I just caused an accident... I think.
I was out for my afternoon bike ride, moving at a fairly quick clip, loose and enjoying myself in the mild afternoon sun. I had finished my exercise and had nearly reached home when I came up behind three undergraduate girls with long blond hair, wearing sun dresses and giant round-lensed sunglasses, carrying enormous "bags" (purses, not school bags), and riding side-by-side. One of them was talking on her cell phone, and the other two were keeping pace with her. They were all three creeping along on their big ole cruisers, blocking the entire bike path.
I followed behind them a short distance until they reached a section of the path with clearly marked lanes. I thought perhaps they would fall into line and stay in the right lane, as they are supposed to do. But the girls continued to pedal along at their extremely slow pace, staring around like they hadn't a brain among the three of them. So, I rang my little bike bell and said, "Excuse me. On your left," as I pulled up to pass them. The girl farthest to the left jerked her head around with surprise clearly marking every feature of her face and drove right into the side of the girl next to her. Their bikes became entangled, and they both went down in a jumble of fenders and chains.
All three girls immediately began swearing, not at me exactly, but at the universe, as if it had somehow betrayed them, and then they started looking over their bodies and clothes for damage. One girl had a pretty bad scrape on her knee, but she seemed more concerned about her dress than about her injury or the fact that she was sitting in the middle of the bike path with her knees drawn up and her legs spread, underwear clearly visible.
I stopped, got off my bike, and helped her to stand up. Then I righted their bikes and, with the help of another guy who stopped as well, straightened crooked handlebars and bent fenders. Meanwhile, the girls continued to swear and tug at their clothing. They didn't acknowledge any fault or assistance on my part or the other guy's, nor did they seem aware of what to do.
After a few awkward moments of standing there, unsure what to say or how to act, I got back on my bike and rode home. At this moment, I'm not exactly sure who was more at fault or who is more to be pitied.
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1 comment:
I wouldn't dwell too long on it. You did what you were supposed to do: slowed down, waited for an opportunity, called out your intentions, and then even helped when the clueless girls fell over. That's above and beyond as far as I'm concerned.
I use a lot of bike/walking paths myself, and you've followed all the rules plus. Although I'm running, which means I rarely scare people, I have startled some (though not enough to knock anyone off their feet! pretty hard to do when the only people I pass are walkers...)
But if you're on a path, you gotta know people will want to pass at some point and you've gotta remain aware. It's just plain common sense in that kind of public venue that you can't get too lost in your own little world because other people are around you.
Your girls sound a bit like the dog walkers I frequently encounter whose dogs are on a 50 yard leash of some other insanely long tether who don't reign their dog in as I try to pass. I spend a lot of mental energy trying to figure out how I should get around them and trying to calculate if the dog will nip or want to chase, which adds challenge to the passing maneouver. The only bonus is that the dog usually hears me before the human and at least I know its intentions right away!
You shouldn't worry about what happened. You may have taught those girls a valuable lesson about awareness in public spaces!
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