Status Anxiety

22 March 2008

My cycling accident proves my point that road users rely on their ears. We need to be noisier

Well, it finally happened. After 25 years of cycling in London, I had an accident.

Bizarrely, it occurred right outside Action Bikes, the shop in Shepherd’s Bush where I bought my bicycle. There is a cycle lane running past the shop, but I wasn’t using it at the time because there was a Mercedes parked in it. The driver opened his door just as I was drawing level and sent me hurtling into space. Luckily, I landed on my left knee rather than my head so I was able to turn round and start hurling abuse. It was only when I realised that the driver was a large black man that I cut my tirade short.

He turned out to be incredibly charming. After helping me to my feet, he explained that he, too, was a cyclist and in the normal course of events would have checked his wing mirror. It was only because he was in such a hurry to get to the bicycle shop that he hadn’t remembered. ‘Sue me if you like,’ he said, examining my blood-covered knee. ‘I’ve got insurance.’ Perhaps I should have done. As a rule, the more cyclists that sue careless drivers the better, since the risk of losing their no-claims bonus is bound to make drivers more cautious. But old-fashioned British fortitude kicked in. ‘It’s just a scratch,’ I said, picking a couple of stones out of the wound. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

In one sense, I was lucky. Had he opened his door a split second earlier I might have swerved into the path of another vehicle. A friend of mine was summoned to appear as a witness in a court case a couple of years ago because he was in the back of a cab when a cyclist steered into his path. The cause, as in my case, was a driver who opened his door without looking. There was no time for the cab driver to react and the cyclist was hit and killed.

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