Bad at Biking?

"The persistence of bike tires" by Salvador Dali

Well, it happened again.I'm writing this Thursday night about something that happened Thursday morning. After my previous bike accident on 13th St. b/w K and L, I managed to have another run in with an inattentive driver... about 60 feet from the scene of the last one. While the first incident left my body banged up, this time my bike absorbed most of the damage. My hands are bruised up, and my knee's gonna kill tomorrow, but I'd say that my front tire got it way worse than I did.

I believe that I was on the right side of my lane when a woman either passed me too close on my left side and nicked my front wheel, or just plain merged into me. She, of course, claims that I was at fault. Guess who the cops were inclined to side with? Guess who probably won't be able to collect any insurance settlement from the driver?

So how much does it suck to ride a bike around in DC? Gas prices are going sky high and public transportation is resultingly getting clogged. So you find a commuting method that bypasses both those systems and you get shit on every step of the way.

Here's a little more about what happened: I was riding to work when, in my opinion, a car came from behind me, struck my front wheel and knocked me off my bike. I had two other motorists pulling over to tell me they saw her hit me. I got one of their phone numbers.

Since I was fifteen feet from a fire house, the firemen came to see if I was alright. My pants were too tight to roll up over my skinned knees, so I instead had to pull them down to show my bruises. That part was actually fun.

The lady who hit me was about to be late to jury duty, so it took me a lot of effort to convince her to stay and wait with me instead of giving me her information and speeding off. (By the way, guess which state she was from?) The cops came and got both our sides of the story, and after a lot of wrangling decided that we both had different versions of the story (Duh, she came from behind me) and that evidence pointed to it being my fault. Most frustratingly, one of them repeated the advice to be extra careful because motorists aren't looking out for us. So once again, our ignorance of another driver's carelessness translates to the public as the cyclists carelessness. It's maddening.

So what's a DC biker to do? We get bike lanes, and then people double park in them. Ride in the middle of the lane and you're told to stay to the right. Stay to the right, and you're told to take the middle. Cars honk and pass too close to you either way. It's no fun to be fearing for your life everytime you want to get from point A to point B without walking or driving.

The one comfort I took out of this is that there seems to be a real, and genuinely caring, community of DC cyclists looking out for each other. After my accident, every cyclist passing me stopped to ask if I was alright. While speaking with the cops, a cute guy in a red shirt slowed his 10 Speed down to hand me a copy of WABA's pocket guide to DC bike laws. Later I saw him at City Bikes and thanked him about a million times.

I guess the main reason for this post is to remind everyone to be careful. Alice Swanson was killed at Connecticut and R last Tuesday because a garbage truck didn't notice her. Neither of my accidents would have happened if I had been a car, because then the drivers would've actually acknowledged me as having an equal stake in the road.

And, of course, wear your helmets. That's not even optional.