The Fork-Wielding Koala Was Late
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bicycle,
car accident,
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My parents and brothers spent a long weekend at Casa Me, during which everything went crazier. I had a slightly belated birthday dinner at The Stinking Rose. We went hiking in Griffith Park, but we never reached the top due to an overheated, but still ornery, mini mutt. We went to Santa Monica Pier. And then we rounded things out with a day on Catalina Island, complete with a Segway tour.
Of course, the entire trip was peppered with visits to every fast food chain that doesn't exist on the other side of the Rockies. And just in case that wasn't healthy enough, the only exercise to be had was walking, or hiking, at our various destinations. After spending Wednesday afternoon recovering, we set out yesterday morning to teach the 17,000 extra calories a lesson, via the bike path.
Having previously only taken the bike paths on weekends, I must say this: there are fewer people on the paths during the week, but the quality of idiots skyrockets. I nearly ran over a particularly brain-dead dolt who stepped directly in front of my bike. Then there was the group of 30 teenagers just standing in the middle of the path and glaring at all the bikes that they were blocking. Can you say Stupidity Index Factor? But that was nothing compared to what happened next.
Washington Boulevard has bike lanes in both directions, making it one of the safer major streets in this area. Sadly, that does not take into account turning drivers that zone out and don't see the bicyclists in the aforementioned bike lanes. The reason I mention this is that Matt got pegged by a Prius making a left turn. The car hit his rear tire with a sickening crunch, while I was about 10 feet behind him! And I thought the mutts getting eaten by Eviltoby was scary, but that was nothing compared to seeing Matt get squished by a car!
I readily admit that I don't do well in crisis situations. My first thought was OH MY GOD! MUST SAVE MATT! But as I jumped off the bike, a little light in my head flashed a warning that I shouldn't leave my bike lying in the middle of the street. So I quickly kicked the kickstand and left it standing in the middle of the street instead. Much better.
I ran to Matt, who later told me that I screamed "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!" louder than he EVER heard me scream before. He was obviously not happy, but there were none of the giant pools of blood my stupid brain had told me to expect. I helped lift the bike off of him and he started to get up. Then that same useless light in my head came back on to tell me that my bike shouldn't be in the middle of the street. So I ran back to my bike, moved it to the curb, and ran back to Matt.
One witness claimed to have seen Matt hit his head, but his head didn't hurt and there wasn't even dirt on his shiny helmet. With his head apparently okay and no broken bones jutting out through his skin, Matt was silently declared to be safely mobile. We dragged his bike onto the sidewalk, where the Prius driver joined us in making sure Matt wasn't permanently disabled. The back of his right leg was scrapped up and bleeding in a pattern oddly reminiscent of gears, but aside from that, no damage.
Matt's shiny new Roubaix Elite was another story. The rear wheel was dangling, held on only by the derailer. The derailer was in the throws of death and seriously considering dropping the wheel. The rear brake had no stopping power in its near future. As for the frame, carbon is rather ornery. To the naked eye, the frame looks okay, but it still must be examined, both inside and out, for structural damage.
Having assessed the level of Matt and bike damage, Matt and the driver exchanged information. Aside from the whole trying to kill Matt thing, she was a decent human being who admitted fault and offered to pay for the bike repairs and any medical bills.
We towed the bike back to the store for repairs/salvage. While the repair guy was surveying the damage, he asked what kind of car the ne'er-do-well was driving. That's when we made a shocking discovery: Priuses are by far the most common car responsible for the bike damage at the shop. In fact, the repair guy commented to another employee, "Another Prius..." to which the second guy just groaned and shook his head.
Just to be clear, aside from the superficial scrapes on his leg, Matt is fine. As for the bike, the estimate should be ready by Tuesday.
Of course, the entire trip was peppered with visits to every fast food chain that doesn't exist on the other side of the Rockies. And just in case that wasn't healthy enough, the only exercise to be had was walking, or hiking, at our various destinations. After spending Wednesday afternoon recovering, we set out yesterday morning to teach the 17,000 extra calories a lesson, via the bike path.
Having previously only taken the bike paths on weekends, I must say this: there are fewer people on the paths during the week, but the quality of idiots skyrockets. I nearly ran over a particularly brain-dead dolt who stepped directly in front of my bike. Then there was the group of 30 teenagers just standing in the middle of the path and glaring at all the bikes that they were blocking. Can you say Stupidity Index Factor? But that was nothing compared to what happened next.
Washington Boulevard has bike lanes in both directions, making it one of the safer major streets in this area. Sadly, that does not take into account turning drivers that zone out and don't see the bicyclists in the aforementioned bike lanes. The reason I mention this is that Matt got pegged by a Prius making a left turn. The car hit his rear tire with a sickening crunch, while I was about 10 feet behind him! And I thought the mutts getting eaten by Eviltoby was scary, but that was nothing compared to seeing Matt get squished by a car!
I readily admit that I don't do well in crisis situations. My first thought was OH MY GOD! MUST SAVE MATT! But as I jumped off the bike, a little light in my head flashed a warning that I shouldn't leave my bike lying in the middle of the street. So I quickly kicked the kickstand and left it standing in the middle of the street instead. Much better.
I ran to Matt, who later told me that I screamed "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!" louder than he EVER heard me scream before. He was obviously not happy, but there were none of the giant pools of blood my stupid brain had told me to expect. I helped lift the bike off of him and he started to get up. Then that same useless light in my head came back on to tell me that my bike shouldn't be in the middle of the street. So I ran back to my bike, moved it to the curb, and ran back to Matt.
