(Non-)collision
So I'm cycling up to the library on Wood Green High Street (didn't end up going in as I realised on arrival that I'd stupidly forgot the keys to my bike lock).
I'm approaching a crosswalk, and I can see that the lights are about to change, so I'm slowing down. There's also a guy on the pavement, walking beside where I'm cycling, talking on his mobile. Got half an eye on him.
He steps off the kerb un/expectedly, looking the other direction and still talking on his mobile, about two feet short of the crosswalk, that is, halfway inside the "bike space" where bikes stop ahead of cars and before crosswalks. I stop, so as not to hit him. This is very easy to do, as I am going very slowly by this time.
He turns around, gives me the stink eye, and says, "You nearly killed me!"
This sentence was wrong from start to finish for three reasons:
1) I was going very slowly, watching him, and so stopped very easily ("nearly" = wrong).
2) I was going very slowly, so if I had hit him, he would have suffered at most a bruised shin ("killed" = wrong).
3) He stepped off the kerb into the middle of the road without looking, so had there been a collision, he would have been the cause ("You [did this to] me" = wrong).
Of course, l'esprit de l'escalier, all I could manage was:
"splutter... splutter... well, the crosswalk's THERE!"
and then, five seconds later
"and I did NOT nearly kill you, I'm on a BICYCLE for godsake!"
(which earned me another stink eye).
PEOPLE!
I'm approaching a crosswalk, and I can see that the lights are about to change, so I'm slowing down. There's also a guy on the pavement, walking beside where I'm cycling, talking on his mobile. Got half an eye on him.
He steps off the kerb un/expectedly, looking the other direction and still talking on his mobile, about two feet short of the crosswalk, that is, halfway inside the "bike space" where bikes stop ahead of cars and before crosswalks. I stop, so as not to hit him. This is very easy to do, as I am going very slowly by this time.
He turns around, gives me the stink eye, and says, "You nearly killed me!"
This sentence was wrong from start to finish for three reasons:
1) I was going very slowly, watching him, and so stopped very easily ("nearly" = wrong).
2) I was going very slowly, so if I had hit him, he would have suffered at most a bruised shin ("killed" = wrong).
3) He stepped off the kerb into the middle of the road without looking, so had there been a collision, he would have been the cause ("You [did this to] me" = wrong).
Of course, l'esprit de l'escalier, all I could manage was:
"splutter... splutter... well, the crosswalk's THERE!"
and then, five seconds later
"and I did NOT nearly kill you, I'm on a BICYCLE for godsake!"
(which earned me another stink eye).
PEOPLE!