Ways to Get Yourself Killed (on a bike) (part 1)

People who know me well, know that I'm full of great advice... usually… I think. 

So here we go again with my two cents. Although, convert that into actual currency and it's probably worth a hundredth of a real penny. 

Anyway, let's say you, a regular John or Jane (funny enough, one of our mechanic's name is Jane), pick up a bike on the street and decide you want to ride it regularly. Where did that bike come from? I don't know, maybe it fell from heaven, who knows. Why are you picking up someone else's bike? You thief. 

Regardless, I won't judge you. 

Here's a list of don'ts in no particular order. It's not the full list though; you'll have to wait for more next week. The reason being is that this post is big enough as it is. 

Don't Tempt the Tracks

This particular topic appears in my nightmares occasionally. 

Let's say you're on a road with streetcar tracks. Yeah, you were warned to keep away and you could probably imagine that your tires aren't meant to go in between them, but you have a problem.

There are cars parked by the curb on the right, and there’s a line-up of cars in the left lane. So, you're pretty much screwed because you can't go in between that big truck parked on the right that's being unloaded, and the street car on the left.

Oh wait, you can. The street car inched up a bit, and there's some space for you to go through. However, you have to beat the car behind you because that butthole doesn't want to let you through.

Then, you hear sirens. You look down at your bike and remember that you picked it up somewhere. You get startled and squeeze yourself through... well you almost did. Now look, your leg is bending in a way it’s not supposed to.

I am speaking from some relatively similar experience, except, it's probably not as dramatic or as excusable as the made-up scenario above. 

It was a fine summer's day four or so years ago. I was biking with friends, going west on Gerrard Street past Jones Avenue. 

"Let's race!" One of us decided.

"Yes! Let's!" Another one replied with (probably) enthusiasm.

There wasn't any traffic, really, so it seemed safe. I wasn't too experienced on the whole biking on the road thing either.

Yet, we raced. I was behind my friend and, in what I thought was a strategic move, decided to overtake him on the outside. It would've been great if we weren't in between streetcar tracks on the left and parked cars on the right.

It happened really fast. I couldn't remember much what happened in between the time the idea sprang up in my head and me slamming the floor. The succession of things were so quick, with my tire sliding into the tracks, flipping over with the world in a blur around me, and finally me landing in an empty parking spot on the right. Oh, I was also run over by my friend too, hit my face against the pavement and broke my glasses.

Luckily, I didn't break any bones or wasn't seriously injured, but did I learn my lesson.

Weaving in and out

The rest of the items won't involve first-hand experience because I've been smart enough to be cautious since the meeting with my face and the pavement.  

If you remember this post, and you looked through the list of things on the links given there, you'll know not to do this. 

I was biking in a fairly straight line on Queen Street a few days ago. Some guy speeds past me on his bike, then starts to jump in to the right lane, near the curb, in between parked cars, and jumps back out. I understand his logic: If you stay as far to the right as possible, especially in between parked cars, there's less of a chance for you to get hit by a car in motion.

Well, there's a reason why the safety guides on the Toronto website advise not to do that. You may feel safe, but playing peekaboo using parked cars isn't smart. Unless you're running away from the police with that stolen bike, then you're probably doing it for a reason.  

First of all, you don't have to be a driver to understand this, or heck, not even a biker. Have you ever walked down the street when, a squirrel jumped out from a tree, or a big raccoon stuck its head out from a pile of garbage? You might have been startled. Not because you're afraid of the animal, and may get rabies from it, but because you weren't expecting it. 

When you're behind the wheels of an object that's weighing in at several thousand pounds and going at least 20 km/h, you don't want to be startled like that. Luckily, some people are trained, or train themselves not to throw their car in to oncoming traffic when something pops into the side of their vision. They will slam the brakes though. However, I've witnessed too many people tailgating to get to goodness knows where, considering you can't really go any faster than the car in front of you anyway. This means that when the person in front slams their brakes, there's some lag in the tailgater's reaction, to their foot hitting their brakes, and their vehicle actually stopping. You know what that means. 

If the driver is startled and turns into oncoming traffic, that's a whole list of problems. Heck, it'd be sort of funny if the driver did the opposite and turned into the biker weaving in and out, since you know, it's a reckless move that’s dangerous for others and the biker themselves. 

Oh, it doesn't stop there. How many of you have had a door open on them while biking in a straight line? Forget about a line that looked like a toddler's attempt to cut a piece of paper with those squiggly-cut scissors. It's cute, if it's the toddler cutting the paper, but not if it's an imaginary line drawn by a biker's erratic behaviour. 

Sometimes, the person getting out of the car might be really distracted, or may be having a bad day and isn't thinking straight, it happens. They may not be careful because of that, or maybe they're just careless and probably need some good ol' fashion swearing.

No, don't do that. be polite and tell them to watch out before somebody gets seriously hurt because if you start swearing at them, their pride, just like our own, would convince them they were right and they did nothing wrong, hence more likely to purposely 'door' a biker in the future. It's surprising how many people have that sort of pride in them, and I'll admit, I'm not an exception. We should take steps to correct that though, right? 

Digression aside. 

Point is, if people have trouble seeing us, the biker going in a straight line, then imagine how difficult it is to spot someone in the mirror when the biker is weaving in and out. 

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- Azam Abowath

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