OK, seeing as we have a man in the hospital following one of the nastiest crashes I’ve ever heard about, let’s poll the readership here: What was your worst crash involving a bicycle and a motor vehicle?
I’ve had a ton of close calls, but the only real O’Grady-auto impact of my illustrious cycling career occurred nearly 20 years ago as I was doing a sprint workout on the narrow bit of Bishop’s Lodge Road through Tesuque, north of Santa Fe.
A woman driving a Chevy Blazer passed me, then pulled onto the right-hand shoulder and executed a lazy U-turn right in front of me — just as I was winding out a slightly downhill sprint, doing about 35 mph. The damn SUV was practically curb to curb on the skinny road, and so I threw the bike into a two-wheel drift, slammed into the left-front quarter panel and shot over the hood and onto the asphalt, breaking a brand-new carbon fiber Specialized Epic right at the head-tube lugs.
Oddly, though the bike was a total loss, I came away with just one minor injury — a long scrape on my right shin that looked like someone had been after me with a potato peeler. I made her drive me to the ER for X-rays anyway. And since I had the good fortune to tangle with what was apparently the only motorist in New Mexico driving with insurance, I got a new frame and headset out of her husband.
As war stories go, it’s not exactly a thriller. So leave yours in comments.
Mad Blog Media 
In 1977, I was riding down a mild grade in the small town where I lived. A fellow in an old Willys passed me, jammed on the brakes, and turned right. I didn’t even get to the brake levers before he sideswiped me into a parked car and I launched into the air having, thankfully, had my toeclips/straps pretty loose. I flew at an angle off of the main drag that we were on and most of the way across the side street that he was turning into. Reinforcing the fact that luck has always served me better than skill, I did one full rotation in the air and bounced off my butt cheeks from the street onto the front lawn of the house on the far side of that intersection. The driver was instantly at my side, helped me into the Jeep and drove me straight to our local orthopedist’s office. When we arrived, he helped me in and instructed that any and all bills be sent to him (he turned out to be a well-known local attorney). After a lot of x-rays and examination, my injuries amounted to very bruised glutes and some minor abrasions. Four months later the driver was dead in a car crash in Vail.
I was riding down a high-traffic road and decided to use the cross walk at a busy intersection. As the “Walk” light alluminated, a black Neon pulled up in the right turn lane to my left and stopped (I was on the left side of the street at this point). I looked at the driver, and thinking she saw me, I started crossing the street. Apparently, she never did see me and began accelerating into her turn without looking in the direction she was going. Bam! She hit my fork and front wheel sending me into a falling spin. I came out of my clips, but the bike stayed between my legs. I came out of it with bruises and minor scrapes, but the bike (which I had purchased two weeks before) took most of the damage. The driver, a number of witnesses, three police cars and an ambulance stopped to help me. I got a ride home in the back of a police car.
The driver’s insurance paid to replace my front wheel, fork, handlebars and shifters.
I consider myself very lucky that speeds were low, and I walked away.
Jeeze, Patrick. That’s almost identical to the 1979 crash I had with a Volkswagen Beetle. The guy pulled onto the shoulder of NY 25A east of Port Jefferson. Just as I was coming around him, he pulled a quick U-turn. I tried to brake and then turn sharply inside him but had my hands on the tops, had only been riding as an adult for a few months at that point, and couldn’t quite pull it off, so I hit his driver’s side front fender and launched myself and bike over the hood.
Unfortunately, I managed to hit my helmetless head on the way down and took a nap on Mr. Pavement. When I woke up, there was blood everywhere and cops and ambulance. I guess my first response was “where’s my bike?”
The guy had insurance and I got a new front fork and wheel out of it and some money. Not nearly enough. Some of which was turned into a Honda CX 500 and the rest squandered on the other stuff of young foolishness.
Well, a CAT scan and a few dizzy, nauseous, bad-tempered months later, all was nearly normal (or what passes for normal) inside my skull, except my ability to track fast moving objects was never quite the same. So I gave up intramural softball and started riding more, and traded in a thermodynamic Ph.D. project (in the aftermath of the crash I couldn’t concentrate for months) for one involving more field and analytical work. Life went on.
May 8, 2003, I was riding side by side with a friend talking. It was an easy day- being a Wednesday (since Tues & Thurs were my hard training days)- and I was even riding helmetless. I was on the left and Scott was on the right. While I was talking to him this Ford Explorer I had seen pull out ahead had started to swerve into our lane. Scott said something like “this guy isn’t moving back!” I looked up and turned to my right- which probably saved my life. The driver’s side headlight hit me in the left femur and I flew across the windshield hitting my left forearm on the windshield. I distinctly recall flying through the air seeing my leg turn to mush. Upon hitting the ground on my back I was grabbing at my leg and freaking out. Scott might have been freaking out as badly, but remained calm enough to keep me from messing with my leg. As I mentioned elsewhere, I had a broken left femur and left humerus. The leg got a titanium rod and the arm got a plate and six screws. As our humble narrator would say: “Good times.”
