Today A Car Hit Me–Intentionally

Today I was biking in later than usual due to a dentist’s appointment.

My normal route takes me along the Reflecting Pool, past the World War II Memorial, where I take the path down to the lock house where I cross 17th and Constitution. To me, this intersection is notorious. For whatever reason cars making the turn have divested themselves of the usual DC driver’s attitude towards crosswalks, that they are optional and a proving ground for asymmetrical power relationships. Instead, many of the cars making that turn have a “no way in hell am I stopping attitude”.

This intersection.

So, for that reason I’m normally very cautious. I slow, even stop at the lip of the curb and clearly indicate my intention to cross and, if need be, let a seemingly impatient or inattentive driver do what he’s going to do.

Today I slowed, then stopped at the crosswalk. I let one car preparing to turn go and then, at about 10:10 am, entered the crosswalk.

I was perhaps one and a half bike lengths into it when a car which has been stopped behind the car I let go first suddenly gunned it, nearly turning into my back wheel and laid on his horn.

What. The. Hell.

I immediately unclipped and swung the bike around, effectively blocking the vehicle.

I pulled the muffler from around my lower face and the conversation ran like this:

“What? It’s a CROSSWALK”

Behind the glass the driver, a late middle-aged white guy wearing a fleece cap, angrily mouthed at me, gesturing that he wanted to turn, which apparently trumped everything.

“I was in the cross walk BEFORE you”

The driver continued to shout and gestured dismissively. Apparently he had important things to do, or, at least, far more important than me going through a crosswalk in a safe manner.

I yelled at him: “Well, maybe if you weren’t such an ASSHOLE we wouldn’t be wasting time like this!”

Now, I have to give props to this aging sedan driver. He played it perfectly. He held up his hands apologetically. Although I doubted his sincerity, I thought I made my point.

No sooner had I swung my bike back around, almost clipped into the left pedal so I could throw my leg over, he gunned it, catching my back wheel and causing the bike to slice under me, knocking me off my feet. The engine roared, I felt the contact and the next thing I knew, I was watching his front driver’s side wheel passing six inches from my head.

Totally suckered. I swear: He literally waited until my back was turned.

Then he took off. I scrambled to right the bike and chase after him, but as luck would have it, the light further down 17th street was green and he got clean away. I’m not sure if the light was red if he would have stopped.

Don’t believe it? Yeah, well, even as I write this, I still don’t believe how quickly and easily some Washington DC driver graduated from being an inconsiderate prick to a hit-and-run felon.

On reflection, there are a few things I will do, anticipating the next incident, and you can be sure there will be one:

1. I was too fixated on t he driver to really remember the make and model of the car, let alone the license plate. All I know is it was a late-model sedan, in that weird metallic mauve color. In the future, I will take special pains to note the license number.

2. For that purpose, I have an Oregon Scientific helmet cam that I used to wear. It’s coming out of storage because I’m sure some people on the forum either think I did too much to provoke the driver, or didn’t do enough to provoke him into nearly running me down (and so therefore it didn’t happen). From my own experience and other’s, I wouldn’t waste my breath telling the cops about this without a flight data recording of the incident.

3. Back when I rode a motorcycle I carried 6 oz lead fishing weights in my tank bag. Time to start carrying them again. You can string them from the hole that runs through them, securing them to the handlebars with twine that will hold them in place, but is easily broken if tugged. You can figure out what they’re for.

Now, I can anticipate some of the responses of people on this forum, especially the one’s so concerned about “bad apple” bicyclists who think everything will be hugs and bunnies between motorists and us if we just manage to enforce a 100% good- biker-all-the-time policy.

First, I’m not a “bad apple” biker. Bad ass, maybe (insert wink here), but not bad apple. I stop at read lights. I make my intentions clear. I give right of way. I’m kind to pedestrians. At night I’m lit up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.

I also bike all-season, rain, sleek or snow and deserve common decency and respect because, most of the time, I give it.

Now responses:

Aside from all that, I don’t really have much of a larger lesson to extrapolate from this, except that due to politics or the economy or the gravitational forces of the moon, drivers might be more ugly than usual. Or maybe they’ve always been that way. Something in the dynamic is wrapped up in the American fixation with status and power and kicking anyone perceived as weaker or more vulnerable.

Most importantly, it’s worth keeping in mind that half the people you deal with in any situation are, by definition, below average intelligence.