hot damn!
So the city of Vancouver has some serious explaining to do when it comes to road safety on bike streets.
I decided to take an alternate route home from work today (up Cyprus to Ridgeway and east to my home) and I was going a pretty good clip up Cyprus when this car came up in the opposite direction. It was really dark and most of that bike route has very inadequate street lighting. Anyway I took my bike closer to the curb to get out of the car's path when I started riding through something. At first I thought it was a big puddle and I put on my breaks to slow myself down, but as I flew over my handlebars I realised that the something I had hit wasn't a puddle at all but a very long and rather large pile leaves brushed into the gutters by some rich folk's ladscaping service; I hadn't even seen it until I was flying headlong into it.
The woman who had been driving towards me was kind enough to stop and call an ambulance as I was seriously scared that I had broken or dislocated my knee from the fall. As she dialled another driver came past and lucky me, the other driver was pre-med. She sat with me and asked me various first aid questions as we waited for the ambulence to arrive.
By the time the paramedics showed up it was apparent to me that I had neither broken or dislocated anything, I was able to walk without pain so the ambulence guys drove off to more urgent cases and I got back on my bike and rode more cautiously through the monster houses and the dark poorly lit streets until I got to 37th and was back in the land of street lamps.
This event has me really steamed up. The City of Vancouver, such as it is, has a responsability to it's citizens and to their safety on the public roads. Many people who commute by bike do it because they can't afford to operate a car and still live with any level of reasonable comfort. Still more of them ride because they can't afford public transit or because they don't have homes. No one should have to buy things like good bike lights if they can't afford to and the City has an obligation to the safety of all commuters, including people who can't shell out the money for bike lighting.
Don't get me wrong here, I personally can afford to buy a light and I'm damn well going to have to because this city isn't going to fix the problem unless someone runs over the premier while he's biking at night. This problem is bigger than me, indeed it should concern us all. road safety is important, God forbid someone else does a header into a pile of leaves on an unlit city street only to discover a broken bottle or a couple of used needles hidden amongst the leaves.
Many bike stores give out reflectors for free. If this city were honestly concerned with the wellbeing of more than it's wealthiest and the most docile, then street lighting would be such that front, rear, and wheel reflectors would be all one would need to ensure proper safety on public bike routes.
man that buggs me, but thank God I can still walk.
I decided to take an alternate route home from work today (up Cyprus to Ridgeway and east to my home) and I was going a pretty good clip up Cyprus when this car came up in the opposite direction. It was really dark and most of that bike route has very inadequate street lighting. Anyway I took my bike closer to the curb to get out of the car's path when I started riding through something. At first I thought it was a big puddle and I put on my breaks to slow myself down, but as I flew over my handlebars I realised that the something I had hit wasn't a puddle at all but a very long and rather large pile leaves brushed into the gutters by some rich folk's ladscaping service; I hadn't even seen it until I was flying headlong into it.
The woman who had been driving towards me was kind enough to stop and call an ambulance as I was seriously scared that I had broken or dislocated my knee from the fall. As she dialled another driver came past and lucky me, the other driver was pre-med. She sat with me and asked me various first aid questions as we waited for the ambulence to arrive.
By the time the paramedics showed up it was apparent to me that I had neither broken or dislocated anything, I was able to walk without pain so the ambulence guys drove off to more urgent cases and I got back on my bike and rode more cautiously through the monster houses and the dark poorly lit streets until I got to 37th and was back in the land of street lamps.
This event has me really steamed up. The City of Vancouver, such as it is, has a responsability to it's citizens and to their safety on the public roads. Many people who commute by bike do it because they can't afford to operate a car and still live with any level of reasonable comfort. Still more of them ride because they can't afford public transit or because they don't have homes. No one should have to buy things like good bike lights if they can't afford to and the City has an obligation to the safety of all commuters, including people who can't shell out the money for bike lighting.
Don't get me wrong here, I personally can afford to buy a light and I'm damn well going to have to because this city isn't going to fix the problem unless someone runs over the premier while he's biking at night. This problem is bigger than me, indeed it should concern us all. road safety is important, God forbid someone else does a header into a pile of leaves on an unlit city street only to discover a broken bottle or a couple of used needles hidden amongst the leaves.
Many bike stores give out reflectors for free. If this city were honestly concerned with the wellbeing of more than it's wealthiest and the most docile, then street lighting would be such that front, rear, and wheel reflectors would be all one would need to ensure proper safety on public bike routes.
man that buggs me, but thank God I can still walk.
posted by Chris Rooney | 1:04 AM
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