As it would turn out, I suppose I wound up better off than my riding partner. The poor guy died on the side of the road at mile 94 on the 100 mile Bridge to Bridge ride in western NC from a massive heart attack. A father of three and a damn fine riding/training partner, dead at 43. RIP Scott….I still miss you.
Mine’s fairly lame.
1988. Riding to work, north bound on the local MUP with a major 4 lane road to my left. Stopped at a protected (stop light, walk lights) intersection and scanned back along the the row of cars that could turn right into the intersection. No one had a turn signal on and it looked like the drivers had seen me in my monstrous MSR yellow climbing helmet turned cycling helmet – god that thing was hot and heavy.
Anyway the light changed I got the Walk and set out to cross the intersection just in time to have a small old Japanese subcompact driven by a small and almost old Japanese gentleman make that right turn. My turn to the right to avoid only succeeded in putting me broadside to to his right front wheel.
The impact flipped me out of my toe straps and on to his hood and windshield. We were both so slow that I just rolled back off and on to the ground.
Ended up with just a scrape and a bent front wheel. About six cars stopped at three made cell calls to the police. The offending driver was very apologetic and took responsibility. Someone gave me a lift to work.
The worst part was the aftermath. I was a relatively new dad getting back into cycling and when not in a daze spent the day calculating the cost benefits of my various hobbies.
Still have the bike I was riding that day.
In late Oct. 1994 I had my collision. A Lexus made a left turn in front of me going very slow,waiting for a security gate to open. It was after dark and I had headlite and taillite plus bright day glow yellow jacket on. Needless to say he didn’t see me until I took out his windshield, went over the roof, and fell to the ground.
I was relatively unhurt not counting road rash from falling off the roof of the car. Everything was in slow motion from the point of impact. I attempted to roll into the window (successfully I might add, I’m not particularly coordinated) and tried to hook my fingers onto the windshield lip, except there isn’t any on a Lexus; therefore, I hit the ground hard. He contacted medics and I had a ambulance ride to the trauma center. Lots of x-rays and no serious hurts.
After some battles and having to hire an attorney, I got my sick leave paid and a new replacement Holland frame and all new components out of it. Not necessarily the best way to accomplish this; but my old Holland was only 18 months old. I had tried to settle with the insurance company on my own and they completely blew me off. Thus the attorney, it cost them about $3,000 more than I was trying to get.
Some times attorneys are a good deal; but insurance companies almost always suck!!
I was warming up for a criterium in Waco, TX, April of 1985. From what I remember, at an intersection, I was stopped at a stop sign. A truck with a gooseneck cattle trailer (I think empty) came up from behind me, rolled through the intersection on my left, and made a right hand turn. The trailer made a straight line across the turn, hit my left shoulder, knocked me to the ground on my right side, and rolled up onto my legs which were still in my clips. I watched my left shin bend under the weight of the wheels. I remember thinking if my shin would just break, the wheels would roll over me and I’d be out from under the trailer. I screamed at the driver to stop, but he didn’t hear me. Portions of my rear derailleur, right pedal, cranks, rear rim, rear hub, and aluminum frame burned away on the tarmac before my heel made contact with the road. Then the inside of my left heel burned away. Somewhere down the road, a bystander at the race heard me screaming, jumped in his car, and pulled across the path of the truck to stop the driver. The driver backed up the truck. My left leg was bent and burned, but not broken. I pulled my feet out of the clips and blood went everywhere. I remember flexing my left foot. Every bone in my ankle and foot that was dislocated popped back into place. The bystander that stopped the truck stayed with me until the ambulance came. I think he rode in the ambulance with me. I was in shock and felt cold. In the emergency room, the nurse came at me with Demerol, a wire brush, and a smile. I remember throwing up and going night-night. After the scrubbing, scraping, stitching, packing, compressing, and wrapping, my friend’s dad (a masters racer) threw me and my bloody bike in the back of his Saab and drove me home to Dallas. I had plastic surgery that evening to close the wound on my heel. I was in the hospital a week to make sure the graft took and that I didn’t get some nasty infection. Four months later, I went for a ride. I raced four more years after that. Twenty-four years later, the graft is fine, the ankle is a bit loose and there’s a feeling of bone-on-bone occasionally. Otherwise, all seems okay.
