An adventure
Had myself a bit of anadventure Saturday morning on the way to work, so am now going to bore you lot- my friends- with the details of it all.
Saturday morning dawned as beautiful as one could ever imagine one ever could in Central California: that's right, at 10am, it was already about 85 degrees once you left the air conditioned splendour of the house. Got on the bike, and after a quick stop at Arco (gas there is $3.79 a gallon....for the moment at least...) to fill the 2.5 gallon tank on my Harley Sportster 1200, went along my merry way to work.
I'm not one of those who obsesses about what I am to do once I get to work-what happens before I get there is nearly always a secret (I ask my Part Timers "why", "how" or whatever about anything, and it's always a mystery, I guess, judging from the responses I get) so I don't stress about it. Neither do I stress abot the things I know and control, because those things are always there. You get the idea. That AND i'm always keeping my eyes out for the supreme idiocy of people in cars; their utter disdain for those on the road with two wheeled vehicles knows no bounds, and I am very VERY aware of it.
So i've just merged from 120 to 5 south, and am about to merge onto 205 west from there when annoying (though not unusual-anyone on a bike will tell you this...)thing happens. We were all just chillin' along at about 55-60 mph, when the two vehicles in front of me came to a dead stop for no real reason. The only thing I can think of is that there was an idiot who wanted to get into THIS LANE, RIGHT NOW so they too could have the joy of travelling 205 West toward the Altimont Pass. Does not matter really, as my attention was immediately called to the two cars dead in front of my still accelerating HD 1200 Sportster. I SCREAMED to an emergency stop, ending abot 3-4 feet behind the second vehicle.
THAT was when I noticed the screeching of many tyres behind me.
I had several thoughts at the time, and I think the first was "Fuck you, I don't want to die on 5 south on my way to work", followed closely by (perhaps-and more accurately- simultaneously with...) "better look in the rear-view mirror to get a look at what's going to kill me". What I saw was the following: a minivan driven by a semi-elderly Asian woman (turned out she was Laotian), and an unidentified silver car behind the minivan. The minivan eventually came to a stop, and the silver car ALSO eventually came to a stop...after plowing right into the back of the minivan, and driving it further forward. also saw the car and minivan do a strange sort of an upward piourette as they collided.This happened milliseconds after I stopped-which I did so hard, my body jerked forward somewhat violently-so i'd originally thought i'd been at least tapped, if not outright hit. Saw bits and pieces of both cars flying from behind me, the strangest of which was a car battery which landed about 3' to my left, with other bits of vehicular shrapnel following. I was wondering, when I saw the battery "Oh, so being involved is not enough,they have to fire things at me as well?". THIS was when I turned back to see where the minivan was, exactly, as it was so close I couldn't even see the bumper.
There was about 6" between the minivans' bumber and the back tyre of my bike. "oh dear" was what I thought, along with "God has his finger on my heart today".
By this time, after the screaming tyres had stopped, the two cars in front of me took off. Nice fucking people, huh? I got my bike off to the side of the road, ran back to check the occupants of the other vehicles, and got on my phone to call 911. Everyone appeared fine, bt there were some elderly people in the minivan, and a child of about 2 years in the car-I was worried about that.
Just as I was making my call, an OPD (Oakland Police Department) officer rolled up on his bike. I have no clue what theis fella was doing in the Central Valley, but hey, he was a Cop, and about 5 cars behind the accident. He called CHP (California Highway Patrol) as I was talking to emergency services, gave him my info, ect. CHP and some ambulance service came up minutes after, and i again exchanged info.
*feeling very proud* I was told by the CHP Officer, after relating what had happend, speed, ect, that I was "the most reliable witness he'd seen in a VERY long time", and that someone would very soon be in contact with me. I wish you could have seen his face when (he'd asked where my bike ended up immediately after the accident) I'd told him how far away from the back of my bike the minivan was. I'd told him about how I thought i'd been hit, ect, and we examined the bike just to make sure-one scratch from a bit of shrapnel, that's all.
So I made I final check of all the people involved, asked permission to leave (always the polite thing to do when the Police are involved with anything), made mention to the woman holding the 2 year old (a sweet boy who wanted nothing more to do with what was happening than he already had done..) that "he needs some ice cream-make sure he gets it", she agreed, and I was off to work.
*smile* I was only 15 minutes late, as it turns out.
So, that was my adventure. Hope you all were as entertained by reading as I was by participation!
