Proving once again that it is not only when in my car that I find my SPOTD, I found one when on foot toward the end of the day, but in a rare situation of cosmic justice, at least I managed to injure them for their efforts.

I had finished demonstrating for a 2nd year Ag student field trip (”look kids, this is how pasture grows! whee!”) and was headed home for the day from Uni. Since I’d been gone off-campus for the whole day, I’d walked from my house to the Ag building so my car would not get lots of parking tickets in my absence. At 6:30pm, I began to walk home, by which time it was quite dark, and my SPOTD decided to introduce themselves to me.

I walked to Royal Parade (the road beside my workplace) and went to cross. I was not crossing at the lights, because the Ag building is roughly equidistant from a set in either direction, and besides, it is fairly easy to play “Frogger” and get across the road without being knocked over by traffic.

For those that are unfamiliar with the road, there is a service lane closest to the building, which is one-way only. In this service road, there is a bicycle lane, established so that the many students cycling to Uni were in less danger of being hit by cars. In reality, there are a lot of cars that think the bike lane is just another car lane, and so cyclists nearly get hit anyway, but at least now they can thump the side of a car in anger if it occupies the designated bike lane. There is a fine if they are caught, but most cyclists prefer to just kick the side of the car or snap off the car aerial - it is a much more effective and instant fining process since the police can’t really enforce the fines easily.

Anyway, before stepping out from between parked cars, I looked to my right toward the flow of traffic to make sure there were no bikes bearing down on me. There were none for quite some distance, so I stepped into the bike lane, and prepared to cross in a gap between cars when it became possible. I began to walk up the lane a little, just a few feet, in that futile little walk people do when they want to cross not at the lights, and think that somehow positioning themselves a few feet up the road will make all the difference in the world when a gap in traffic comes.

As a gap approached, I stood still, ready to zip across the lane to the traffic island on the other side when I heard from my left “LOOK OUT!”. I didn’t know what the heck was coming at me from my left, but I had nowhere to go - there were cars in front of me moving past from right to left, and a van was behind me since I’d walked up a few feet and the gap between parked cars was no longer there for me to scoot back into. As I turned to see what was about to hit me, I braced for the impact and was struck by - a cyclist.

Now, think about this for a second. I was hit by a cyclist :

• Wearing dark clothes. 
• Riding the wrong way up the bike lane.
• In the dark.
• With no headlight.
• Into oncoming traffic that has a tendency to drive in the bike lane…

Fortunately for me, I’d adopted a good bracing position (not that it would have done me any good if it had been a car or something heavier), and so I remained standing while the cyclist slammed into the road, sprawling across the lane full of oncoming traffic.

Fortunately for them, the gap I had been waiting for was caused by a person further up the road using the pedestrian crossing lights to halt the traffic, but when the cyclist looked up from the road, all they would have seen were headlights. Probably unable to tell if they were moving toward her or not, the desperately frantic attempt to get untangled from her bike and off the road surface was actually rather funny to watch.

As she lay there struggling on the roadway, I just looked down at her, informed her she was a fool (might have been stronger language than that used because I was still in shock from being hit…) and began to walk to the other side of the lane, since the gap was there. She got up and dragged herself to the footpath and said, in an attempt to justify her actions “Well, I did say ‘look out’…”.

I responded that I didn’t care what she’d said - I’d not moved my feet at all, she should have been able to dodge me, and she might want to consider perhaps not riding up the wrong side of a road.

At that point, I saw a gap in the next part of the road on the other side of the traffic island, so just left her sitting down collecting herself and her possessions on the footpath. I did not see the point in stopping to help - that would have indicated I’d cared how she was, and frankly, I felt I’d done my bit by letting her hit me instead of getting herself killed by being struck by an oncoming car using the bike lane.

No matter where, no matter when - I’ll always find a SPOTD, it seems…

Categories: SPOTD