Almost bought it today.  Smacked my elbow.

[DNGrumpy]

I rode in today for work.  The last part of my commute takes place in the city.  The traffic is congested any everybody is aggravated and on the damn phone etc...  My bike needed to be at GIXERHP's tonight for tuning in the morning so I rode it to work today.

I am the first vehicle in line at a light at a four way intersection.  It's two lanes each way on my side, 5 across the intersection and 3 on each side going the other way.  About 150 feet after the intersection there is another cross street, you are only supposed to take a right pulling out from either side on this damn road.  

The light turns green and I boot across, there are 3 full lanes of cars trucks etc waiting to go on my left.  The line is like 50 cars deep.  I come up to about 20 feet before the cross street and some idiot in a Cherokee barrells out from the side street through the cars (they let him through) and straight across in front of me.  I was already probably going 30 at this point and aimed left into traffic and locked up everything and skidded past him and smacked my elbow on the back of the thing as I went past.  He did not stop and neither did I.  I got her straight and finished my ride with my legs all jello and my heart pounding.  IDIOT!!!

Had I been in my truck I never would have been able to stop and likely rolled him over as I broadsided him...

He either didn't see me or didn't look before he went...

Arggggghhhh  

My elbow is fine, I just grazed him on the way by but damn this one was way to close!!!

Had to tell somebody, nobody at home likes to hear this stuff.

Dave

 

[Big Red]

Grumpy ,You are a good defensive rider. My hat's off to you. Have you talked to the traffic department in your city about getting this dangerous intersection fixed? I am not preaching here but about a month ago I decided to wear a floresent green / retroreflective mesh vest over my Joe Rocket jacket every time I have to ride through my city streets. It was a hard decision but considering how dangerous the streets are with traffic and all,I can live with the jeers and negative comments.

 

[jessup]

I ride in Philadelphia all the time... I feel your pain. Haven't gotten tapped yet though... Glad you handled it so well!

 

[Projekt]

Cat like reflexes save the day... Good for you.

 

[Rayabusa0818]

Good job...I hate riding in cities

 

[DNGrumpy]

They'll never fix it. They half do everything. My store is in an industrial neighborhood, very old buildings, everything id grey and brown and dead looking. No grass anywhere. Two weeks a go they sent out a letter saying they were going to be cleaning up the area and removing grafitti etc... Last week a city "forestry"truck shows up and they cut down all of the trees that lined the sidewalk in front of the businesses. Most of them were Dogwoods and flower in the spring and stay green at least for the summer. The crew cleans up and
just leave the stumps sticking out of the sidewalk. I am nosey so I ask what they are doing and the chief tells me it was part of the cleanup, the tress cost too much for the city to take care of.

WTF I have been running that store for 10+ years and have NEVER seen a city worker ever do anything to any of the tress on that street. I keep a leaf blower at work to clear the butts off of the sidewalk..

Anyway, they'll never fix it... Maybe a ticket or two or 500 would work...

 

[semi]

glad you came out of that ok

that was way too close