A Jourey of 1,000 Miles

[Ginger]

damn


what are the details of the accident?

Soapstone and Glade 4 way stop. I pulled up at the same time as a white construction van headed westbound on glade from the east (on glade, east to west). I was headed north on Soapstone (south to north). We were all going straight. I made eye contact with the driver of the van and we both waited to see if the other knew what was going on. I let him go first since he was to my right and we had arrived at the intersection at the same time. When he cleared the intersection I entered. I noticed sometihng moving out of the corner of my right eye, looked, and grabbed thes brakes. The driver that was behind the construction van ignored the stopsign, didn't look, or something, and proceeded into the intersetion. When I hit the brakes it was just in enough time to relocate the impact from the broad-side of the bike to the front wheel.

I looked up from the ground in the direction that the SUV was traveling and noticed that the brake lights were not lit. My wittness, the driver of the white van, also noticed that she had not stopped yet. He stopped his van and the SUV that hit me was forced to stop. She had already cleared the intersection and was proceeding past the opposing stop sign.

On a bright note, the witness waited around something like 30-40 minutes for the police. He was a very, very nice guy. RJ picked up the bike for me while my girlfriend and my dad's girlfriend stopped by to check on me.

I really can't wait for tihs all to be over... even if it does cost me my deductible I'd gladly trade that for not having to talk to more people about the same dumb thing. Riding half way across the country was a cool, educational experience and I'm glad I got to do it. But I've been pretty down about things since the accident. I'm more nervous in traffic now than ever, my family is even more worried about me on a bike, and I'm down a bike I was really excited about (b/c it was on loan it means I'll have to wait to save for another bike or wait a while until I get a different loan). At the risk of being flame-fodder for MM, I've been asking myself if street riding is worth the risks.