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tomtheman5's journal
I currently owe my journal:
That's the license plate number of the taxi that almost killed me.
That's right...I was in my first official bike accident a few hours ago (6:50 to be exact...I only know because some good Samaritan took the liberty of writing down everything on a piece of paper and telling me to put it in my pocket).
Sure, I've slammed into old ladies, been smooshed between two vans, and been vomitted on while riding my bike (yes, they're all true, and they've all happened in the past year and a half), but today was a different story.
I'm riding down Newbury St. and I admit I'm riding pretty fast...somewhere between 10-15 mph. Not a lot, but on Newbury my lane's only about a meter wide. So there's a lot of traffic...most of the cars aren't moving. So I'm riding merrily down my lane, passing everyone. Then the passenger in a taxi swings her door open. I don't know if it hit me on the side, or if I just slammed right into it, but I do know that there was no escaping it... my bike continues about 10 feet forward into traffic. I fly off the bike in a Superman-position and get slammed head-first into the bumper of a parked car.
I didn't black out or anything, but I was really confused for a few minutes. People crowded around me on the street and called police/tried to help me up/gave me a bottle of water. It was actually pretty cool that so many people were willing to help...it surprised me.
About 10 minutes later, Gus comes running (I had called him to come over; I was only a block or so away from our apartment). I was feeling a lot better...but there was an ambulance on the way, and the people around me were so concerned for me...and kept telling me not to move. So I just sat and waited. The ambulance gets there and this really cute medic guy with short blond hair and a firefighter-build starts asking me questions and feeling my back and chest for fractures or something. And I felt kind of weird when he started asking me what month and year it was. But they said that if I felt ok, that I shouldn't feel bad for not going to the hospital. The cute medic told me that if I started getting headaches and stuff, that I should just call 911 and they'd be back for me...so sweet! ::gushes::
A few minutes later, a police guy came and I filed a report with him. I was sort of annoyed when I explained the whole accident to him, and he kept on insisting that it was my fault. I argued a little with him, and finally realized that he thought the passenger was getting IN to the car, rather than opening the door to get OUT. I think I was most annoyed at the fact that it seems like the police are quick to blame the bikers. I guess I'm more pissed off that I'm the one that follows all the rules: I go the right direction in one-way streets, I never ride on the sidewalk, I stop at all the stop lights, and even stop signs. But that doesn't matter, because the bikers here (and everywhere, I suppose) have built a really bad reputation.
So anyway, I'm feeling ok now, except for my arms - the right one is all scraped up and hurts badly, and the left one is really really swollen. My head feels alright (I had been wearing a helmet, of course), but who knows how this could have affected my neck/spine.
Should I go to work tomorrow? We'll see...
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