Thursday, June 24, 2010

Thank You Joel.

I'm sending a big thank you to nearby angels for watching out for me today. I was on a bike ride tonight and had just crossed over the Martin Olav Sabo bridge and I was stopped waiting to cross 28th Street. It's a four lane roadway, with two lanes of traffic in each direction. I got caught in the situation that I have heard about a thousand times.

The two lanes of traffic closest to me were clear. The third lane away from me had a vehicle that stopped to allow me to cross. On my bike, I proceeded into the crosswalk and just as I got in front of the stopped vehicle I heard someone shouting for me to stop. I hit the brakes just in time. Thanks to Joel for watching out for me and alerting me to the oncoming traffic. The vehicle coming in the fourth lane of traffic did not stop and I stopped just in time to avoid a huge crash.

Once I was safely out of the roadway I introduced myself to Joel and thanked him. He told me that he had just witnessed a bike crash 10 minutes prior, with this same scenario at a different intersection. I'm lucky that he was behind me on the trail today. I like to think that I am a predictable and safe bicyclist. I follow the traffic laws, I use hand signals, I make eye contact with motorists, etc. Even if you do all those things there is always the possibility of a crash. Thanks to Joel I continued on my ride unharmed.

2 comments:

Sarah said...

Oh SOOOO SCARY! I am glad you are okay! Thank you to Joel from a friend! :)

julie.zamora said...

Thank you, Joel, for keeping our friend safe!