It’s been over a year and roughly 5,800 miles on my bike since I last placed some words on my post. We have made it through 2021 in hopes that we can have more of a usual year next in 2022; but what we have to deal with now may be the usual in the years to come. I hope not!
You might be wondering about the title of this post.
Last Sunday, December 5th, I was out for our usual Sunday group ride. And as usual I sometimes get dropped and get behind the others in the group. It was no big deal since we were near the end of our ride on a rural road that is called Bell Plains. This road runs east – west for about 3 1/2 miles with a highway on the east side and FM road to the west. In between there are a lot of homes out in the country. There was a strong southwest wind that day and the stretch of Bell Plains that I was on had a gentle decent to it; so my speed was in the 20-25 range. After being on the road for a minute or two, I could tell there was a diesel truck coming in hot behind me. Most of the times cars will slow and move to the left and pass you. There was another car coming westbound on Bell Plains and this situation seemed different. This truck was not slowing down. I happened to make a quick glance to my back left and the diesel truck was right on my rear wheel. How I was able to move to the right quickly enough and not be hit by the truck puzzles me. The truck went by and out of frustration I yelled at the truck (why I was thinking that he would hear me from his cab I don’t know) and the driver stopped in the middle of the road. He yelled at me and told me to get the f**** off the road since I didn’t have insurance on my bike. That comment right there showed me what type of an idiot I was dealing with. (As for the westbound car, they did circle back and check on me and provided me their contact info since they saw the whole event and they were even honking at the truck to hopefully make it slow down.)
Of course, this happened so quickly and right before he took off I took a picture with my HTC RE camera that I carry with me on my rides in hope that I would be able to get his license plates. Unfortunately, even though he stopped about 25 yards up the road, I wasn’t able to obtain a clear resolution of the plates even after running the picture through one of the free software programs on the web for situations like this. I did report to the local sheriff’s office and of course they would need a license plate #. I even sent the picture over to a friend who is the PIO for the the local police department and he will give it a try on what software they use (no results yet).
Therefore, lessons to learn from this. Obviously, be sure and get a picture of the plates, the person, who is the driver and any other details that may be important. Things like this happen quickly and afterwards (if we are not hit) then we need to be in this mindset to remember what needs to be done.
I am thankful that nothing happened. I didn’t wreck my bike getting off the road at that last second. The driver didn’t hit me – even though I honestly believe that was his intent.
I also ask that you read this about a cyclist in Boulder who was a victim of a hit-and-run and the driver was convicted and sentenced to 2 years in prison. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/driver-hit-run-bike-justice/
So if you see this truck….be sure and get his license plates and let me know.
bikeabilenedotcom 