Originally Posted by
debade
Daniel is right, motorists don't stop driving. And most of them providing advice can't provide a single statistic about motor vehicle collisions with active transport participants. And if I understand the description of your collision, you were not a cyclist but a pedestrian walking their bike
If you have not refreshed your bike safety training, I would check out the League of American. Bicyclists safety videos. They have just been updated.
BTW, it is a safe guess that the people you see at night with no lights on their bike are the working poor. People returning home from an evening shift using their bikes as their only choice of transportation
Very sorry to hear that happened to you. The problem with any shocking incident is the scar it leaves in your psyche. The unfortunate truth is risks are abound in life, and our programming for survival sometimes hampers us. There was another forum user who was hit by an irresponsible driver, and his reaction was to get a nicer bike after recovering. In the last week of commuting, I've had 4 near misses on the road, including an idiot driver who decided to pass everyone in the slow lane about 1.5ft from me at high speed, a truck driver over taking me too closely and kicking up pebbles at me, cutting my shin, and a group of road cyclists over taking me round a blind corner and almost getting us all hurt! In very rare occasions, even when you've taken every humanly possible precaution, something happens to you because of the idiot who is doing something dangerous. Most non-cyclists see cyclists on the roads as nuisance, just as they see many idiots using their phones while driving a 1-3 ton deadly weapon. Risk assessment is the toughest thing to quantify, and humans are pretty bad at it. We all take risks doing daily chores, but life is amplified when it becomes real, instead of being a statistic.
So take your time to heal up and then venture slowly but surely out again. Ride around your stable to get some confidence back. Ride on the pavement to get used to the feeling of traffic and acclimate again, and of course, talk to someone about your trauma.