The Time I Got Run Over By A Bus
OK, let's get the spoiler out of the way at the outset. I didn't actually get run over. I got knocked down. But the former sounds so much more exciting. And most people, not being as pedantic as me, wouldn't notice the inaccuracy unless it was drawn to their attention.
Damn.
Anyway, until they pointed out the lack of tyre marks, I genuinely thought I had been.
Hey, I've just realised something. Seeing as it's been my favourite story for the last 16 years, it's quite bizarre that I've never written it down. Apart from when I told the entire Big Chill forum... OK, maybe I have.
Get on with it, woman!
Eh? Oh, right, yes. The bus. And me. On the road. Underneath it. The bus, that is. Not the road. Although I like the idea of lifting the street up like a giant duvet, and tucking myself underneath. Just think, if we all did that. We could snuggle up at night. Given that all highways are connected, it would be like one giant quilt, shared by the whole population of Britain. Or even of Europe, if you count the chunnel. A bit noisy, I grant you. And you might feel a bit nervous if a juggernaut thundered past...
Ah, the bus. Yes. Right.
Well, I was on my bike, you see. I used to cycle everywhere. It was a Saturday afternoon, I was 19 years old. I was a student at Manchester University, but as I was very fond of telling people, I wasn’t one of those that went home in the holidays and took her laundry with her. I’d left home a year before starting Uni. Manchester was my home. And that’s not a completely pointless aside; it’s vaguely relevant. You’ll see.
So there I was, on my bike, with a skinhead and a bottle of cider in my rucksack.
No no, I didn’t have a nazi on my back. I mean I had no hair. One of the best things about starting college and not working in the tax office (where I spent my year off) was the opportunity to shave my head and be totally brazen about being a dyke. OK, yes, I could have done that at the Inland Revenue, but I wasn’t quite that brave. And yes, this is also relevant.
I was in a right-hand lane, waiting for a filter at the lights. Which means I was in the middle of the road. I heard something big coming up behind me. A large, loud engine. It sounded too close, and too fast. I looked round...
Oh my God, a bus! Coming straight at me! Not stopping!
I tried to get out of the way, by moving towards the pavement. And I swear the bloody thing must have swerved towards me. There’s no other explanation. Because when it hit me, I was sideways on.
Everything happened in slow motion. The bus was braking, or else I’d be dead. The front offside wheel caught my front wheel, which went under the bus. I did a spectacular leap, worthy of some kind of leapy insecty thing, and came vertically off the bike. Which was, by now, falling fast to the ground.
I ended up trapped beneath the bike, which was under the bus. Which was still moving. Eeeever so slowly. It was grinding to a halt, but in the process the frame of my beloved bike was bending in two. I was somewhere in the middle of it all, my arm stuck between my neck and the handlebars, which were twisting. Both my arm and my neck felt like they were going to snap.
The bus stopped. Finally. I was all mangled and trapped with my head forced backwards onto the tarmac. I couldn’t move. I was under the wheel by the door, which opened, and the passengers alighted. I could see their legs as they passed me, single file.
The driver got out and said, “Are you all right?”
I used to watch Casualty a lot in those days. The previous night there’d been an episode with a big motorway pile-up. The fire service cut a woman out of her car, and she had hysterics and screamed a lot, making quite a nuisance of herself. “Tut tut,” I said to myself. “If I was trapped in a squished car, I wouldn’t make a fuss. I’d be really calm.”
Ha. Talk about synchronicity. There I was, the very next night. Under a bus.
“Are you all right?” said the driver.
“Yes,” I said. “I think so. Could you reverse the bus please?”
Wahey, the girl done good. How’s that for tranquility in adversity?
But then, one of the erstwhile cargo (who were now standing around me in a circle. I knew, cos I could see their feet) said, or at least I thought they said...
“Go forward.”
That was it. I snapped. “REVERSE THE BUS,” I screamed. “REVERSE THE BUS, REVERSE THE BUS!!”
I think he probably reversed the bus.
