Navydoc, glad to hear you’re okay. Also, thanks for giving the nod to Bell….not enough credit is given to the protection afforded by properly fitted helmets.
Some may think that your attitude about the homicidal tendencies of states is simply pychopathological sequelae of your accident. They would be wrong. Maryland IS trying to kill you. Much of Maryland is lovely to look at: rolling hills, bucolic pastures…all very deceptive. Once you venture into a roadway, your defensive driving skills had better be sharply honed and at the ready.
While I understand your antagonism toward the driver of the Prius that hit you, I have found that shitty, completely self-involved driving habits to be a tendency shared by a large number of drivers in a wide variety of motor vehicles in our fair state. I’ve never taken the driving test here, but I’m fairly sure that it must include a segment on how to text effectively while driving in heavy commuter traffic at 60 mph. That’s the module with which the Maryland DMV replaced the tutorial entitled, “Use Your Turn Signals: They’re Not An Add-On Option”. I can’t tell you how many times a texting driver has repeatedly drifted several feet into my lane, and then cursed me for interrupting him with my honking horn.
Like you, I must have a well-established death wish, since I choose to motorcycle here. It’s turned out to be very good training in defensive driving. As a motorcyclist, I have two advantages over bicyclists:
1. If a car driver makes a sudden, boneheaded move into my territory, I have the assistance of the motorcycle engine in evading him. Unless my sudden movements knock my fuel petcock into the shut position, whereupon all bets are off (been there, done that, didn’t like it).
2. If I am fortunate enough to be cut off in traffic by a driver believing it her civic duty to focus completely on the call she is making on her cellphone, I can get a perverse thrill by following her to the next stoplight, and pulling up beside her to lob loud, angry verbal abuse through her open window. If I was riding a bike or driving a car, this would likely elicit reciprocal abuse-lobbing. However, thanks to society’s irrational and total fear of black leather-clad motorcyclists, it’s a very satisfying experience for me.
Other than these two advantages, I’m pretty much in the same boat: a sitting duck for “drivers” who feel absolutely no responsibility for paying attention and for operating their vehicle in way that ensures the safety of others.
As for the Prius driver that hit you yesterday, I’m willing to bet that he was (1) fiddling with his GPS or audio system controls, (2) looking for change to park at the Metro, or (3) in all likelihood, texting, tweeting, or talking on a communication device. However, it’s also possible that he saw you, small and defenseless on your bicycle, and decided to deliberately hit you. A year ago I was on Route 2 in Anne Arundel County when the Prius I was driving was hit from behind by a 58 year-old woman in a GMC Yukon. Deliberately. She opined to the investigating officer that she felt morally and legally justified in doing so because I had passed her, using the passing lane (She, too, had tried to hit and run, but succeeded only in the hitting part).
Navydoc, I would definitely get out of this area as soon as you can. People don’t drive here…they use their vehicles as fashion accessories, not transportation. When that is your attitude, you are definitely not thinking about the danger you and your vehicle pose on the streeets. But it pretty much sums up a lot of what’s on the highways of the nation’s capital.
