Near misses from unexpected places

Well, I drove the wagon this morning because I was running late and my back is a bit stiff.

There's a fellow in our neighborhood, a member of the gray-haired set, who rides his bicycle for exercise every morning. He's actually pretty fast, and I'm glad he's out there getting a workout. Yesterday, as I was rounding the corner down the block from my house (a right turn for me), he came zooming toward me around the (left for him) turn, cutting the corner short. There was just barely room for me to squeeze between him and the curb.

Cyclists are people in/on vehicles, just like motorcycles or cars. We're supposed to stay to the right, and stay in our own lane. I'm pretty alert for cars on my route, and I expect them to do dumb things. Other bicycles is an entirely different matter.

It makes me consider two different viewpoints on what happened:

(1) The old nut should have stayed in his lane and held his line. By riding on the wrong side of the road and cutting the curve tight, he could have put us both in the hospital. We had a closing rate of probably well over 20 mph! It didn't help that he wasn't paying attention. Nor was he wearing a helmet for that matter.

(2) It occurs to me that I was not alert to the possibility of other cyclists in the area. Just like most people when they're in cars. We're all so used to looking out for the same hazards every day... we expect cars in the lane, maybe the odd pedestrian or so. But we're somewhat blind to cyclists. Even though I see this guy nearly every morning, and I expected him to be out there, I didn't see him until it was almost too late. Mea culpa for falling victim to the same "blindness of the commonplace" that we often accuse drivers of having.

Accidents happen. They're by definition unexpected. But we can minimize them, and mitigate their effect by being alert and prepared. Yesterday I got a very quick lesson in sharpening my awareness skills.