I've been having an interesting dialogue on VeloWeb, after posting the story of the collision I was involved in, 3 years ago. The post has garnered more traffic and comments than any other on the blog, which proves I guess the journalist's dictum that "if it bleeds, it leads."
But the most interesting thing has been the responses to my question "Are you less likely to ride" after reading my account?
I'm back on the bike, albeit within a much circumscribed capacity and with a much greater appreciation for the results of car (or, in my case, truck)/bicycle interaction.
The cause of my misfortune was driver inattention ... what's become known as "distracted driving." There's little I could have done differently, but I am far more wary in intersections. As a fellow Cycle Chatter said in a comment on my blog yesterday (after seeing my update in the Cafe) "I'll still cycle, perhaps though I’ll cycle with a bit more care then I have up to now."
For me, as I'd hoped, this is the value of reading about accidents. What might otherwise be statistics, remind us of the dangers, so we might just avoid them. When I was a mountaineer, I'd never miss an issue of Accidents in North American Mountaineering. The interest was not merely morbid; analysis was a basis for avoiding similar mistakes.
In this way, misfortune was, in some small way, redeemed.
Too bad most drivers do not adopt a similar method of critical thinking.
