One the way home from a quick trip into town today, I had the bad luck of having the driver of a full sized pickup truck pull out of a side street right in front of me. For a split second it looked like I was bound to end up a hood ornament for the pickup!
It was mid-morning on a well-traveled route through Springfield Ohio. It was raining lightly and I and some other car and truck traffic were just getting up to speed after our traffic light had changed from red to green.
There were two things that saved my bacon…..
1. The truck that pulled in front of me stopped when tires started squealing.
2. The road has a center turn lane that was empty so I had somewhere to go to avoid hitting the truck.
If the road hadn’t been wet, I might have gotten stopped, but one of the vehicles behind me might not have! At any rate, when both of my wheels locked, it seemed like things went into slow motion, and I eased off the front brake and swerved into the center turn lane just missing the nose of the pick-up truck.
My biggest mistake that morning was that typically when I’m surrounded by cars and trucks, I don’t worry as much about someone pulling out in front of me. The logic being, that even if the drivers don’t see the bike, they normally seethe other vehicles. Not sure what the driver of the pick-up was thinking, but he pulled out in front of us all.
Stay alert, ride safe! – Dennis