Scared Straight

I consider myself a very careful scooter driver. As a matter of fact, sometimes I think I've turned into a bit of a curmudgeon with how cautious I am riding around town. I've never been all that comfortable riding in the bike lane even though it's totally legal, and law enforcement actually encourages scooters and mopeds to use it. It's always just seemed too dangerous to me. I get some pretty goofy looks at times when I'm sitting in standstill traffic on South Kihei Road, while my fellow scooterists go whizzing past me in the bike lane.

Well, on Tuesday I was totally vindicated when I witnessed a pretty brutal scooter/vehicle collision right in front of me.

I was waiting behind an old VW van at an intersection when the light turned green. The VW in front of me was taking a bit of time to get going, so the gal in the oncoming turn lane decided she was going to gun it to make her left hand turn in front of him. At the same time, from somewhere behind me, a dude on a scooter was cruising in the bike lane, saw the light turn green from about half a block back, and accelerated. He couldn't see that there was another car in the intersection about to make a turn right in front of him - the van was blocking that view, and by the time he saw that car turning, it was too late, and he plowed right into the side of it in the middle of the intersection, going about 30 mph.

I swear, that moped basically exploded. The dude riding it went over the back side of the car it hit, and he landed on the other side. Somehow, he was able to get up and actually wheel what was left of his scooter off to the side of the road. That guy was so unbelievably lucky to walk away from that. Two seriously stupid people in my opinion - both of whom were lucky that no one was killed.

That accident has stayed with me. There are two reason that watching that kind of trauma affects me so deeply - one is the same reason that anyone is affected I think. It's just unnatural. Watching vehicles collide just goes against the order of things - it's not supposed to happen. The other reason of course is that anytime I see even the most minute collision, I think of Tyler, and I think of how very precious life is. I had an immediate mental and physical reaction that basically actualizes itself as a giant flash in my head: who is going to die right now? Whose family is going to be left without a loved one? Whose lives will forever be changed by this miniscule moment of time, this split second error in judgement?

I'm not a stupid driver, but I can't control other stupid drivers (I have a feeling that my mom and dad told me that at one point or another). And that's why I don't ride in the bike lane for the sake of shaving a few minutes off my travel time.