Thirteen Weeks Without A Calm Soul

That last post was a downer. Sorry.

Not really, because this is where I am. I can’t help how I feel. Not without my bike. I joked about that, but it’s not a joke. Riding grounds me. Riding settles me. Riding brings my mind and body into the same goddamn place so I can just be. And the person who hit me? She took that from me.

For now.

I know I’ll ride again. I just don’t know when. February? Maybe. March? Who the hell knows. What I do know is this: by the time I’m back on two wheels, it’ll be at least three months. A quarter of a year. Thirteen weeks without calm. Thirteen weeks of rising anxiety. Thirteen weeks of not being me.

That should be a fucking felony.

But what did the police report say when it was finally completed a month later? “Citations pending.” Which is cop-speak for no one got a ticket.

The woman who rammed her car into me said, out of one side of her mouth, that she “couldn’t see” my brightly lit, 850-pound touring bike. Out of the other side, she claimed I was speeding. Which fucking one was it?

She had a drunk passenger. She attempted a U-turn into oncoming traffic. And yet she wasn’t tested for alcohol or drugs, despite exhibiting extremely poor judgment, which, last I checked, is one of the classic signs of impairment.

But hey. Citations pending. Meaning: we didn’t bother.

And what message does that send?

To me, it says it’s legal to mow down motorcyclists. It’s legal to kill people with your car, or at least try to. I can’t help but wonder: if she had succeeded, if I’d died on that asphalt, would the citations still be “pending”? Or would they magically appear then?

For the record: this did not happen at an intersection. This road has a median. Three lanes in each direction.

Now let’s compare notes.

Police report on me, the motorcycle rider:
– No driver error
– Going straight
– Had not consumed alcohol
– No apparent defects

Police report on the driver who hit me:
– Failed to yield right-of-way
– U-turn
– Had not consumed alcohol
– No apparent defects

An eyewitness, directly behind me at the light we had just left, stated the driver suddenly executed a U-turn from the median directly into my path, leaving me no time to avoid the collision.

And still: citations pending.

What really twists the knife is this: not long before the crash, I was riding alongside a cop in Santa Fe who insisted on sitting in my blind spot. I sped up five miles per hour over the limit to get out of it. You’d think a cop would appreciate a rider actively avoiding danger.

Nope.

He pulled me over immediately. No “pending” bullshit there. Ticket issued, clean and fast. And every time they do that, the subtext is always the same: we’re doing this for your safety. That they care more about my safety than I do.

Bullshit.

If they cared about safety, or even justice, they’d ticket the woman who caused a crash resulting in great bodily injury. Even a shitty little failure-to-yield ticket would matter.  Because something is more than nothing.

I know some people will read this and say, “Accidents happen. Lighten up.”

No. I will not.

Because this wasn’t an accident. This was negligence. Either she didn’t look — negligent. Or she couldn’t see — also negligent, because if you know you can’t see, you shouldn’t be fucking driving.

This was completely avoidable.

I had a massive LED headlight. LED running lights on both handlebars. Reflectors on my saddlebags. Bright red taillights. A fully lit touring bike. One competent glance in the direction traffic was coming from would have prevented all of this.

This wasn’t an accident.

This was negligent use of a motor vehicle.