Re: The INJURIES I survived while riding a bike
Chicks dig scars, but mine don't show. Here are two incidents:
#1 - I pulled up in the right turn lane, at the (red) lights at Steeles and Advance Blvd., and an idiot in the ubiquitous white delivery van was pulled up so far into the crosswalk that I couldn't see oncoming traffic. I eaaaaasssed up through the crosswalk to be able to see around him and noticed that a transport was coming, fast, so I stopped. Next thing I knew I was 10 feet up and cartwheeling. The stair lift/electric wheelchair salesman who was behind me, at the light, thought that I was going to blow the light. He looked left (where he couldn't see anything because of the van) but hammered the gas, while still looking left, and essentially went right through me. Fortunately I went pretty much straight up and down, so a bruised butt was all that I suffered.
#2 - I was riding past Southgate Mall in Brampton, at Balmoral and Eastbourne, in the right lane. I noticed that there was a line of cars waiting to turn left, from the oncoming lanes, and a line of cars waiting to turn right out of the mall parking lot. The lead car in the parking lot line was turned so far that I didn't think he could see me in the right hand land, so I moved to the left lane both for visibility, and to give myself more maneouvering in case he pulled out unexpectedly. That's when the lead car, in the oncoming left lane, decided to turn across my path. At 50 Kmh and with about 30 feet to do something I had just enough time to be impressed with myself for getting the front end to start diving under breaking before my bike hit the front bumper of the car, my balls hit the gas tank, and I did a full somersault over the car. Bloody Russian judge only gave me a 6.5 because I didn't stick the landing. I crawled off the road figuring that with the pain I was feeling I would be dying, in short order, and was somewhat disappointed when that didn't happen. An ambulance appeared what seemed like both seconds and hours later at which time I was straightened out from foetal position, then strapped unapologetically to a backboard with a neck brace. It took 4 hours in ER before anyone came by to check me for a pulse and 4.5 hours before I saw a doctor. The guy I hit was an unlicensed and uninsured pizza delivery guy. I have a vague memory of several of the bar flies from Rejeanne's telling me, as I was laying on the grass and moaning, that he had hit a car in the parking lot hard enough to take it off its axle, two weeks before. So why the bloody hell didn't they report him to police?! I was wearing track pants and limping for almost a month, because no one bothered to do that.
