Well I thought it's only fair to post this, as a reminder, keep things in perspective and what-not.
I was hit by a car while cycling to work about 3 weeks ago.
I wont go into the details unless someone asks, but basicly I was going straight through a 4-way intersection and a car coming the opposite direction turned at the intersection, not seeing me at all the driver was just 'aiming' for a gap between the vehicles in front and behind me (which is legal, assuming there's not a cyclist in the way hahaha).
The car hit clean on my right leg doing maybe 30km/hr. I had only just clipped into the pedals and moving very slowly (lights only just turned green).
Damage was clean fracture of tibia and fibula, some bruises, knock on the jaw and slightly bent bike. I haven't seen the bike yet, but I hear it looks quite cool
hahaha.
This is a common cyclist-crash scenario (traffic light'd intersections).
The solution our road authority has in aus is two 'stopping lines' at intersections.
One line for cyclists to stop at, ahead of all other traffic, then another line about 1 metre back for other vehicles to stop at.
So at red lights, cyclists are expected to ride through traffic and stop at the front, thus easily visible to everyone at the intersection while not moving, etc.
This particular intersection only has 1 stopping line, and no cycle lane.
I usually still ride to the front and stop in the space pedestrians cross at.
But this time a bus had rolled further into the intersection, leaving no room for me in front.
So I stopped behind the bus - a long way behind (maybe 6 metres), and I waited until the bus went through the intersection before I started moving... trying to avoid the _exact_ accident which ended up happening.
I'll definitely be straight back on the bike. If anything this has made me even less inclined to drive a car, and even more driven to promote alternative transport.
Oh some other things. I was wearing a muscle compression suit AKA "skin suit", and a soft 'cammelback' backpack (with the water bladder on it, which I never actually drink from).
The paramedics told me that these were both good things; the compression suit protected me well from abrasion (I had no grazes at all, despite sliding and tumbling a couple of metres), applied pressure to where the leg broke, kept wound clean, kept me warm until they got there, and generally helped blood circulation.
The cammelback type backpacks apparently do a good job of ad-lib spine protection.
So they might be worthwhile (albiet quite negative) incentives to purchase those things hahaha.
So, yeah. Just thought I'd post my little story to give other cyclists something to think about
Usually when things like this happen, I try to re-think what I'm doing to try to avoid it happening again. But I'm not so sure this time.
Anyhoo, I'm in good spirits
