everyone is fine
Today something very, very bad didn't happen.
What I mean to say is that there was an almost that was so very terrible that I really don't want to think about it, except every once in a while the young boy's face pops into my head with that look of abject fear, as he barely dodges on his bike around the hood of my van, just in the nick of time. Everyone is fine. Nothing actually happened. Still, it scared the jeebus out of me. Nothing good can come of a collision between a 1.5 ton hunk of steel and a 90 lb child wearing no helmet, even if the van isn't going more than 5 mph, and the child is pacing no more than 10 mph.
*Please*. Don't let your kids ride their bikes on the sidewalk in the city. Think about the sightlines, if a building is up to and abutting the sidewalk. A driver in an automobile can see a kid on a bike in the street who is 20 ft away still, but if the child is riding down the sidewalk, the kid has to be about to slam into the hood of a van just as it noses carefully out of a driveway, before either can see the other.
And if you know of a kid who wants to ride and cannot afford a helmet, please talk to me privately. I'll do what I can.
What I mean to say is that there was an almost that was so very terrible that I really don't want to think about it, except every once in a while the young boy's face pops into my head with that look of abject fear, as he barely dodges on his bike around the hood of my van, just in the nick of time. Everyone is fine. Nothing actually happened. Still, it scared the jeebus out of me. Nothing good can come of a collision between a 1.5 ton hunk of steel and a 90 lb child wearing no helmet, even if the van isn't going more than 5 mph, and the child is pacing no more than 10 mph.
*Please*. Don't let your kids ride their bikes on the sidewalk in the city. Think about the sightlines, if a building is up to and abutting the sidewalk. A driver in an automobile can see a kid on a bike in the street who is 20 ft away still, but if the child is riding down the sidewalk, the kid has to be about to slam into the hood of a van just as it noses carefully out of a driveway, before either can see the other.
And if you know of a kid who wants to ride and cannot afford a helmet, please talk to me privately. I'll do what I can.