Originally Posted by
subgrade
Not so good, really. I rear-ended a car while commuting to work this morning.
It was my own fault: there was a bus in the bus stop, and I was merging left into second lane to go around it. I matched the speed of cars driving on my left, and as I threw a quick glance over the shoulder to make sure I have enough room between the cars, the car in front of me stopped to a halt, because the bus had started to pull out of the stop into the second lane (the first lane was obstructed by roadworks). I slammed into the car while going something like 30 kph.
Fortunantely I sustained no injuries to speak of, just a couple bruises. My chin is probably turning an interesting colour now, as I banged it pretty good on the car's rear window, but it's covered with beard so no one will notice. Put a small dent on the rear of the car and cracked its bumper with my front wheel. My bike seems to be fine overall - the left bar-end which made the contact is a bit crooked but the front wheel is true and even the fork seems to have survived the crash; I'll inspect it more closely in the evening, but it looks straight and I didn't notice any changes in steering.
Oh well, another lesson learned, I guess. Could be worse, I don 't want to imagine the outcome if the car behind me didn't stop in time.
Sorry to hear about that. My closest call recently was a similar situation: the car (SUV in my case) in front of me stopping short while I was looking behind at traffic in an adjacent lane. Those are always tough situations, especially if the car stopping is doing so unexpectedly (in my case an Uber idiot breaking for no reason, which they are wont to do).