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Nov. 1st, 2012 08:55 pmI have been [1] days without knocking someone down in the road!
It was on Tooley Street, not the traffic lights outside London Bridge station, but the ones just after that, solidly on green - I'd noticed that there was nothing behind me, but hadn't connected this with the fact that pedestrians who unsee bicycles would crowd in after the car ahead of me. Some belling and some yelling and some paying attention sorted me nearly entirely out, but she was crossing diagonally, right to left, some 10 feet past the lights and turned away from me. I braked and swerved, but still caught her with my shoulder. I got off the stopped bike and turned, but she was getting up from the road; I asked if she was okay, she said yes, I think, or possibly nothing, then she hurried off. I moved the bike to the side of the road and waited a while to see if I was okay - people who'd seen it came up and commiserated me / criticised her, including one gentleman who explained that he'd broken his shoulder in "similar" circumstances. I walked on down the road after a while, as I was close to work, though I got back on the bike after a bit, purely because the guard at the sloping ramp down to the bike park is more likely to raise the barrier if you are on a bike rather than walking one. I feel a little bad for her to be honest: I had no after-effects, on wait though I remained for some, but finding yourself unexpectedly in the road is no laughing matter, whatever the state of your soul.
It was on Tooley Street, not the traffic lights outside London Bridge station, but the ones just after that, solidly on green - I'd noticed that there was nothing behind me, but hadn't connected this with the fact that pedestrians who unsee bicycles would crowd in after the car ahead of me. Some belling and some yelling and some paying attention sorted me nearly entirely out, but she was crossing diagonally, right to left, some 10 feet past the lights and turned away from me. I braked and swerved, but still caught her with my shoulder. I got off the stopped bike and turned, but she was getting up from the road; I asked if she was okay, she said yes, I think, or possibly nothing, then she hurried off. I moved the bike to the side of the road and waited a while to see if I was okay - people who'd seen it came up and commiserated me / criticised her, including one gentleman who explained that he'd broken his shoulder in "similar" circumstances. I walked on down the road after a while, as I was close to work, though I got back on the bike after a bit, purely because the guard at the sloping ramp down to the bike park is more likely to raise the barrier if you are on a bike rather than walking one. I feel a little bad for her to be honest: I had no after-effects, on wait though I remained for some, but finding yourself unexpectedly in the road is no laughing matter, whatever the state of your soul.