There just happened to be a nurse walking past. It’s some kind of universal law. There has to be a member of the medical profession in the immediate vicintiy. Or is that just on the telly? Well anyway, it was Piccadilly Gardens on a Saturday afternoon, I expect if I’d have needed a pedicure while I was waiting we could have found me a chiropodist too.
She asked me if I could bend my leg. I thought I probably could, but I just didn’t want to. Not yet. All I could really think of was the party I was supposed to be attending. The bottle of cheap cider had a destination, you know. I was pretty sure that if I just lay in the road for a bit and caught my breath, I’d be able to get up, dust myself off, say thankyou and melt into the background. But for the time being, I felt like having a little lie-down. My neck was stiff, my arm was sore and my leg felt kind of... funny... but I was fine.
The ambulance man thought I was a bloke. The nurse kept telling him I wasn’t and it took ages for it to sink in... but once it did he suddenly stopped being nice to me.
“What you crying for? You haven’t hurt anything. Are you married?”
“No.”
“Engaged then?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I realised later that I stank of cider... but I’m pretty convinced his hostility was simple homophobia. Or maybe he was trying to be jolly. I guess I’ll never know.
In the hospital, the doctor gave my leg a cursory glance and told me I’d broken my ankle.
“But it doesn’t hurt!”
Isn’t the human body an amazing thing? It’s called shock, apparently. A natural painkiller. Astonishing.
I was in a cupboard. Presumably they’d run out of space, so they wheeled me into a closet. There were shelves covered in medical supplies. The young medic braced his leg against the end of the trolley, grabbed my foot... and pulled.
But not before he’d jabbed me in the leg with a needle. That hurt. That was fucking murder. But when he yanked me straight... it sort of creaked. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sensation. It felt wrong. Like being pulled inside out, which I’m sure nobody would describe as a right thing to do... but it wasn’t painful.
A beautiful young woman wheeled me down to the X-ray place. She smiled at me. I gazed at her upside-down face, and fell in love.
They operated first thing in the morning. They kept asking about my parents, and I kept telling them I’d left home. I didn’t live in York any more. They didn’t seem able to take it in. I gave them my flatmate’s number instead. I didn’t want anyone bothering Mum and Dad until I knew the full extent of the damage and could talk to them without worrying them. I was strong, independent. I didn’t need looking after.
When I came round from the anaesthetic, my eyes were shut and I was shaking. I felt a cool hand on my forehead. Calming, reassuring. I opened my eyes, and there was Dad. He’d driven straight over the Pennines.
He was exactly the person I wanted to see.
Epilogue
It was the flatmate/landlady that told him. She was a mother herself, and had promised to "look after" me when we left York together.
The bike was literally bent in two. It lived under the kitchen table for months.
GM Buses gave me £7,000. I bought a piano, a washing machine and a car.
I was in hospital for a week. I had 32 stitches.
There were two bags of blood attached to my leg. I used to whip the blanket off when visitors least expected it, for the fun of seeing their shocked faces.
I still have the X-Ray. I wonder if it'd scan in?
I was on crutches for six weeks. I became an expert hopper.
The bus driver was prosecuted, fined and his license endorsed. I bore him no ill-will.
Yay! It took a bit of finagling with a strong torch, but I managed it:
Damn.
Anyway, until they pointed out the lack of tyre marks, I genuinely thought I had been.
Hey, I've just realised something. Seeing as it's been my favourite story for the last 16 years, it's quite bizarre that I've never written it down. Apart from when I told the entire Big Chill forum... OK, maybe I have.
Get on with it, woman!
Eh? Oh, right, yes. The bus. And me. On the road. Underneath it. The bus, that is. Not the road. Although I like the idea of lifting the street up like a giant duvet, and tucking myself underneath. Just think, if we all did that. We could snuggle up at night. Given that all highways are connected, it would be like one giant quilt, shared by the whole population of Britain. Or even of Europe, if you count the chunnel. A bit noisy, I grant you. And you might feel a bit nervous if a juggernaut thundered past...
