An amazing recovery
By adamg - 11/24/08 - 8:19 am
Lizkdc starts a post with a photo of some guy sitting in a restaurant, laughing:
This is my uncle, Paul H. A little less then six months ago, he was sent flying by a speeding bicyclist while completing his route as a mailman in downtown Boston. His head collided with a granite curb, causing injuries so severe that despite being rushed to MGH for immediate brain trauma surgery, the doctors held out little hope of him ever regaining consciousness. ...
Comments
People on bikes need to
People on bikes need to realize that when they drive recklessly its almost as bad as if a car is driving recklessly, people can get seriously hurt by a speeding bike that runs up on the sidewalk, runs a red light, or goes down the wrong way of a one way street.
The Old Shoulder Check
When I see some fixidiot bulling through a sidewalk downtown, I set a pick. I have been know to throw a check from time to time, too. Asshats like that make it tricky for the rest of us. On a bike at 10 or 15 mph, going around the damn block to use the one way streets isn't any big deal.
I suspect that enough big people with attitude have dusted off the old bigbody sports tricks, as I have seen far fewer (if any) courier types (and their fixie wannnabe counterparts with more money than good sense)on the sidewalks of late - even though I work by Courier Central Park.
What a shock
This is going to become yet another discussion on bicycle safety. Spare us, guys, please. The original post was just about the amazing recovery of a special person, not another diatribe about people on bikes. We all know that everyone who rides a bike is an inconsiderate piece of crap except for the ones who aren't, so let's just move on.
Thanks folks who expressed
Thanks folks who expressed your compassion here and on my blog.
This post is indeed mostly about an awesome mailman and his awesome powers of recovery.
For the record, indeed the bicyclist was going the wrong way down a one-way street. The cyclist was a civilian too, not a courier. To plow into a six foot tall guy in a mailman's uniform, in broad daylight, and send him flying, hell yeah, I'm also going to speculate he was pretty damn reckless.
But we all have seen horrors from car drivers, too. Oh yeah, there are careless pedestrians, too.
You know what? Who's more dangerous, stupid "rules aren't for me" car drivers or stupid "rules aren't for me" bicyclists is a pretty sh*tty discussion.
If you're a good person, follow traffic rules and directions whatever mode of transport you use--it can take one split second of you being where you're not supposed to be to devastate someone's life. There are still going to be plenty of accidents that come from sheer bad luck or distraction--please don't create more because you can't be arsed to go around the block in the right direction, use signals, or yield to people who have right of way and so on.
Can we leave it at that?
I now return you to your regularly scheduled Boston driving.
Lizkdc
http://lizkdc.typepad.com