-RiotGrrrl xoxo
Saturday morning dawned as beautiful as one could ever imagine one ever could in Central California: that's right, at 10am, it was already about 85 degrees once you left the air conditioned splendour of the house. Got on the bike, and after a quick stop at Arco (gas there is $3.79 a gallon....for the moment at least...) to fill the 2.5 gallon tank on my Harley Sportster 1200, went along my merry way to work.
I'm not one of those who obsesses about what I am to do once I get to work-what happens before I get there is nearly always a secret (I ask my Part Timers "why", "how" or whatever about anything, and it's always a mystery, I guess, judging from the responses I get) so I don't stress about it. Neither do I stress abot the things I know and control, because those things are always there. You get the idea. That AND i'm always keeping my eyes out for the supreme idiocy of people in cars; their utter disdain for those on the road with two wheeled vehicles knows no bounds, and I am very VERY aware of it.
So i've just merged from 120 to 5 south, and am about to merge onto 205 west from there when annoying (though not unusual-anyone on a bike will tell you this...)thing happens. We were all just chillin' along at about 55-60 mph, when the two vehicles in front of me came to a dead stop for no real reason. The only thing I can think of is that there was an idiot who wanted to get into THIS LANE, RIGHT NOW so they too could have the joy of travelling 205 West toward the Altimont Pass. Does not matter really, as my attention was immediately called to the two cars dead in front of my still accelerating HD 1200 Sportster. I SCREAMED to an emergency stop, ending abot 3-4 feet behind the second vehicle.
THAT was when I noticed the screeching of many tyres behind me.
I had several thoughts at the time, and I think the first was "Fuck you, I don't want to die on 5 south on my way to work", followed closely by (perhaps-and more accurately- simultaneously with...) "better look in the rear-view mirror to get a look at what's going to kill me". What I saw was the following: a minivan driven by a semi-elderly Asian woman (turned out she was Laotian), and an unidentified silver car behind the minivan. The minivan eventually came to a stop, and the silver car ALSO eventually came to a stop...after plowing right into the back of the minivan, and driving it further forward. also saw the car and minivan do a strange sort of an upward piourette as they collided.This happened milliseconds after I stopped-which I did so hard, my body jerked forward somewhat violently-so i'd originally thought i'd been at least tapped, if not outright hit. Saw bits and pieces of both cars flying from behind me, the strangest of which was a car battery which landed about 3' to my left, with other bits of vehicular shrapnel following. I was wondering, when I saw the battery "Oh, so being involved is not enough,they have to fire things at me as well?". THIS was when I turned back to see where the minivan was, exactly, as it was so close I couldn't even see the bumper.
There was about 6" between the minivans' bumber and the back tyre of my bike. "oh dear" was what I thought, along with "God has his finger on my heart today".
By this time, after the screaming tyres had stopped, the two cars in front of me took off. Nice fucking people, huh? I got my bike off to the side of the road, ran back to check the occupants of the other vehicles, and got on my phone to call 911. Everyone appeared fine, bt there were some elderly people in the minivan, and a child of about 2 years in the car-I was worried about that.
Just as I was making my call, an OPD (Oakland Police Department) officer rolled up on his bike. I have no clue what theis fella was doing in the Central Valley, but hey, he was a Cop, and about 5 cars behind the accident. He called CHP (California Highway Patrol) as I was talking to emergency services, gave him my info, ect. CHP and some ambulance service came up minutes after, and i again exchanged info.
*feeling very proud* I was told by the CHP Officer, after relating what had happend, speed, ect, that I was "the most reliable witness he'd seen in a VERY long time", and that someone would very soon be in contact with me. I wish you could have seen his face when (he'd asked where my bike ended up immediately after the accident) I'd told him how far away from the back of my bike the minivan was. I'd told him about how I thought i'd been hit, ect, and we examined the bike just to make sure-one scratch from a bit of shrapnel, that's all.
So I made I final check of all the people involved, asked permission to leave (always the polite thing to do when the Police are involved with anything), made mention to the woman holding the 2 year old (a sweet boy who wanted nothing more to do with what was happening than he already had done..) that "he needs some ice cream-make sure he gets it", she agreed, and I was off to work.
*smile* I was only 15 minutes late, as it turns out.
So, that was my adventure. Hope you all were as entertained by reading as I was by participation!
-RiotGrrrl xoxo