Ah, the bus. Yes. Right.
Well, I was on my bike, you see. I used to cycle everywhere. It was a Saturday afternoon, I was 19 years old. I was a student at Manchester University, but as I was very fond of telling people, I wasn’t one of those that went home in the holidays and took her laundry with her. I’d left home a year before starting Uni. Manchester was my home. And that’s not a completely pointless aside; it’s vaguely relevant. You’ll see.
So there I was, on my bike, with a skinhead and a bottle of cider in my rucksack.
No no, I didn’t have a nazi on my back. I mean I had no hair. One of the best things about starting college and not working in the tax office (where I spent my year off) was the opportunity to shave my head and be totally brazen about being a dyke. OK, yes, I could have done that at the Inland Revenue, but I wasn’t quite that brave. And yes, this is also relevant.
I was in a right-hand lane, waiting for a filter at the lights. Which means I was in the middle of the road. I heard something big coming up behind me. A large, loud engine. It sounded too close, and too fast. I looked round...
Oh my God, a bus! Coming straight at me! Not stopping!
I tried to get out of the way, by moving towards the pavement. And I swear the bloody thing must have swerved towards me. There’s no other explanation. Because when it hit me, I was sideways on.
Everything happened in slow motion. The bus was braking, or else I’d be dead. The front offside wheel caught my front wheel, which went under the bus. I did a spectacular leap, worthy of some kind of leapy insecty thing, and came vertically off the bike. Which was, by now, falling fast to the ground.
I ended up trapped beneath the bike, which was under the bus. Which was still moving. Eeeever so slowly. It was grinding to a halt, but in the process the frame of my beloved bike was bending in two. I was somewhere in the middle of it all, my arm stuck between my neck and the handlebars, which were twisting. Both my arm and my neck felt like they were going to snap.
The bus stopped. Finally. I was all mangled and trapped with my head forced backwards onto the tarmac. I couldn’t move. I was under the wheel by the door, which opened, and the passengers alighted. I could see their legs as they passed me, single file.
The driver got out and said, “Are you all right?”
I used to watch Casualty a lot in those days. The previous night there’d been an episode with a big motorway pile-up. The fire service cut a woman out of her car, and she had hysterics and screamed a lot, making quite a nuisance of herself. “Tut tut,” I said to myself. “If I was trapped in a squished car, I wouldn’t make a fuss. I’d be really calm.”
Ha. Talk about synchronicity. There I was, the very next night. Under a bus.
“Are you all right?” said the driver.
“Yes,” I said. “I think so. Could you reverse the bus please?”
Wahey, the girl done good. How’s that for tranquility in adversity?
But then, one of the erstwhile cargo (who were now standing around me in a circle. I knew, cos I could see their feet) said, or at least I thought they said...
“Go forward.”
That was it. I snapped. “REVERSE THE BUS,” I screamed. “REVERSE THE BUS, REVERSE THE BUS!!”
I think he probably reversed the bus.
There just happened to be a nurse walking past. It’s some kind of universal law. There has to be a member of the medical profession in the immediate vicintiy. Or is that just on the telly? Well anyway, it was Piccadilly Gardens on a Saturday afternoon, I expect if I’d have needed a pedicure while I was waiting we could have found me a chiropodist too.
She asked me if I could bend my leg. I thought I probably could, but I just didn’t want to. Not yet. All I could really think of was the party I was supposed to be attending. The bottle of cheap cider had a destination, you know. I was pretty sure that if I just lay in the road for a bit and caught my breath, I’d be able to get up, dust myself off, say thankyou and melt into the background. But for the time being, I felt like having a little lie-down. My neck was stiff, my arm was sore and my leg felt kind of... funny... but I was fine.
The ambulance man thought I was a bloke. The nurse kept telling him I wasn’t and it took ages for it to sink in... but once it did he suddenly stopped being nice to me.
“What you crying for? You haven’t hurt anything. Are you married?”
“No.”
