Moped Mayhem

Realized today how incredibly many thoughts can go through my head in a fraction of a second.

I was cruising on my bike home from school and going at a good clip trying to make the walk light up ahead. I had to turn right at a blind corner to get to the cross walk. As I came flying around, I came face-to-face with a moped delivery guy on the sidewalk barreling head first at me full speed. There must have been less than 5 feet between us. It was too late. There was nothing we could do. No reaction time. We were absolutely going to collide head on. My first thought was “Shit, this is going to hurt,” followed by a brief moment of indecision on whether not I should try to curve slightly left or right and what my on-comer might do. I must have had like a millionth of a second, but in that short time I decided to curve to the left, pull my right leg out of the way so it didn’t get crushed between my bike and his moped, and even reminded myself to make a rolling landing! It was incredible. We collided pretty hard. I did get my leg out of the way in time and he smashed the right side of my bike, sending me flying. I landed on my left hip, but lessened the impact by rolling a couple of times. I ended up about 20 feet from the bike and in complete shock. First I was surprised that I didn’t feel any extreme pain surging through my body. Then I was just overwhelmed at the intensity of what had just happened. I remained pretty calm although I was pretty shook up. The moped driver however was significantly less calm. He was rushy around me like a bee talking in Korean a million miles an hour. I assume he was wondering if I was okay and apologizing profusely, but I can’t be sure. Eventually I slowly raised myself off the ground and found that my legs and arms still seemed to work. The moped guy was still freaking out. I didn’t know what to do. This was going no where. We couldn’t communicate at all and he was so distraught I don’t think it would have even mattered. The funny part was, before I knew it I was comforting him! I was patting his shoulder and kept repeating “okay, okay” (which I’ve come to find is a pretty universal word).

He finally stopped talking so much and I turned my attention to my bike. Lovely. Completely ruined. The right pedal was bent up and around the gears which were themselves bent through the middle. I was still pretty shook up and just wanted to get home, so I picked up my back tire (because it wasn’t turning on its own) and pushed my bike along, leaving the moped guy where I left him.

I got back to my apartment eventually and found my friend Liz waiting for me. I guess the emotion had taken its toll because the second I saw her I burst in to tears. No real reason I can think of, just the release of the intensity of that moment. I can’t help but think how lucky I got. I definitely woke up with bruises, scratches and soreness, but it could have been so much worse. And I wasn’t even wearing a helmet! Ugh, it could have been bad....

So there you have it. My brush with death.