HUBBERS DOT COM BLOG

This morning I was riding down the cycle lane on Avenue Road on my way to work and a people carrier turned left in front of me without indicating. Naturally I did what any sane cyclist would do and I slammed into his rear vision mirror and was catapulted through the air.

I landed a few meters further down the road. I think my right hand hit first. Luckily I was wearing glove to no damage there. My right elbow followed and was very lightly grazed. Next my right hip landed and took the brunt of the impact. No graze but I think I will have a hell of a bruise. The last to hit the asphalt was the right side of my helmet. It hit with such force that I remember thinking at the time that if I wasn’t wearing it there was no way my skull could have taken the hit and stayed in one piece. All in all I got off extremely lightly.

The driver stopped and was really nice except he was touching me far to much and wanted to tell my what to do all the time. Like lie here and don’t move or let me see you walk to the tree and back. I think he was more shaken up than I was. But then I knew I was going to be okay and he was probably shitting himself that I might have internal injuries or shock or a really nasty lawyer (oxymoron?).

Massive Lucky Break

My apple and banana were both in the left hand side of my pack and escaped the carnage entirely unscathed!

Cycle Crash Map

I knew this street was a bad spot because I have had a few close calls and last year I saw a woman with her bike in the back of an ambulance at the same place. And London is full of places where cyclists regularly get cained.

So I have come up with this idea. I have created a Google map that shows where my accident was and encourages other people to plot their accidents or accidents they have seen on it. Once enough data is gathered the map could be used to get local councils to make dangerous intersections safer.

This is the link to my Cycle Crash Map. If you could link to this on your blog (if you have one) or tell people about it that would be great.

Additional weirdness

While I was dazed and confused by the side of the road the driver kept asking me to move away from a smoking white van that three geezers were trying to start. It was only a little smoke so I didn’t see what the fuss was until the geezers started carrying fists full of dirt to white van. At this stage the guy who hit me moved me to the other side of the road and the white van turned into an inferno. I have never seen a live car on fire before and would have completely missed that if I hadn’t been hit.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 9:42 am and is filed under cycling, london. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.