Detours

My intention was that after work I would get back to my car and then head off to Meadowcroft for an atlatl competition. It didn't turn out that way because, after getting my car and trying to bypass the traffic on Second Avenue, I can across a car-into-a-bike accident at the end of the Swinburne Bridge.

It had happened only moments before and I could hear several people with their cars stopped and calling on their cell phones. I decided to attend to the victim, as no one else did. She had been sitting up but laid down so I figured her spine and neck weren't too bad. She had a nasty gash on her chin and plenty of scrapes all over. I asked her where it hurt and for each place she said I noted the injury there and didn't find any signs of anything broken.

The woman who had hit her was parroting what is probably the most common phrase uttered by drivers who have his cyclists; "I didn't see you." I had seen another cyclist rolling down Greenfield Avenue at a pretty good clip. I suspected that this woman had been not far behind him, also riding down the center of the lane like the cyclist ahead of her and as any car would. The scrapes on the driver's door and the vehicle in the middle of the intersection told me that the car had pulled right out in front of the cyclist.

"I didn't see you."

It turns out that the cyclist I had seen moments before was the husband and I said that I would go fetch him. I jumped back in the car and got turned around just as he was running his bike back up the hill. With the traffic all jammed up he knew something bad had happened and was running flat out.

All things considered, I didn't think she was seriously injured and, in any case, didn't need another person looming over her now that her husband was there so I did my part directing traffic. Mostly, I didn't want cars to be in any sort of gridlock that might keep the cops and paramedics from arriving. They arrived in a minute or two of that.

A firefighter took over traffic control (but I think I was doing a better job) and I grabbed my camera to take pictures. Of course, before I took the first picture I asked the husband if he wanted pictures for the insurance company or courts. I would be glad to email them to him. He consented and I started with the pictures.

I offered to take the bikes somewhere if he wanted but he locked them to a street sign and said he lived just up the hill but the bikes were the least of his worries. I told him that I would be glad to take even that small concern off his mind if he wanted.

So, instead of going to Meadowcroft, I ended up going home so that I could email those pictures right away.