epnnf

Ive been involved in two incidents in the last few months- neither one serious enough to require a doctor or bike mechanic. But in both, the other party was a fault, and both, I was very upset/mad/frustrated. I couldnt think straight! We all know to remain cool, take names/identification/photos & call 911. But thats so hard to do! I was having a great time riding my bike, then suddenly interrupted by some ....grrrr How to keep your composure?

Unrelated ?- if youre in a serious accident, where they take you to ER, what do they do w/your bike?

alcjphil

The only time that I was in a bike crash where I was taken to the ER my bike was taken to the nearest fire station

nathand

The one time that's happened to me, they brought the bike to the hospital and I picked it up on my way out when they released me a few hours later. The bike had a tag around the handlebar with my name; it was also totally unrideable (due to the crash, not anything that happened in the ambulance).

I have no advice on how to maintain composure. In my crash I was just too shocked to think about what to say. I was approaching a 2-way stop, where I was headed downhill in the direction without a stop, and a car was waiting at the stop sign before crossing in front of me. A pedestrian on the sidewalk on the opposite corner of the intersection waved the car to proceed and the driver pulled into the intersection without looking the other way (uphill toward me). I slammed into the back of the car and found myself lying in the road. The driver and several pedestrians stopped and waited for the police to arrive. I told the police officer that the driver pulled out in front of me and I couldn't stop in time. The police report noted only that it was a "stop-sign controlled intersection" without mentioning that I didn't have a stop, and suggested that I should be cited for excess speed (I was not cited). I wish I'd had the energy to fight that, but I had a kid under a year old at the time, the wrecked bike wasn't worth much, and my health insurance covered the exorbitant cost of the ER visit (all they did was take a couple of X-rays and keep me for observation for several hours to make sure I had no internal bleeding).

JW Fas

Of the two times I've been hit I had to go to the ER after the first one. A witness offered to hold my bike until I got home.
Maintaining composure can be difficult, especially since your adrenaline will be high. The best advice I can give is to remind yourself that the battle needs to be fought in the courtroom and not on the street. This is also why you should ride with a camera, because you'll become tunnel visioned in the heat of the moment and miss certain details, whereas the camera will capture everything.

livedarklions

The one time I was injured enough in a crash with a car to be taken to the hospital, I was so shaken up that I actually don't remember what happened right before and after the crash. I was apparently not very coherent for a few minutes afterward, and between the time I got hit and the ambulance came, I made a call to a friend where I said some things I don't remember saying that clearly made no sense in the context. I quickly recovered, and my injuries turned out to be minor, and was released from the ER a few hours later, I had to get my bike from the police station the next day. The handlebars were mangled, but everything else was undamaged.


Long story short, your injuries at the scene may make self-control a bit of a moot point.

Rick

The one time I was checked out at a hospital I was in the Army in Germany. I was off the base riding with a group of 20+ riders. An American lieutenant ran a light and destroyed my bicycle. I slid up the hood and rolled of the roof and continued to roll on the asphalt. I had scrapes and bruising but no broken bones. The Germans had cameras on their lights in 1981. The German investigator who looked into the collision was half owner of the bicycle shop were I purchased my road bike. I don't remember being very angry until he approached me and told me the lieutenant had intentionally singled me out. My bicycle was replaced at the behest of the German government. The lieutenant was required to leave Germany or be jailed there for a dozen years.

Flip Flop Rider

take some deep breaths and count to 10 before you respond

indyfabz

Last time that happened to m was on a group ride. People hid it in some woods behind a house that had been foreclosed on and was vacant. One rider had a very light cable lock that he looped around a tree. He and the GF drove back later in the day to retrieve it.

Paul Barnard

Self-control is overrated. I recommend throwing your bike through their windshield. That's more likely to serve as a deterrence in the future.

genec

Hard to control the cool... especially when someone else has done some real dumbazz move... like making a left turn from a right lane and hitting you in the process, or leaving a stop sign just as you enter the intersection.

Regarding the last question, about where did the bike go... In my one rather serious collision, I was taken to the hospital in the ambulance, and later the police visited and informed me that my bike was in police impound... which for a bike simply meant it was in the back of property room. I went and picked up the mangled twisted thing a few days after I got out of the hospital. Now this was a small PD, so it was easy to do, but I suspect with a big city PD, you may need some sort of proof of ownership.

epnnf

I actually thought, for a second, about doing that.

Mark Stone

In almost 50 years of serious bicycling I've had only one serious collision with a car - and keeping my cool was easy because I was unconscious in an ambulance. (This was 1991 in Denver).

The police department (Lakewood) took my bicycle, and I was able to pick it up from them with proper ID after I was discharged from the hospital.

I filed a lawsuit and won a pretty good settlement, but still would have preferred to not have had the crash 😊