Originally Posted by brad5d

“Accidents are unforeseeable and unavoidable. Incidents can be avoided. Operator error is not an accident.”






On July 4th I watched an hour long thunder shower, with wind gusts easily reaching 70 plus mph. My bike and I had taken cover under a well built overhang of a store from which I had just bought a tent and a rear rack for my bike. After marveling at the power of nature I put on my rack for carrying the tent and a few gallons of water.


In retrospect I can see that my incident/accident that evening was foreseeable and therefore, avoidable. Twenty minutes after rain stopped and with my new tent and rear rack installed on my bicycle I started to bike home. Soon, I noticed massive tree damage from the storm. People who had wisely taken cover in the safety of their homes were now out in their yards assessing the damage to trees, houses , electrical lines etc.....


To me it felt safe to be riding home because it was still only 6pm and the sun was now out and danger from the passing storm and the tree damage was clearly visible and avoidable.


I noticed young tenets in this college town working on huge tree limbs that had fallen on sidewalks and informing them that it would be safer for them to report the damage to city, than to risk injury chainsawing dangerously leaning and partially toppled limbs.


Two hours later I was still bicycling/sight-seeing around this city thinking maybe the fireworks would not be called off and then it dawned on me. I should forgo fireworks and ride back to my campground before the sunsets. The side of the road in the towns north of this city would likely be littered with fallen branches (and perhaps a few too many drunken revelers on the road after celebrating).



So I packed up my bike and started the 15 mile ride to my camping spot. Eight miles north of the city and I had lost daylight and was climbing a huge hill. I had several blinking lights on the rear of my bike and two lights in the front because I like having spare safety equipment in case of failure. I was cresting the hill and only traveling 5 -8 mph, but because I was about to go downhill I looked back to see if I could pull out into the middle of the traffic lane. Traveling uphill at 5 mph it's pretty easy (with two forward facing lights) to spot debris on the side of the road and react appropriately.



After that quick glance back, to see if I could safely pull out into the middle of the lane, I was quite surprised to then look forward again and see two large branches blocking the entire northbound traffic lane. My guess is that very little traffic had been on this road and if any had been traveling northbound, they merely went around the branches into the opposite lane to avoid since the storm had brought them down.


In the moment, it sure felt like I had an accident that night when I jammed on my brakes and did a slow motion fall onto one handlebar end, cracking a couple of ribs. The 140 and 170 lumens bright set of forward facing lights are not adequate for the speed I would like to travel at so I anxiously await the arrival of my 1200 lumen lights that I was surprised to learn can be purchased for under $30 at Amazon.


I was lucky I just cracked the ribs and bruised my knees this time.


"The price of bicycling safety is eternal vigilance" Jeffrey Ferris