DnvrFox

Have you had a close call, accident or injury while biking in the past 12 months?

Please let us know about it.

You may answer in as many categories as you would like.

shokhead

12 year old girl came down her driveway without looking and t-bone my rear der and broke it off the hanger.Dad wasnt home and couldnt get a hold of him for about a week.He said he wasnt supprised and would pay for HALF.I asked what i did wrong to pay half.If i was looking i could have gotten out of the way.Forget it,i'll pay the whole thing.

Rich Clark

What some people consider a "close call" others may not find at all remarkable. It's entirely subjective.

Why not poll about real accidents and real injuries if you're looking for meaningful numbers?

RichC

DnvrFox

But I have.

Perhaps you did not read the entire poll?

ngateguy

I was changing lanes when I hit a crack in the pavement I remember seeing my front wheel stop and thinking this is going to hurt (I later found out by the witness who stopped to help me I verbalized it) did an end over and literally kissed the pavement. Injury inventory: Broken nose, chipped tooth (later had to be pulled), hair line fracture of the wrist, strained bicep muscle (thats the one that took the longest to heal), strained ankle (not sprained), road rash on my left knee. And of course scrambled brains and a new helmet. The car behind me just stopped didn't get out to see if I was alright and was visibly impatient as I removed myself and bike from the street. A kind pedestrian rushed over to make sure I was all right. Crazy me actually rode away from the accident work made me go to the doc I wouldn't until they told I couldn't work until I got a docs release. On the same token I have also had a couple of close calls, and a humorous oops fall over last week while waiting for a light to change.

JCM800

A few months back I was unable to negotiate a quick turn on a simple trail and took a 6ft drop into some soft dirt,lmao. Nothing broken.

Regards.

Rich Clark

Perhaps I should have said "...that's *only* about real accidents and real injuries."

I for one am sick and tired of all this "cycling is dangerous" fear-mongering that goes on here and in other cycling forums. Maybe you didn't mean this poll to add to the noise, but I remember the last thread you started on the topic.

RichC

DnvrFox

Tell you what.

You write a poll, and then I get a chance to criticize it.

Some do and some criticize. If no one ever "did" then I guess the criticizers would have nothing to say.

Perhaps we should not be afraid of asking meaningful questions - nor be afraid of reading the answers to those questions.

ngateguy

Personally, especially since it was Dnvr, I thought it was more a curiosity thing and not a thread to prove bicycling is dangerous. However like a lot of things we do in life bicycling can be dangerous and commuting by bike is dangerous. It doesn't stop me from doing it.

shokhead

You dont have to take the poll.Its ok.

Rich Clark

You can learn a lot about what people think from the questions they ask.

RichC

DnvrFox

Profound!

Chris L

I'm just wondering what constitutes a "serious injury" here. I have never actually broken a bone in my entire life, however I did have that totally stupid, totally self-inflicted crash on a deserted road back in July that gave me a couple of scars and put me off the bike for a week. Does that crash count as "serious"? I think perhaps a little clarification might be in order here.

Da Tinker

We had a new guy for our morning ride. He had rode with us a few times before. We were going down a narrow, two-lane road. I had decided I needed to tellhim to bring his line more left, since he was riding very near the edge of the lane. Well, he dropped his front wheel off the off the pavement, and tried to horse it back on, instead of riding it out in the grass. He dropped across me. I tried to jump/ride over him, but hung up and endoed. The guy behind us landed on us both. My tuck & roll drill worked pretty good, since I have minor road rash, but have several strange dents & bruises I think are from someone's bike landing on me.

Pacelines are fun, but not without risks.

DnvrFox

Don't make it so hard on yourself. If you think it was "serious" then it was serious. If not, then it wasn't.

Simple enough?

Now go and get a good nights sleep. You deserve it.

I am not planning on writing a doctoral dissertation (already did that) on this topic. Hopefully, we can have some fun and perhaps learn a bit. I sort of thought that was what these polls were for.

Chris L

What's 'serious' by my standards, in view of my apparent relative lack of injuries, may be not so serious to others, that's my point. To simply claim something was a "serious" injury in poll terms doesn't offer a lot of clarification to those reading the poll. Some may conclude that I broke a leg or something similar, when all I really did was knock a bit of skin off.

Mind you, I can definitely answer the "close calls" in the affirmative - although that too can be subjective.

It's only 12.30pm over here, not sure if I'm quite ready for bed just yet.

Edit: Awww, what the heck! I've called my scrape last July a "minor injury" in view of the fact that I didn't break anything. Yeah, I've got some scars to show for it, but at least they remind me not to be such a dickhead in future, and they look kinda spanky.

uciflylow

I've gone and done it now!

I marked the last one, none and almost 3000 miles in the year! BTW, all on roads with CARS, TRUCKS, and farm equipment!

Now I must prepair for my crash!

kevmetric

I've been riding a bike, since I was 5 years old, for 30 years
roughly.

Last year, I rode 1,000 KM ....partly on bicycle paths, and
parthly on public roads, at approximately 11PM to midnight, after
work to home.

This year, I rode for 3 months, without problems ...

In the past, I've ridden in the snow, on MTB ... at worst,
on ice, which is impossible to ride, unless a lot of salt
and heat is warming it up.

Recently, coming from work, I was 1 minute away from a bicycle
path which is 100% reserved for road bikes and otherwise
(no cars) when the most scary accident I've had in the past
10 years no doubt.

I've decided to stop here, considering the pain and seriousness
of the injury, and just express my own thanks to GOD for preserving
my life this year in this most serious collision with a car! And to the
911 and ER professionals!

DnvrFox

Hopefully, we all recognize that these terms are interpreted differently, and any "results" the poll may give will be equally imprecise. But, I do think it may give a general pattern, FWIW.

Well, it is hard for me to keep up with OZ time. Why don't you guys just have the same time as we do. It would make it all a whole lot easier!! Sleep tight whenever you do.

miamijim

I interpreted 'serious' as to mean 'cant ride'. I broke my hand 5 weeks ago. Hopefully the cast comes off tommorow. It kinda sucked because I was going to buy a new road bike when my average speed for an hour reached 25. Now I'm starting from ground zero. Oh well.

'Minor' to me was if someone at worked said, "what happened to you", but your still able to ride.

DnvrFox

This has been a most interesting poll!!

I note that 9 of 31 responders had no close calls, minor or major injuries the past 12 months, while 13 of 31 responders had one or more major accidents/injuries in the past 12 months.

Thanks for everyones participation!

Whippet

have i missed it? can i tell my story too please?

When the 2004 Tour goes over the Pas de Peyrol on the stage to St Flour, about 300m after they'll start the descent my carbon steerer snapped making me crash at just over 40mph. Went in 2 ambulances, a helicopter and arrived in hospital on some sort of drip, wrapped in an inflateble orange bag and with a hardcore style neckbrace.

Turned out all i'd done was broken the right hand collarbone, a few ribs and had a bleeding kidney. The ambulance staff thought i had a broken hip but it was just hit really hard. And the nurses in A+E had a better bedside manner than most of the ones on the ward, although the girl whose job it was to poke a temperature probe in my ear every day was quite sweet. I don't rememebr her name 'cos her badge was on her chest and i thought it would be rude to look too closely...

I count that as serious. Close calls happen every ride or at least every race.