“Engaged then?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I realised later that I stank of cider... but I’m pretty convinced his hostility was simple homophobia. Or maybe he was trying to be jolly. I guess I’ll never know.
In the hospital, the doctor gave my leg a cursory glance and told me I’d broken my ankle.
“But it doesn’t hurt!”
Isn’t the human body an amazing thing? It’s called shock, apparently. A natural painkiller. Astonishing.
I was in a cupboard. Presumably they’d run out of space, so they wheeled me into a closet. There were shelves covered in medical supplies. The young medic braced his leg against the end of the trolley, grabbed my foot... and pulled.
But not before he’d jabbed me in the leg with a needle. That hurt. That was fucking murder. But when he yanked me straight... it sort of creaked. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sensation. It felt wrong. Like being pulled inside out, which I’m sure nobody would describe as a right thing to do... but it wasn’t painful.
A beautiful young woman wheeled me down to the X-ray place. She smiled at me. I gazed at her upside-down face, and fell in love.
They operated first thing in the morning. They kept asking about my parents, and I kept telling them I’d left home. I didn’t live in York any more. They didn’t seem able to take it in. I gave them my flatmate’s number instead. I didn’t want anyone bothering Mum and Dad until I knew the full extent of the damage and could talk to them without worrying them. I was strong, independent. I didn’t need looking after.
When I came round from the anaesthetic, my eyes were shut and I was shaking. I felt a cool hand on my forehead. Calming, reassuring. I opened my eyes, and there was Dad. He’d driven straight over the Pennines.
He was exactly the person I wanted to see.
Epilogue
It was the flatmate/landlady that told him. She was a mother herself, and had promised to "look after" me when we left York together.
The bike was literally bent in two. It lived under the kitchen table for months.
GM Buses gave me £7,000. I bought a piano, a washing machine and a car.
I was in hospital for a week. I had 32 stitches.
There were two bags of blood attached to my leg. I used to whip the blanket off when visitors least expected it, for the fun of seeing their shocked faces.
I still have the X-Ray. I wonder if it'd scan in?
I was on crutches for six weeks. I became an expert hopper.
The bus driver was prosecuted, fined and his license endorsed. I bore him no ill-will.
Yay! It took a bit of finagling with a strong torch, but I managed it:
26 Comments:
Damn exciting story! Do you have the Xray framed?
ugh. looks sore.
Und so, Ms Sudbery, venn you had chust admitted to ze vorld zat you vere a lesbian, you go into a hospital und zey veel you into a CLOSET. Hmm.. interesting, and significant, no?
Seriously, thanks for telling us the story at long last. I'm quite surprised at the homophobia from the ambulance guy; not that they're immune to it, but I always thought they had this we-aren't-shocked-by-anything-we-give-the-kiss-of-life-to-people-with-their-faces-hanging-off approach, so I'm surprised he let it show. Mind you, I used to be a compulsive "Casualty" watcher too so what do I know?
Your X-ray: terrific. You were *so* screwed.....
Rob
Great story. 20 years ago... maybe, just maybe, the homophobia would be a little less likely to figure now...
Love the human scaffolding!
The homophobia is surprising, which is why I've always suspected I was being paranoid. He was probably just jollying me along.
I was very proud of the scaffolding. I liked that it looked like something to do with a bookcase. Apparently modern surgery is more like carpentry. They actually use Black & Decker drills! Well, that's what someone told me and I'm sticking to it.
Well, I say modern... it was indeed 16 years ago. Isn't it funny when you realise your memories officially happened in "history"?
"you had chust admitted to ze vorld..."
Well, technically I'd been "out" for three years by then... but yes, I see your point. ;o)
Do I have the X-ray framed? LOL, not a hope. In fact... you see that circle at the bottom? That's a tea-cup spillage ring.
you should put it in a shadow box, some nice backing in the box itself, an up light in the bottom, the xray in the front - set it off beautifully. You could name it 'Roboleg' or 'Bus Stop Memories' or something along those lines. A sure conversation starter. lol
What's a shadow box? I presume it contains some form of lighting (is that what you meant by backing)? Because of course you can't see an X-ray unless it has a light behind it.
