So I was riding down one of my campus roads, keeping to the right side of my lane so faster moving cars can pass me.
100ft: I see a girl on a cell phone waiting to jaywalk across the street. I continue my course because she's not even on the road yet.
60ft: She starts walking out into my line of travel. I'm going 20mph.
20ft: I shift further to the right because shifting to the left means I will be going into the line of traffic. I plan to pass her on the right.
10ft: After moving to the right the girl is no longer in my line of travel.
5ft: The girl glances up from her conversation, looks at me, screams, and jumps backwards right back into my line of travel. I do a frantic 20mph to 5mph in 5ft, 1 sec, swerving/skidding out of the way.
0ft: I swerve past the girl, look at her in bewilderment, and she keeps on chatting on her cell phone... once again oblivious to the whole world.
I remember a post a while back about accidentally hitting squirrels on the bike. Someone said that the only surefire way to avoid them is to ride straigtht at them because their instincts will tell them to jump away right at the last second. The logic is that if a predator were charging, jumping away at the last second will give the predator no time to change direction, resulting in a miss. The problem with riding to miss the squirrel is that the squirrel will dart away at the last second as per instincts... but could result in a dart right into your wheel.
Cellphone girl obviously darted right into my path because of some ancient, squirrelly-**** instinct. Awwww.... *pats the squirrelly-*****
100ft: I see a girl on a cell phone waiting to jaywalk across the street. I continue my course because she's not even on the road yet.
60ft: She starts walking out into my line of travel. I'm going 20mph.
20ft: I shift further to the right because shifting to the left means I will be going into the line of traffic. I plan to pass her on the right.
10ft: After moving to the right the girl is no longer in my line of travel.
5ft: The girl glances up from her conversation, looks at me, screams, and jumps backwards right back into my line of travel. I do a frantic 20mph to 5mph in 5ft, 1 sec, swerving/skidding out of the way.
0ft: I swerve past the girl, look at her in bewilderment, and she keeps on chatting on her cell phone... once again oblivious to the whole world.
I remember a post a while back about accidentally hitting squirrels on the bike. Someone said that the only surefire way to avoid them is to ride straigtht at them because their instincts will tell them to jump away right at the last second. The logic is that if a predator were charging, jumping away at the last second will give the predator no time to change direction, resulting in a miss. The problem with riding to miss the squirrel is that the squirrel will dart away at the last second as per instincts... but could result in a dart right into your wheel.
Cellphone girl obviously darted right into my path because of some ancient, squirrelly-**** instinct. Awwww.... *pats the squirrelly-*****
