The accident

Over the past two weeks, I've published, in parts, the first draft of an essay written for my fall writing class that explored walking, driving, and riding a bike in the city. When I revised that essay, it focused exclusively on riding and used excerpts of the other parts as appropriate. Something important happened in the time between my first and second draft, though -- I got hit my a car while riding my bike to work one evening. What follows is how the final draft ends -- my reflection on the accident and how it affected my feelings about bike riding in Chicago.

I’d had my bike almost six weeks when I met someone who had in fact forgotten the power of her potentially lethal object. I was riding south on Clark Street one Thursday evening in late October when I had an experience I never expected to have: I actually got hit by a car. Even now, several weeks later, I have a hard time describing exactly what happened. The traffic at Bernelli’s Pasta Bowl on the corner of Clark and Ontario always backs up due to the popularity of the restaurant’s drive-thru. I was staying to the right of the road but had to venture out into the center lane to get around the line of cars. I checked oncoming traffic to my left and pulled alongside other cars trying to bypass the drive-thru spillover, and then veered back to the right of the road. I think the light to cross Ontario had just turned yellow as I approached the intersection, and so I pedaled faster to clear the intersection before the light changed to red. A driver in a large, black, shiny SUV must have had the same thought and, failing to check the crosswalk she was about to enter (which also had the right of way), hit the front end of my bike with the right corner of her vehicle. I saw the vehicle in my periphery for a split second before I began falling towards the ground. All I remember going through my head was, “It this really happening? Is this really happening?”

The other thing going through my head was, “What did I do wrong?” The reality was I did nothing wrong, aside from ride my bike on a busy street. After all, I had the right of way, right? I freely admit to being a stickler for the rules – on the road and off. Knowing and following rules gives me some kind of inner peace – a zen place, like the Container Store (where, for $4.95 and over, there is a place for everything, and everything in its place). It’s doing things the right way. So it always irks me something fierce when I am following the rules and other are not, and yet I’m the one who ends up – in this case – face down on the pavement with a bent front wheel. The driver, a lanky blonde with a gigantic diamond on her left hand, was also shook up and seemed to be truly mortified by what she had done (though she would later assert that it was an accident, which meant that it was nobody’s fault). She meant no harm; she was in a hurry, she said, and just didn’t see me. She stayed at the site of the accident until the police arrived; they took our statements and told us to work it out. I walked myself to the emergency room later for an x-ray on my left elbow. It wasn’t broken, but the bruise sure was pretty.

I’ve only ridden my rehabilitated bike once or twice since the accident, owing more to the increasingly frigid weather than to any trepidation I may feel as a result of being hit. My husband expressed surprise that I wanted to ride again after what happened, but the reality is that accidents happen. I wear a reflective vest when I ride at night now, and I look a little harder before entering an intersection.

My biggest regret when it comes to my bike, I suppose, is not having bought it sooner so I could have enjoyed the whole summer with it. Seeing a city – and getting to know it – by bike is truly enjoyable. I just have to remember to look where I’m going and make sure I’m seen.