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What would happen if one of those more obnoxiously driven cabs bumped you from behind?  Or turned into your lane right along side you?  Most cabbie’s are reasonably cool, and predictable, but a few of them are working long shifts and driving distracted (with phones in their ears).

Some older traditional riders are fans of “laying down the bike” in emergencies, but I say the first goal of emergency maneuvers is to stay off the ground…  Trust me, you don’t want to be laying on the ground anywhere on the road in NY traffic.  Someone once told me: Fortunately your bike is equipped with a vertical stabilizer mechanism that can keep it upright under any emergency situation.  As long as you’re starting off pretty much upright you can remain upright no matter what runs into you… If you’re a regular reader, you know what I’m talking about. It’s called the throttle.  Now this came in handy one day. I mentioned this a while back and said I’d write about it, so here it is:

My First Run-in with a Cab

A few years back I was riding down Lexington Ave on a Friday night, two up, when a taxi slams into my left side.  It was slightly behind me in the lane to my left, and making a sudden lane change.  In hindsight I knew the cabs were driving wildly that night, in that area – and to make things worse, there were no lanes painted on the newly resurfaced road.  So the cabs were really squeezing through every part of the road in a chaotic fashion.  If I knew better, I would have taken a different road…

So there I was bouncing off the side of a cab, my wife (who’s a really good sport about these things) was struggling to stay on the back after pushing off the side of the cab.  We were going to fall when I remembered someone telling me “your bike has a built in stabilizer, it’s your throttle stupid.”  I rolled on the throttle straightened up the bike and pulled over to assess the damage.

I was so glad that it didn’t turn out worse that I wasn’t even upset at that point, just a little dazed.  The cab had a couple of foot-long scrapes down the side from where the footpegs hit the side, along with a dent where the left handlebar hit the side.  My bike had a broken turn signal, and the left clipon got knocked loose so it was wobbly, but the clutch still worked and I could steer with the right handle bar to get home.  My wife developed a bruise on her knee, but fortunately nothing serious.

So here’s the deal: I hope this never happens to you.  And if you’re careful it probably won’t.  But if it does, keep your head, keep it upright, a little throttle and being light on the bars can help you straighten out just about anything.  Do you have a collision story where the car runs into you?  Tell us about it, and anything you might have learned from it.

[PS - most accidents involving cars happen the other way around: when cars pull into the path of a bike that is going too fast to stop...so cars making left turns out of driveways, u-turns, oncoming cars making sudden left turns, etc.  The only thing you can do for those types of accidents is to plan beforehand by watching your speed, keeping it in line with your braking abilities...]

Related posts:

1. Riding Skills: An Exit Strategy
2. Riding Skills: What to do?
3. Top Four Gotcha Moves
4. Road Positioning
5. Moving Thru Traffic