hit by a car, today
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
If I'm ever going to be again struck by a minivan while cycling, then let it be today's type of low-speed impact.
I'm okay, but I was .. rather peeved at the time. And by rather peeved I mean as soon as I'd sorted myself out, I hurtled up the road after the driver and stopped in the intersection of Queen and Church to scream abuse after the speeding vehicle. A hundred meters to the east, the driver had attempted to wedge her fat-body minivan (while on the phone, amazingly) between me and a sopped streetcar. She hadn't come close to fitting, and had glided straight into me, bodily pushing me at the curb and then causing me to fall back against the vehicle. Completely oblivious, she'd just rolled on.
Naturally, it'd taken me a moment to get myself sorted (I have no idea how my bag managed to stay on the bike, given that the van must have plowed right into it) so I didn't get a license plate number from the vehicle as she accelerated past the streetcar (illegally). I nearly closed the distance, but the driver must have heard my shouts, because she turned right to get away and was again too far away for me to see the plates before I got there.
It's my first-ever collision on the streets of Toronto. All I came away with was a bruised feeling in my back and a good deal of rage. I can only imagine I must have seemed pretty incoherent shouting on the street through lips half-numb from cycling in sub-zero temperatures.
Ah well, the day can only get better from a start like that.