragments of bone sticking out.)
Comments
That doesn’t look good! I sure do wish car drivers would be more careful!
Yikes!
I am glad that’s no worse than it was.
Been writing “barrier able to stop a fully loaded articulated cement truck at 80 kph” on “what kind of traffic divider do you want to see?” surveys for awhile now. Not going to get it but think it would be nice.