Just last week, the Bike Blog wrote about summer bike mayhem – yesterday, we got an email from Tricia Vanderkooy, who got hit by an SUV on her way home from last Saturday’s Critical Mass bike ride.
It wasn’t just a freak accident, either. Here’s one pretty detail: before hitting her, she says, the vehicle was dragging its fat ass behind her as she biked, honking.
Actually, let’s let her tell it. Here’s her letter:
I was biking on Indian Creek Drive, and I was in the lead. I had three friends biking behind me, but they were about 20 feet behind me. A big black SUV was behind me honking. He honked at me from behind but I was already in the far right lane on the side. he honked again, very aggressively. I motioned for him to go around me, and the next thing I knew I was hit with his side view mayor in my shoulder. I scraped along the whole side of the truck trying not to go under the wheel.He took off. I was lying in the road, wondering what the heck had just happened and wondering if I was dead! I had quite a bit of bleeding from my head, but it turned out to be just an abrasion and nothing more serious. I do have a broken left wrist, and the doctor will know next week if he needs to do surgery to repair the wrist joint. Other than that, I basically have lots of scrapes and bruises.
As the ‘accident’ was a hit and run, we weren’t able to contact the driver for his side of the story –but if he wants to come forward, we’d be happy to publish his account (along with his name). According to Vanderkooy, a police investigator is looking into whether a camera might have captured the license plate number. We’d be happy to publish that, too.