Mine was a self inflicted man bites dog story. I rear ended a Suburban while descending Lee Hill Road. On a section of road where I’ve hit 60 mph before, I was gaining on the Suburban and getting mixed signals. In hindsight I now know that he had his right turn signal on but that because he was pumping his brakes, the turn signal was mostly obscured. I backed off, but then when he drifted into the oncoming lane I assumed that he was pulling off to the left. It turns out that he was setting up for a wide right turn into an uphill driveway. I didn’t think, I’d committed to the pass yet at that point but it turned out that my margin of error had gone negative. Realizing that I was going to hit the thing, I aimed for the softest spot on a Suburban, the rear door sheet metal. I made contact at 10-15 mph, bounced off, got a foot down and walked off the bike and even managed to set the bike down on the ground gently. I ended up standing in the road next to driver’s window facing up hill. He yells “What the Fuck!!!” and I say “Sorry about that”. He asks me if I’m ok and when I say I am, stats to drive off. I say, “But what about your car? I think I dented it”. He gets out and at that point I realize the Suburban is a very old rust bucket with no commercial value. He looks at the dent I put in his rear door and says not to worry about it and drives off. I wasn’t totally unscathed. I had a nasty gouge in my shin, and had tweaked my oft-injured shoulder once again. The right drop on my handlebars was pushed in about three inches and they had to be replaced. I know this sounds like a tall tale but I have witnesses (Gary T. and Pete W.). Funny how close this is to being another U-turn story, but not quite.
You don’t want to hear my wreck story. You do? Well you were warned.
I was riding home after getting off work at midnight and stopping off at the ATM about 1/2 mile off my usual commute route of 15 miles. I was tooling along a false flat doing about 15 MPH in the rain about 5 miles from home when some stupid person in a white Chevy pickup going the opposite direction invites me to get off the (fornicating) road. I paid as much attention as I usually do to idiots and continued on my way home in the rain. Bozo goes to the end of the block and hangs a U-ey around the median and proceeds in my direction, picking up speed and hitting me from behind at something close to 65 MPH, still inviting me to get off the (fornicating) road. I wake up in the middle of telling a bad joke about being in a wreck having given as my address a place I hadn’t lived in since Ford was in office, and giving my parents’ phone number for their place two states away as my home number (different place than the addy I had just given them BTW) I have my femur and hip broken that I can feel, also a broken fibula and a “non-displaced” fracture of the tibia, torn cartilage and ligaments in my knee which weren’t found until they let me move my leg and it wouldn’t bend right after the hip and femur were repaired. Also some road rash and the impact had blown the front of my leg off as in gaping wound, muscles and nerves gone, 9″ skin graft to cover the hole, and a permanent limp with the tendency to fall over backwards if I don’t stand with one foot placed forward and the other behind my CG.
Oh and I almost forgot I had 2 grand mal seizures in the ambulance and ER and now I talk funny where I used to be a spoken word poet because I came within a fraction of a G-unit of having my neurons totally scrambled.
And the guy drove off into the dark never to be seen again…
I told you you wouldn’t like it.
No, I don’t like it. Puts me in a mood to kill, Opus. As a good friend of mine, an openly gay graphic artist from Texas used to say, “some people just deserve killin’ ”
p.s. He lived in Honolulu. When I asked him once, not knowing he was gay, why he left TX for Honolulu, he responded “What do you think life is like for a gay man in Texas?” Another gay friend, quite closeted and an avid cyclist, once wrote an anonymous essay for our Hawaii Bicycling League magazine, “why all cyclists are gay”. Times like this when I read about this sort of bashing and assault, I guess I get his picture. We need more lightweight 357 Smith & Wessons.
Jeez,
I should know better than to start a thread like this. It can only end badly. Opus, that’s awful. I’ve had moments where I thought something like that was in the offing for me, but for some reason or another I’ve been spared.
And Khal, yeah, I’m with you and your ex-Texican buddy. This is why I don’t carry when I ride — too many targets of opportunity. Plus my 1980 S&W .357 Magnum weighs more than my bike, and the .22 S&W target pistol doesn’t have enough stopping power, though it holds nine more rounds.
I brandished a cell phone at the last yahoo who decided I didn’t deserve my three feet of road and it worked like a cross does on Dracula. That time, anyway.
Last time I REALLY needed to brandish my cell phone for that purpose was climbing Rt. 4 and the damn thing was out of range. I really wished I had a lightweight 9 mm that day. As it was, I was not sure backing down was going to do any good but it did. Only thing in my favor was I probably could have outrun the asshat and his big, trailer hauling Ford down through those hairpins on my Cannonball.
Opus, all I can think of is how angry I’d be for a long, long time. Even to the point of sitting by that road with a shotgun or a pile of rocks for every white pickup that goes by.
You seem so much more peaceable than I imagine I could be.
Opus,
Damn. I’d like to think there’s a special place in Hell for drivers who take out cyclists on purpose.
I’ve been hit cars twice but had numerous other sphincter tighteners….
The first time I had more injuries than the second even though they were minor. I had a car run a stop sign and the front bumper hit the bottom of my shoe and pedal kicking me up in the air so that I landed on my shoulder and hip. Only minor abrasions and bruises but ended up with the crankarm bent into the frame. Driver was very apologetic and took care of the bike repairs.
