Left, then right, then left again.
I get around campus on my bike. We live in a house that's a few blocks away from campus proper, and the bike is the difference between a five minute bike ride to the science building and a fifteen to twenty minute walk depending on pedestrian traffic. I've been riding my bike on campus for the past five years without a single problem. Sure there have been close calls, but I've always managed to keep a good lookout for idiots and avoid them.
Until today.
I was riding my bike down one of the main cross streets. It features the gym, architecture building, business building, and a few dorms. I'm riding my bike at a good clip down the street when I see her in front of me. A girl who is staring straight ahead listening to her MP3 player and completely oblivious to the world around her. She took a brief look to see if there were cars around and didn't cross the street.
Unfortunately, she didn't look again as I was coming. I thought that she was going to stay put, she had other plans. She took a step out into the street, right in front of my oncoming bicycle and far too close for me to have any hope of stopping in time. I yell for her to get the hell out of the way. She turned and looked at me with a mixture of stupidity and lassitude and just stood there staring at her two-wheeled doom bearing down on her at 15-20 miles per hour.
Seeing that she was too stupid to correct her mistake of stepping out into the fucking street without looking first I realized it was up to me to save us, but there just wasn't enough time. I swerved to avoid her, praying there weren't any cars coming up behind me that could clip me and make a bad situation much worse. We were too close though. I slammed into her side, and the force of the impact threw me off balance. Knowing that a good slide is infinitely preferable to being thrown over the handlebars I threw my weight into it as the force of the impact knocked me backwards. I think that the weeks that I spent learning how to fall in Judo club last year also helped a bit.
I hit the ground pretty hard, but I also hit and rolled with it to try and deaden the impact as my bike went skidding away in front of me. The fall knocked the wind out of me and knocked the chain off of my bike, but fortunately I was bundled up in a thick coat and gloves due to the weather so there were no scrapes or cuts. I quickly scrambled up, grabbed my bike, and got the hell out of the road before any cars could come along and really ruin my day.
"Are you okay?" Dumb bitch asks me as I'm standing there doubled over on the sidewalk holding onto my bike for support feeling lightheaded with stars in front of my eyes as I sit there croaking as my brain attempts to tell my body that it's okay to breathe again. I held up a finger to indicate that I couldn't talk. I'd thought that much was obvious from the fall that I'd just taken trying to avoid hitting the dumbass.
"I'm sorry! I'm late for class!" I hear dumb bitch say. When I look up a moment later to really give her a piece of my mind and demand her contact information should anything turn out to be more broken than it seemed to be at the moment she was gone. Gone. This fucktard just caused me to be thrown off my bike in the middle of the road, saw me standing there gasping for breath unable to tell her if I was okay or not, and she just walked away. I never really got a good look at her and couldn't tell if she was anywhere in the crowd walking along the sidewalk.
My only consolation is that she did get hit by the business end of my bike, and the back tire probably clipped her when I went into the slide. I really hope that she's in some sort of pain right now, because it's the least the stupid twat deserves for her stupidity and complete lack of consideration.
Until today.
I was riding my bike down one of the main cross streets. It features the gym, architecture building, business building, and a few dorms. I'm riding my bike at a good clip down the street when I see her in front of me. A girl who is staring straight ahead listening to her MP3 player and completely oblivious to the world around her. She took a brief look to see if there were cars around and didn't cross the street.
Unfortunately, she didn't look again as I was coming. I thought that she was going to stay put, she had other plans. She took a step out into the street, right in front of my oncoming bicycle and far too close for me to have any hope of stopping in time. I yell for her to get the hell out of the way. She turned and looked at me with a mixture of stupidity and lassitude and just stood there staring at her two-wheeled doom bearing down on her at 15-20 miles per hour.
Seeing that she was too stupid to correct her mistake of stepping out into the fucking street without looking first I realized it was up to me to save us, but there just wasn't enough time. I swerved to avoid her, praying there weren't any cars coming up behind me that could clip me and make a bad situation much worse. We were too close though. I slammed into her side, and the force of the impact threw me off balance. Knowing that a good slide is infinitely preferable to being thrown over the handlebars I threw my weight into it as the force of the impact knocked me backwards. I think that the weeks that I spent learning how to fall in Judo club last year also helped a bit.
I hit the ground pretty hard, but I also hit and rolled with it to try and deaden the impact as my bike went skidding away in front of me. The fall knocked the wind out of me and knocked the chain off of my bike, but fortunately I was bundled up in a thick coat and gloves due to the weather so there were no scrapes or cuts. I quickly scrambled up, grabbed my bike, and got the hell out of the road before any cars could come along and really ruin my day.
"Are you okay?" Dumb bitch asks me as I'm standing there doubled over on the sidewalk holding onto my bike for support feeling lightheaded with stars in front of my eyes as I sit there croaking as my brain attempts to tell my body that it's okay to breathe again. I held up a finger to indicate that I couldn't talk. I'd thought that much was obvious from the fall that I'd just taken trying to avoid hitting the dumbass.
"I'm sorry! I'm late for class!" I hear dumb bitch say. When I look up a moment later to really give her a piece of my mind and demand her contact information should anything turn out to be more broken than it seemed to be at the moment she was gone. Gone. This fucktard just caused me to be thrown off my bike in the middle of the road, saw me standing there gasping for breath unable to tell her if I was okay or not, and she just walked away. I never really got a good look at her and couldn't tell if she was anywhere in the crowd walking along the sidewalk.
My only consolation is that she did get hit by the business end of my bike, and the back tire probably clipped her when I went into the slide. I really hope that she's in some sort of pain right now, because it's the least the stupid twat deserves for her stupidity and complete lack of consideration.