It's a lovely idea, but although I'd really enjoy constructing such a thing (convoluted contraption ahoy!), there's no way I'd find the time to do it at the mo.
So back into the dusty drawer it goes...
(although, as is the way with these things, the fact that it's utterly non-urgent probably means I'll end up doing it as an avoidance activity. i'm getting a new study built for me this summer, and i'll need things to go on the walls...)
"built for me"
LOL, makes me sound like lady of the manor!
("Bus")
Black & Deckers, eh? And they use circular saws (small ones) to separate the sternum for chest surgery, I believe.
I remember seeing a photo once in Scientific American of a guy having two vertebrae replaced with metal ones. They needed to keep the spine in tension so they had him hanging upright. From an eyelet bolt on a plate which they had screwed into his cranium. (Just imagine coming round and wondering why your head was sore....)
My daughter is rather proud of her own bits of scaffolding: a couple of years ago she had a lumbar vertebra shifted, pinned and subsequently bone-grafted to lock it in place. She has a couple of [-shaped brackets. She was a tiny bit disappointed that she wouldn't spend the rest of her life setting off airport metal detectors. I expect you felt the same way....
Rob
("Bus")
Not sure about the lady of the manor, but certainly a Leg End in your own lifetime.
Rob
Eek at the dangling-by-the-head man!
Yes, of course I was disappointed about the metal detectors.
Why did your daughter need such scary-sounding surgery? Sorry, I'm just dead nosy.
"Leg End": [groan] Thankyou, but [groan]
A shadow box is a framed box that you can purchase. You may have to add the lighting yourself, but they are made for showcasing small collectables.
oops, they come in a variety of sizes. Check out shops that specialize in framing.
I remember that bus. It'd just begun its journey as you were run down. Cost me £1 when they wouldn't let it continue.
Actually I really remember all that metal work in your poor leg and the biff to your face from the handlebar. Grimmo or what. Been thankful ever since that you're a sturdy northern gal.
xx
("Bus")
Vanessa (our daughter) had been having occasional pain in the nerve down one leg, and was also slightly lopsided when she was standing. The doctor referred her to an orthopaedic surgeon, who had her X-rayed and announced that the lowest lumbar vertebra was displaced by about 40%. Not from an accident, and not a birth defect: it had just gradually gone walkabout. He'd done the operation several times before (once, as it turned out, to one of Vanessa's classmates) and had a 100% success rate. Although there was obviously a risk involved, we weighed it against the certainty that Vanessa would otherwise eventually end up in a wheelchair. Which was an even scarier thought than the surgery. The operation was a complete success though. It took around 5 hours to do. They took bone from her pelvis and used that to lock the vertebra in the right place, with the brackets holding it while the grafts took. She just has one scar on her lower back.
Rob
What number bus was it?
Clare, brass has just come out in the US. Am looking forward to reading it... is yours coming out over here? I would order a copy from the UK, but being unemployed now, I fear I'll have to wait until it's in Barnes and Noble and sit in there and read it one afternoon over a frapuccino...
