I know this is a sports blog, but something happened this evening and I want everyone to make sure they are teaching their kids to ride their bike safely because I see kids crossing back and forth all the time. And then this happened this evening. I copy and pasted it from my personal/public blog. Please read and teach your kids.
When I was growing up, I was taught to ride my bike with traffic and stay on the side of the road. I see so many kids that wait for a car to pass them and then switch lanes and ride against traffic. I always get pissed because it’s just unsafe. And I get pissed at their parents for not caring enough to teach them right.
Tonight, I was coming home from picking my kids up. I was doing about 50 mph as I came up on a kid on a bike. I let go of the gas to let the car traveling towards me to pass him so I could merge over into his lane to pass the biker. And no sooner then the car passed, the biker tried to cut across the lanes and I hit him. I remember slamming on the brakes, and I remember seeing his clothes through the hole in my windshield right in front of me. I got the car stopped and off the road and all I remember is my kids crying in the back seat. I told them to stay there and got out and went to check on the kid in the street. He was bleeding pretty good but not horribly bad. I can still picture that color red on the pavement coming from his head. It’s not the red you think it would be. He got up and I told him to lay back down as I was trying to call 9-1-1.
In the end, they put him in an ambulance and took him away. He was coherent and like I said, he stood up so I don’t think he was doing horribly bad for being hit by a car doing 40mph.
I still don’t know how I feel. I feel bad for the kid, who come to find out, was 20 years old. But on the other hand I’m pissed because he turned his bike right in front of me without even looking. I feel bad for his parents, but on the other hand, I’m pissed they didn’t teach him any better. So all in all, I feel like crap because I’m pissed at him and I feel bad for being pissed at him. I thank God that it wasn’t truly a kid, because I’m still a little shaken by it. I can’t imagine if I had hit a kid who was 10 or 12 years old.
I just hope my kids, who are asleep now, learned a lesson from this. And I hope they aren’t scarred for life for what they saw. Samantha had some trouble going to sleep, and she was coughing from all the crying she had done. But I won’t be able to get the image of them looking at me with that scared/crying look when I went back to check on them after checking on the biker. Those looks will haunt my dreams for awhile.
That's a horrible thing for you to have to experience - especially when it's the biker's fault. But remember that 20 years old isn't a kid, and at that point he should know, at the very least, to look both ways before crossing like that.
ReplyDeleteAt 20 years old, he's adult enough to drive, so he's adult enough to know how to ride a bike. I hear stories of things like this all the time with adults, because there are so many bike riders around here. Honestly, it's been my experience that bicyclists, more often than not, ride with a sense of entitlement and a lack of concern for everyone else - vehicles and pedestrians alike. They blow through stop signs and red lights, block traffic unnecessarily, perform dangerous maneuvers through traffic, and put pedestrian lives at risk. A woman crossing the street in a crosswalk with the proper signal was killed here in SF recently by a bicyclist.
It's a horrible yet fantastic lesson for your kids in proper bicycle riding, because you can talk about this with them and explain what he did wrong in the first place, and at the same time you can tell them that he's going to be okay and hopefully learned his lesson.
And you shouldn't feel bad for being angry with him. He was an adult (even if he was "only" 20), he should have the common sense to know better, and the whole accident is his fault. But as with anything else, it's important to get the situation rectified (your car fixed) and put it behind you.
As a side note, I do agree that parents need to teach their kids better. Our society has devolved into a bunch of self-centered over-esteemed ungrateful brats, which lacks much of the common sense and societal manners it used to. I hope I learned most of the common sense and manners I need for daily life (I know I'm far from perfect), but I see too many rude people every day, as evidenced by the litter on the street, the unnecessary pushing and shoving to get on a bus, and people playing their music out loud and talking loudly in public. Yes, it seems fickle, and it doesn't bother me (the bus brings me a bunch of amusement, actually), but a lot can be gathered about a culture by watching its masses move about together.
Wow, glad that everyone ended up ok - not just him, you guys too. You never know, you could have swerved, etc and it could have been much worse for you.
ReplyDeleteIt's scary how bad a lot of bike riders are. Here in NYC, there are crazy bike riders all over, especially delivery guys. I've had many close calls while driving in the city, they come out of no where and disobey all traffic laws. I've even almost been hit a few times crossing the street by bikers.
Not too long ago, I saw a cab pulled over to the side of the road to let a passenger out. As she opened the door, a biker slammed into the door and literally flew over it. Pretty intense.
Not that any of this is the same as suburbia/country roads, but it's the same wherever you go. Bike safety is non-existent. I'm glad your kids will grow up knowing how to safely ride in traffic.
I can't do anything but second what these two said. Definitely something for people to learn from, so thanks for sharing.
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