The Time I Got Hit by That Bus

I apparently forgot to tell you about the time I got hit by a bus while unicycling.

"Hit" is a bit too strong -- perhaps "grazed." Maybe "brushed." The only part of my life that flashed before my very eyes was the stuff that was going on at that moment.

I was pedaling to school earlier than usual one morning but found myself needing to pick up a few minutes, so after I left the park, I decided to ride down Flatbush Ave, one of the most dangerous cycling streets in New York. Back then I rode mostly in the street because I hadn't switched to the longer cranks and therefore had less control for sidewalk riding than I do now. As usual I was in the far right lane. In fact, this lane was still packed with parked cars, but they were all a little bit further down the road. Suddenly I heard what sounded like two cars hitting their brakes and smashing together. I felt a little flick at my elbow, but it was the noise that made me hop off my unicycle. It took me about 50 feet to stop because I was going fast downhill; when I turned around, I realized that a small schoolbus that had been (illegally) in my lane had swerved to avoid me and had smashed into a small car. No one was hurt.

I looked at my elbow, and sure enough, there was a tiny flap of loose, dry skin, only a few layers deep; no blood, no bruise, no pain. I concentrated my next few minutes calmly chewing out the bus driver. He had been speeding along and had tried to pass other drivers by using the parked car lane. He swerved when he saw me; it was his side-view mirror that nicked me.

His bus was a bit banged up, as was the car he'd side-swiped. The driver of that car, an EMT, kept the calmest of the three of us. After I'd sarcastically explained certain laws to the driver, he got really red in the face, trying to act as tho I shouldn't have been riding in the street. The irony wasn't lost on me: Curmudgeonly pedestrians are always telling me to get off the sidewalk, and this idiot was telling me to get off the street.

Police came an hour later (so much for me saving time on my way to work!) and took our statements. As usual, they had no idea what the laws say about unicycles, so I didn't find them too helpful. They certainly didn't seem to take my side. They also didn't take the bus driver's alcohol level -- something that makes no sense given that he had been driving dangerously according to two other people. When I was involved in a fender-bender in Wales, the police gave me a Breathalizer test (and found that I had too little alcohol in my system -- I drink about a half glass of wine per year).

Normally I would have been all over this driver legally. I should have called up his company and explained what he had done and called his school district and told them that he looked drunk when he hit me, and so on. But for some reason, I held back, and eventually I lost the information and by the time I found it, the accident was deep in the past.

This happened in about 2002, and it made me feel very lucky. Had the bus driver swerved a few milliseconds later, I would have been knocked around by his mirror. I might have landed in traffic and been killed. And Shirra would be a widowed mother of two rather than a wife and mother of three. So that day has always been a turning point for me. I declared that the rest of my life would hereby be 'icing' and that I would try to relax and enjoy it. I didn't complete stop to smell the roses, but I slowed down enough to pick up some of their scent.