I'm amazed you are able to leap around like you did on the beach last weekend having had all that ironmongery in your ankle! I wish I still could and I haven't even had it poked about with! (Just the thing I have to wear in my shoe. :-) )
Your comment about the bus apparently aiming for you after you tried to nip to the pavement set me thinking. I used to drive a vintage open-top double decker (which was fun but terrifying –we took it to vintage rallies and even to the Isle of Man on a couple of occasions – Cliff Richard impressions galore!) and one of the first things you’re taught is that you can’t turn left from the left-hand lane due to the wheelbase being so long. (For those reading this outside the UK, AU, NZ, MY, JP etc, remember that we drive on the LHS of the road in the UK.) You have to straddle both lanes to ensure that a car driver can’t nip up your nearside and then you start to pull to the left just before the lights, thus enabling you to take a wide arc. (The alternative, if attempted from the LH lane, would result in the bus cutting across the pavement, demolishing the traffic lights and any waiting pedestrians.) I would suspect that he was probably aiming to slot in to your left (whilst leaving his rear sort of behind you) and your sudden move back to the left to leap for the pavement effectively put you straight in the path of his offside front wheel, as you mentioned. (This does assume that your dash to the pavement was to the L.H. one rather than the R.H. one, of course. If the latter then it looks like he just hadn’t spotted you at all.) Another problem with driving something that long is that while you’re positioning for a left turn, you have to watch the right-hand mirror as well, otherwise the overhang from the back will swipe someone or something so he was probably busy watching his mirrors for people nipping up his nearside and his swiping someone on the offside. Furthermore, it takes an age to stop something that big, especially if it’s a vintage vehicle with weedy vacuum brakes and ‘crash’ gearbox – you have to slow down miles ahead as you can’t just rely on the brakes since you have to use the engine to help brake you but you can’t just change down and rely on the synchromesh to engage the lower gears like you can in a car – you have to double declutch and rev the engine to equalise it to the required input speed of the gearbox. I used to find that car drivers would nip in front as you were slowing down towards the lights, thus filling up your essential stopping distance. I now understand where the term ‘standing on the brakes’ came from – it’s literal! It’s quite possible that as soon as you moved off sideways, he’d tried to brake but it does take quite a lot of distance to halt a bus, especially if you don’t want to end up injuring up to 70 passengers, many of whom may be standing ready to alight – tricky one to call, I guess. (1 cyclist vs N passengers? Judgment of Solomon and all that.) Mind you, if he was successfully prosecuted then I’d guess that it was just lack of observation or judgment in the first place.
I saw a similar incident about to happen a few years ago. I was driving along the dock road behind a Fiesta that was behind a tanker. I could see the tanker signalling left as it approached the tank washout depot and he was moving out to the centre of the road ready to swing across to the left at the gate. Anticipating this, I was slowing down as I knew that he would have to crawl in. However, the car ahead was not slowing down and was heading towards the nearside of the lorry, ignoring his left turn indicator. I could see that the driver was completely oblivious to what was about to happen so started hooting to draw the attention of the lorry driver. Fortunately, he only got part way into his turn before he was, in any case, correctly watching his mirrors and stopped. The car driver, at this point realised that the indicator she’d ignored wasn’t irrelevant and that she was trapped between a turning lorry and the pavement – she skidded the full length of the tanker before halting just before the cab. I think she was a bit shaken but otherwise intact.
I tell you, learning to drive a big vehicle such as a bus or lorry totally changes your perspective on how you drive a car or cycle (not that it would have made any difference in the circumstances you’ve described, of course – when one’s coming up behind you, there’s not much you can do about it!). Since doing that, I find I tend to read other road users ahead much more accurately as I can now understand what lorry and bus drivers are trying to do. Having said that, a couple of years ago, I did chase after a bus to tell the driver just how close he’d come to swiping me off my bike as he overtook me, though he didn’t actually do so. He did seem quite surprised.
Hmmmm … too much detail again eh? :-)
Sturdy Northern gal, oh aye, that’s me.
The messed-up face was a different bike accident though. That was the one where my front teeth were knocked out. I have false teeth now. They’re made of metal. They taste nice. I kind of miss my old gap though. Gone.
I have a photo of that broken chin of mine somewhere. Too late to dig it out now though. People were always getting those two accidents mixed up. But blimey, have I really known you that long, Dan? Blimmin’ ‘eck.
It was a number 192. Maybe. Actually I never had a chance to look. I was too busy wailing REVERSE THE BUS.
Mimi, my book was published in the US last year. Most of the sales have been in the US, weirdly. I reckon if you go to a gay bookshop there’s a chance they’ll have a copy. If not, they’ll be able to order one. Or you can go to Amazon US and buy a cheap secondhand one here.