One witness claimed to have seen Matt hit his head, but his head didn't hurt and there wasn't even dirt on his shiny helmet. With his head apparently okay and no broken bones jutting out through his skin, Matt was silently declared to be safely mobile. We dragged his bike onto the sidewalk, where the Prius driver joined us in making sure Matt wasn't permanently disabled. The back of his right leg was scrapped up and bleeding in a pattern oddly reminiscent of gears, but aside from that, no damage.
Matt's shiny new Roubaix Elite was another story. The rear wheel was dangling, held on only by the derailer. The derailer was in the throws of death and seriously considering dropping the wheel. The rear brake had no stopping power in its near future. As for the frame, carbon is rather ornery. To the naked eye, the frame looks okay, but it still must be examined, both inside and out, for structural damage.
Having assessed the level of Matt and bike damage, Matt and the driver exchanged information. Aside from the whole trying to kill Matt thing, she was a decent human being who admitted fault and offered to pay for the bike repairs and any medical bills.
We towed the bike back to the store for repairs/salvage. While the repair guy was surveying the damage, he asked what kind of car the ne'er-do-well was driving. That's when we made a shocking discovery: Priuses are by far the most common car responsible for the bike damage at the shop. In fact, the repair guy commented to another employee, "Another Prius..." to which the second guy just groaned and shook his head.
Just to be clear, aside from the superficial scrapes on his leg, Matt is fine. As for the bike, the estimate should be ready by Tuesday.
15 comments:
sorry to hear about that...I have a friend who got hit by a car pulling out of a street spot while on his bike, and another friend who crashed trying to avoid being doored by another careless driver. Too many bike accidents...
On a separate note, how does the Prius observation prove anything? If I may be the devil's advocate for a moment, it sounds like you are suggesting that there is some sort of defect in the design of the Prius which causes it to crash into unsuspecting bicyclists against their will.
I am not suggesting a design flaw in the Prius. I am, however, suggesting a common design flaw in the people who buy them.
To clarify, Sharon thought she had seen me get squished by a car. In point of fact, after the Prius struck my bike, I was still upright on the bike for a second or two before eventually falling over, which was similar to falling over without being struck. Hence, the minimal damage to me.
Also, excluding the possibility of frame damage, I don't see how the rear wheel, rear derailleur, and rear brake could possibly be salvagable, but I'll have to wait until Tuesday for an official damage report.
There are two answers here -- one is the generally reported answer, which I don't buy so much, and one is from personal experience. The general answer is that the Prius, and other electric and hybrid vehicles, when running electric, are basically silent, and don't trigger a major part of the car/cyclist warning system.
My answer is that the Prius brakes weird.
Nice to read that helmets are still in vogue. Or are they required in CA? NJ hates its bikers since helmets are only required for the 16-and-under crowd. And NJ drivers never stop after hitting anyone, either, BTW.
Still glad your OK, Matt.
bogus! it's very difficult to prove a claim like that. There are simply too many confounders.
Thanks. Helmets are only required if you're under 18 in CA. Once you reach age of majority, they become optional.
With all the things that could possibly go wrong when one is on two wheels only a couple or so centimeters thick, I don't know why anyone would ride without a helmet. That being said, they certainly are not in vogue over here either.
Interestingly, I've noticed that the people who seem to bike much more frequently (judged by having actual bike clothes, cost of bike, physique, etc.) will almost always wear a helmet. Casual bikers, like those on beach cruisers just enjoying a summer day, hardly ever.
The driver said she didn't see Matt, so she didn't attempt to stop until it was too late. If it was a higher-end car with better brakes, she may have stopped earlier. Have you driven one before?
I don't think it's all that difficult to prove, though it probably be laborious. What you do is take a statistical sampling of the average driver and another of the average Prius driver. Then you devise a quantitative measure of driving prowess (anything as simple as number of accidents in the past three years to a more complicated ranking of driving ability depending on what gives you useful data). Then you see how the Prius sample versus the overall sample does. If there is a statistically significant difference, you start isolating variables until you find the determining factors.
Yeah, clearly. I agree with that, but I feel that your last sentence captures the essence of my argument, "you start isolating variables until you find the determining factors." Hard to do this without realizing there may have been a selection bias and or confounders, both known and unknown.
For example, the high frequency of damage caused by Prius may be explained by Prius frequenting the neighborhood. There may be a more positive correlation between cyclists and Prius, because Prius are most effective in urban driving where cyclists tend to be most found, than say cyclists and pickup trucks.
Oh no! So that was your really bad day the other day! Glad to hear Matt's okay though... and that you still handle crisis situations so well ;)
I know! I didn't bite anyone! Go me!
To your first point, the presence or lack thereof of selection bias and confounders is solely based in the data collected. I'm making the assumption that the data collected is statistically valid. One can say for any problem that you might have selection bias and confounders in the data; that's hardly specific to this.
Going back to the discussion at hand, I think your point is that one bike shop's anecdotal opinion isn't sufficient to declare a positive correlation. I don't disagree with that. However, they are a pretty large and prominent bike shop in the area, so they probably get a pretty good sampling of accidents. And when you take into account the opinion of many that Prius drivers are worse than others (which I also grant can be heavily biased), it does at least pique my curiosity.
I'm fairly sure Prius isn't its own plural.
what is it then? Plural is usually formed by adding an 's'. Since it already ends in 's', the job is already done.
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