Mishaps On The Road



Corzhens

Well-Known Member
May 26, 2015
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What mishap have you experienced on the road that seem unforgettable? For me, it was that incident when I hit my crush with a borrowed bike. I was not a good rider yet since I had just learned how to ride. Those were my high school years when my friends and I would rent a bike. There was this cute guy who is the crush of my friends and mine too, hahahaaa. It just so happened that I lost my concentration and hit him with the bike. I was really very embarrassed. Good thing that he did not suffer any injury.
 
I was off to my first big ride, going camping 100 miles away, on the 3rd mile punctured haha, needed to go back on foot...
 
Another mishap I figured in was in a talipapa - that is an informal market where vendors would line up by the side of the road. There would be fish, vegetables, meat and other food items for cooking. My mother asked me to buy tomatoes and garlic one afternoon. I was in high school and quite getting used to the bike so instead of taking the jeepney, I rented a bike and went on my way. The rented bike had a faulty break... you can guess that I hit the wares of the vendors. Good thing those vendors even helped me on my feet. No injury to me, no damage to the vendors.
 
Ouch, you got lucky even so, you could have hurt yourself or someone or even get into expenses. Did you sue the rent-a-bike? :)
 
This wasn't me but I was there.

When I first moved to the US I had about 4 days to get ready for work as I was a last minute replacement. My new boss was being really helpful helping me get an apartment, furniture, SSN, health insurance and so on. He even found someone to lend me an old 10 speed bike.

Now he is a much older gentlemen but as he is unloading the bike he decided it would be fun to ride a bike again because it has been decades since he last was on a bike. But guess what, back them most bikes had a 'backpeddle brake' where you brake by pushing the peddles around backwards.

So he bikes of down the driveway, rapdily excellerates, backpeddles and the chain falls off, he is shouting louder and louder, backpeddling wildly, and crashes straight into a tree at a fairly fast speed.

Fortunately he had a sense of humor about it and no serious damage was done to man or bike.
 
I was hit from behind by a car that I didn't see or hear coming. This was partly my fault because I was wearing earphones and had the music blasting loudly from my walkman. Fortunately I didn't break anything but I did suffer several scrapes and some nasty bruises. I was quite young at the time but I learned my lesson and have never worn earphones again when I cycle.
 
This is an easy one for me, and stupid reaction by my.

I was bombing down a hill back in high school days (damn, 37 or so year ago) and took a right. There were kids playing football throwing it across the street in front of me. For whatever reason, just as I took the turn I saw the kid with the ball **** his arm to throw, and I jammed on the brakes to stop. Problem was, it was all the front brake. I went over the handle bars as the bike flipped up over me. Got really bad road rash on the arms and legs, and bent the frame on the bike.
 
Mine isn't that bad, luckily. I was living on the east side of my town which had fairly crappy roads with drivers who didn't like sharing the road. Once when I was riding, this car zipped by giving me no room so I had to swerve towards the shoulder. I hit a pothole in the shoulder and ended up crashing into a ditch. I was kinda tossed over the handlebars. Some younger kids were watching and they promptly laughed.
 
I remember biking when I was younger and my shoes were untied. The shoe laces began tiring up on the bicycle gear and I had no choice but to stop fall to the ground with my bike. My legs were tied to the gears so once I stopped, I had no balance to keep myself up and I would just tip to the ground, which was what happened lol.
 
My best friend in high school had a nice bike, a new BMX which was so popular at that time. You can guess that she was also popular with the boys because of that new bike. But in fairness to her, she would sometimes lend it to me for a spin. One time my friend was riding her new bike when she heard a bang. She thought she had a flat tire. But why a bang? It was a car that had a flat. And the bang caused her to fall into the canal by the side of the road. It was not an incident but an accident because she had a fracture in her leg.
 
Ouch, so she got scared and fell down? Those things do happen, but breaking her leg was just bad luck...
 
1.) Totally my fault. Tried to take a left onto a side street. Was behind a fire truck so I had no view of the lane and I just went for it. Head on collision with a 1984 Buick Skylark driven by a middle-aged Asian couple. Will never forget the look of the Asian woman's face as I smashed into the front windshield. I was knocked unconscious but according to the witnesses including a couple of the firemen, I ricocheted about 15 feet in the air and landed on the front lawn of a funeral home. Amazingly enough, I was unhurt besides some scrapes and bruises. In those days you did not go to the hospital for a mild concussion. My bike however was folded in half and stuck under the car. They had to call in a tow truck to lift the front of the car up enough to retrieve the mangled wreck. I got driven home in a cop car and the bike easily fit in the trunk.

2.) Car pulled out of a driveway as I was going down a hill and I smashed into the trunk of the car and was catapulted a good distance before hitting the curb and skidded down the road a good deal. Driver paid for a new kit and for my front wheel to be trued. Mom (thankfully and somewhat unthankfully a nurse) had to come get me and then spent the next 2 hours cleaning the road rash with iodine. Lots of gauze bandages and anti-bacterial ointment.

3.) No clue what happened but it happened on a bike - came home from a ride and was covered in pollen and had some minor scrapes. According to mom, had no idea that I had been on a ride, did not know the day or date, did not know my mom's name or anyone else in the family... Severe concussion. Spent 3 weeks in the hospital with almost total amnesia. Started to get the memory back but it took months and to this day I don't remember any of it. Was plagued with non-convulsive seizures for about the next two years.

4.) Broadsided by a mail truck at low speed. NEARLY smashed by a car in the next lane. I was unhurt and only very minor scrapes but it almost was much much worse.

5.) Training ride at night - some college kids outside a bar hoot an holler at me so I mooned them. A mile down the road they caught up to me in a pick up truck, two individuals in the bed smashed beer bottles against the roll bar and chucked them at me. Got hit once in the shoulder. Tried to evade but they caught me again, forced me off the road where I flipped over a wire barricade and then they beat the pulp out of me. OK, so I kinda deserved something but that was excessive.

6.) Broadsided by a car during a race (semi-closed course, cop at intersection totally at fault). Broken arm, broken leg, broken bike, broken ribs, knocked out.

7.) Forced off the road by an Audi who didn't like me passing the line of traffic he was in. Went down hard into the brush off the side of the road. Got a license plate photo, let the police take care of it.

8.) Cut off by a Nissan Xterra who tried to speed in front of me and then turn right. Went splat into the passenger side rear quarter panel. Somehow managed to stay upright. Other than me being exceptionally ******-off, the bike and I were fine.
 
Have you seen a biker fall into a ravine? One late night I was in my car, driving on the main road. There was not much traffic so my driving was quite leisurely. That's when I noticed a cyclist in the distance, ahead of me by about 20 meters or so. As it made a turn to the right, that street was neatly paved. But then something strange happened. The cyclist was gone. As I passed that street to the right, there was no cyclist in sight. I had to pull over to investigate. Yes, there was a street digging and the cyclist fell in there. Not much harm though.
 
I can't even imagine the scare, he was lucky not to get harmed. How deep was the ravine?
 

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