Near accident! Holy cage idiots!
Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 1:26 am
I almost died today. I was kind of lucky. I hope this short story will help others stay alive.
I was making a left turn on a fairly heavily trafficked four lane street. The left turn light was green for me, it was a left turn only dedicated lane, and I was going faster than normal(15mph) to try and catch the light and save 90 seconds on the next cycle. So, I had my eye on the traffic signal in case it turned yellow. I slowed to about 5mph just prior to turning. It didn’t go yellow so I almost made the left. Just before turning my handlebar to the left, a car came speeding right through the red light about 40-45 mph and would have crushed me had I been 1-2 seconds earlier. My heart stopped. There was a car stopped at the red light in the right hand lane, but this guy came ripping through the red light in the left lane. I wasn’t even thinking of looking down the road of opposing traffic because they had the red and mine was totally green arrow.
So, lesson learned! I will put my safety above trying to save time by catching lights. And, I will always slow way down before making lefts and look at any potential oncoming traffic even when they have a red light. And, I will always assume that cars out there are trying to run me over. I must be super vigilant, especially when making left hand turns! Same goes for oncoming traffic turning left into me when I’m just going straight. I will slow down in case some idiot cage driver doesn’t see me or is just “trying to run me over�.
I hope this helps other riders out there avoid a collision in the future. I feel lucky to be alive. Seriously!
I was making a left turn on a fairly heavily trafficked four lane street. The left turn light was green for me, it was a left turn only dedicated lane, and I was going faster than normal(15mph) to try and catch the light and save 90 seconds on the next cycle. So, I had my eye on the traffic signal in case it turned yellow. I slowed to about 5mph just prior to turning. It didn’t go yellow so I almost made the left. Just before turning my handlebar to the left, a car came speeding right through the red light about 40-45 mph and would have crushed me had I been 1-2 seconds earlier. My heart stopped. There was a car stopped at the red light in the right hand lane, but this guy came ripping through the red light in the left lane. I wasn’t even thinking of looking down the road of opposing traffic because they had the red and mine was totally green arrow.
So, lesson learned! I will put my safety above trying to save time by catching lights. And, I will always slow way down before making lefts and look at any potential oncoming traffic even when they have a red light. And, I will always assume that cars out there are trying to run me over. I must be super vigilant, especially when making left hand turns! Same goes for oncoming traffic turning left into me when I’m just going straight. I will slow down in case some idiot cage driver doesn’t see me or is just “trying to run me over�.
I hope this helps other riders out there avoid a collision in the future. I feel lucky to be alive. Seriously!