Attention Drivers: Please Pay Attention and Look For Cyclists!!

Feeling the need to share last night's scary experience. I was on a short training ride for the Triathlon. I just started riding again after swimming, and had completed the loop on Conservation and turned onto Cottontail towards J & S's house. There is a fairly steep hill to go down, a swim and racket club at the bottom on the right, and a slightly less steep hill to go up again. I was zipping down the hill in the drops around 25 mph when I sat up and started to slow. There are often a lot of cars parked on the street around the swim club, and I didn't want to get doored. Probably traveling 14-15 at this point.

Approaching from the other direction is a gold/champagne colored sedan. The vehicle signals to turn into the swim club and slows a bit. This indicates to me that the driver has seen me. Nope. Just a slight pause, then the driver floors it to make the turn into the club. I grab fistfuls of brake and skid to a stop, literally. The female driver, who I can clearly see, simply drives on into the swim club lot, unaware, or uncaring, that she nearly ended me.

Normally, I just try to put stuff like this out of my mind, and go on my way. But this one really bothered me because not 30 seconds after it happened, a number of kids went by on bicycles. It occured to me that those kids probably wouldn't have been able to stop in time, and could have been severely injured. So I pulled into the swim club lot.

The woman was easy to find. She was still painstakingly pulling into the farthest parking spot she could find. I approached, and waited for her to exit the car. I was still in the driving area of the lot, not wanting to get too close to either her or the vehicle. There were plenty of people around, and I didn't want anyone to feel like I was threatening her.

I said "Ma'am, do you realize you nearly killed me?" She said nothing. I said "What if I had been a child? There is no way a child on a bike could have stopped in time. You would be responsible for injuring a child." She said nothing and started walking towards the club. I turned and said "What if I was another vehicle? I would have been traveling at least twice as fast as I was. You would have been responsible for a significant accident, possibly injuring yourself and another person." She said nothing and walked away.

It was obvious to me that she wasn't going to even apologize, and I was floored. In a bit of a daze I simply looked at the other people in the lot. They all looked shocked that this woman had nothing to say to me. Some looked quite sorry. I wasn't going to follow her into the club and cause a huge scene, so I rode away. Had to stop and talk to J about it.

I was pretty upset. Not so much that she was so oblivious to me. Honestly I've come to expect that here. But the fact that she was so cold and callous about it, even when confronted in public, even with the thought of it being a child. Is it really that hard to say I'm sorry to a stranger who you've nearly killed? I have seen people give more apology for that when bumping carts at the grocery store.

So, the moral is. Please pay attention. Not all cyclists are adults with a superhero complex. Some are children with limited skills. And you don't want to be responsible for that.