Tallslim, actually I already know that thing about buses going wide to turn left. Still, it doesn’t explain this particular bus cos it was one of those ickle diddly short single-decker ones. But I don’t normally mention that, cos it sounds less impressive.
Damn. Again.
Also your observation skills were letting you down, cos you failed to notice this sentence: “I was in a right-hand lane, waiting for a filter at the lights.”
The lights were on red. The bus should have stopped, no matter what. That’s why I was so surprised to see it bearing down on me like that.
And I don’t think it took long to stop at all. Think about it... if it had taken a really long time to stop, it would have dragged me halfway down the road with it. But it didn’t. It just bent my bike in two and nearly snapped my head off. In fact it must have already been braking when I first saw it, I reckon. It just felt like a long time cos stuff like that always happens in slow motion.
So there you go. One day I'll tell you about my teeth.
Wow, that is a story worth telling. Glad shock works as a pain killer. What a day! X-rays look like a shocker.
Ah! I took the filter issue to mean that you had to turn either right or left (a la T-junction) but I see what you mean now. Chances are that, even with a shorter vehicle, bus drivers get so used to driving a longer one that they will swing out through habit. I guess he was simply not paying attention on this occasion if it wasn't a turning, as such - presumably the 'conventional' light was on green for straight on and he'd just seen that and assumed you'd move, perhaps?
Yes, I had assumed that he must already have been braking or you wouldn't be here now to tell the tale!
I've been under double deckers on a few occasions ... but only while they've been stationary and over the pit in the depot. Less scary but still not a nice place to be with the engine revving. I wouldn't have wanted to see the running gear close-up unintentionally!
It is odd how everything goes into slow-motion. It makes you realise how fast the brain can process information when it really gets going. If only we could sustain that! (I remember thinking that after a lady stepped off the kerb looking the wrong way a few years ago. She then spotted me and tried to run in front. I screeched to a halt but just caught her with the wing and she tipped over the bonnet and back on to the kerb as I came to a halt. She had a bit of a cut to the head where she hit the kerb but was otherwise ok. (Although the investigating policeman congratulated me on my quick response, I remember thinking it went on for minutes as I watched her glacial progress across in front of me.) I took about 5000 miles off the tyres and still have the slight dent in the bonnet of the car that I've been trying to preserve, which is a pity as it's otherwise mint!)
There were no green lights. All the lights were red.
The only reason I mentioned a filter is because it explains why I was in the middle of the road - i.e. I was waiting to turn right.
But nothing had gone green. No matter what direction that bus was going in, he should have stopped. And yes, he was braking when he hit me, but not fast enough. I'm pretty sure his intention was to run the red light. And that when I first saw him he was heading straight at me, rather than angling to the left.
Although I confess you've got me confused now. What if he was stopping, was aiming to stop in the left hand lane, and everything would have been fine if I hadn't lurched over to the left?
No, that doesn't work. If he'd seen the light, he wouldn't have been swinging out. And if he was swinging out, he would have been facing in a different direction. He was in the right hand lane when I looked behind and saw him. That's why I moved to the left. He was in the right hand lane, and moving much faster than you would expect someone who was planning on stopping at a red light.
Plus there were several witnesses (including some police, apparently) who saw the whole thing and agreed he was driving without due care and attention. And he pleaded guilty.
So there.
But I honestly didn't feel any animosity towards him. It's a crap job, and they're encouraged to drive dangerously to beat the competition.
But I would like to think it wasn't my fault, all the same!
Yep - sounds like you've just about got that one wrapped up! Can't disagree with you. I was just musing to see if I could establish any reasons other than the obvious one but it looks like sometimes the obvious one is the real answer!
Yes - beating the competition is ludicrous. It's what caused bus regulation to come in in 1930 (1927?) as people were getting killed in the races that we now see being repeated all over the place. I could bore for England about the lunacies of bus deregulation, the ludicrous Transport Act 1985, Nicholas Ridley et al. but maybe another time!
Great work!
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