The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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I almost hit a cyclist yesterday while driving. It was very close, and it would have been a t-bone strike while I was accelerating through an intersection.
It was dusk, we were in a crowded residential area, and I was trying to cross a busy road where cross-traffic never stops. I was waiting on a slow-moving car to drive past to the right while there was still some clear space in the traffic going the other way.
I don’t have an excuse. I was anxious about avoiding cars, was only watching headlights, and didn’t see the biker at all. I would have hit him except my wife said something when it became clear I was going to hit him. I braked for my wife’s imaginary biker, and that’s when I saw the back tire clear past my bumper by less than a foot.
He was mad naturally. He yelled out of fear, then yelled of anger and cussed. I felt very very bad and sorry, but I continued on. He didn’t stop cycling either, but he was mad enough I wanted to get the hell away from him anyway.
So I was a little shaken up about it. If I were driving alone I would have scooped him up onto the hood and destroyed his bike.
shows how the health benefits of cycling are to some degree offset by accidents
It's just not worth it, and I can't understand why some insist on taking the risks anyway.
If it's any consolation a good cyclist would have clocked you a mile away as 'that guy that will hit me' and altered his path accordingly -- it's not even that hard, and makes you a much better driver to boot!
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When I (very briefly) dabbled in triathlons in college, I heard about a student a few years ahead of me who broke a leg getting hit by a car while on his road bike in town. A professor of mine sustained nerve damage in his arm and leg after some kind of accident on a road bike. A relative of mine needed surgery on his rotator cuff after falling off a road bike on a bike path. A guy in one of my classes lost his leg below the knee while riding a motorcycle when a driver didn't see him while pulling out of their driveway.
On the one hand, you can never be too careful on the road (seriously). I have a bad knee and hip from a car accident. But on the other, maybe it's not worth riding a bicycle, a road bike, or a motorcycle. Too many people get fucked up from an accident. Yeah, it's the driver's fault. Is that gonna fix your permanently broken body? No. So why risk it? The cyclist, the driver, and their families are all traumatized from something that could've been avoided.
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You break his legs and throw him in the traffic
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