The second time I didn’t have as many injuries, but I don’t think I could’ve been more lucky. I was in college and was riding my road bike between classes. I was not wearing a helmet and was wearing tennies on top of the clipless pedals. I took a corner onto a driveway between two parking lots and proceeded about 30 yards before I saw the grey car turning towards me. It was driven by a bow-head (what we called the sorority bitches…) that was trying to get to a faculty parking space that just opened… Well, about the time I saw the car, the next instant I was on its roof. Since I was not clipped in, the impact launched me into a flip (half-gainer more like) which put my backpack through the windshield and I ended up sitting on her roof facing backwards. Then the bitch slammed on her brakes launching me off the roof. My sunglasses were found about 30 feet away.
The worst injuries were a deep bruise on my thigh from when it hit the top tube during my initial take off and then some cuts on my leg from sliding back down the broken windshield. The bike was a different story… When I started trying to get repaid for the damages to the bike, I was told that her daddy was a lawyer (go figure…) and if I pursued damages they would countersue for damages to the car because I was going too fast and for emotional damage to his daughter from what could only be described as the verbal barrage I let rip when I first got off of the pavement…. I decided that the roughly $500 I spent to fix the bike was not worth the BS that would come if I pursued damages and to consider myself lucky for not going headfirst into the windshield and for not hitting my head once during the whole thing…
Well you notice that I ride a ‘bent with a full face helmet now. That’s from an injury I forgot to mention, after the truck hit me I was launched about 16 ft.(+/-) straight up doing multiple gainers (I believe the technical term is “rag doll”) and landed on my face, getting the face sewn back on wasn’t so bad, but it felt like an ant farm under my face while it healed. Something else I forgot to mention was I went temporarily blind from the impact, ICU was a cave as far as I was concerned, but for my wife and the people that visited me it was brightly lit 24/7 so that they wondered how I could ever get any sleep. that and some bozo turned on the “Come to Jesus” station on the TV and turned the volume up full and I never was able to find the controls for the damned thing until three days after they let me out of the ICU. To give you an idea of what a computer geek I was I kept thinking “There’s no way they can convert me, my operating system isn’t compatible with their media.” But it made for some strange dreams with all the drugs the were giving me.
I tried writing this all down and making a book out of it, but I could never come up with a coherent narrative about it because half of my memories about the event are not framed in any chronological order. There are memories that if I think about them logically I know they go in a certain place in the event, but my memory assigns them either much earlier or later places for them, like the doctors asking about broken teeth prior to the first operation to save my leg, before they had even repaired my hip (no sense in fixing the hip if they’re going to take the whole leg off anyway) and the first x-rays. I know the x-rays came first because they mentioned that it must have hurt because of the way I was breathing before they could give me something for the pain, but I remember the conversation about the teeth being before the x-rays, and I was definitely medicated by then. BTW the condition I had in my leg is called Compartment Syndrome.
Opus
We almost put the tandem down on Sunday. Some guy on a single bike slightly ahead and to our left swerved right without looking on the freakin’ Bosque bike path. Fortunately, I was looking. Never knew that old Trek T-50 could turn quite that fast…and I’m seriously thinking of a Co-Motion after that little adventure.
That’s one thing that worries me. I’ve crashed enough times to know what it feels like, but have never crashed the tandem with someone else’s safety on the line. Fell over once, after Meena and I crossed our cues and she clipped in while I was still fiddling with a pair of sunglasses. We fell over like that Arte Johnson tricycle skit, in front of about twenty other people in the closing miles of the Honolulu Century.
Maybe I’m more cautious on the tandem without even realizing it. Or just lucky.
My most serious bike-auto collision was back in 1996 in Irving, Texas. I worked in Dallas and was en route to my home in a town that abutted Fort Worth and looking forward to a nice extended ride around Grapevine Lake. Heading north on a lightly-traveled six-lane road (urban planning ahead?), apparently I took up too much of the far right lane while riding 18 inches from the curb. Some guy in a nice new Ford Ranger ran me down from behind. He was allegedly checking to see if he could get in the next lane, with all of four other cars on the road for the three northbound lanes. I’ve never felt such acceleration on a bike since then, going from about 22 to 45 in just a few feet. I landed in the center lane and rolled. My bike was run over. One witness commented that he was amazed at how fast I got up and ran off the road. Injuries amounted to lots of road rash, a large section of skin missing from my knee that required immobilization so I didn’t blow the sutures from the repair, and a hip, which took much of the impact, that was sore for a couple of years.
Other altercations have been less serious, but I’ve been hit intentionally a couple of times, once getting run off the road by an off-duty police officer. Oh, and once, after pushing off a car that turned in front of me, the driver got out and assaulted me.