I spent ten years racing bicycles on the road throughout America and in Europe at the UCI World Masters Championships. I won several Tennessee and USA championships, but my favorite medal was the Bronze I took home from the Worlds in Austria, which included former professional European road cyclists. Racing at that level required an enormous amount of discipline in time, logistics and energy, especially since I was also simultaneously maintaining a full-time personal injury civil litigation law practice.
However, during that competitive road cycling decade, I also ended up in hospital emergency rooms with serious injuries due to bicycle crashes while training and racing. Road cycling, I discovered, is an inherently dangerous sport. You may have witnessed it during televised stages of the Tour de France when you see horrific crashes in the Peloton with broken bones, road rash, etc. There’s no protection between the cyclist and the harsh reality of impacting pavement at breakneck speeds. I myself have suffered from broken collar bones and ribs, concussions, separated shoulders (which remain many years later to this day), teeth being jarred loose upon impact, nightmarish road rash, and so on. At least seven ER visits ensued from injuries during that decade of racing bicycles.
My point? Even if you’re mounted upon two wheels of any sort on roads and highways, it’s not a matter of if but when you’re going to bite the pavement. Especially today.
I realize I’ve written blogs before about the hyper-increase of traffic upon woefully outdated infrastructures across America’s highways. We’re experiencing that to an insufferable degree here in Knoxville TN, where an estimated 50,000 people have moved from other states in the past four years. This, of course, has resulted in not only more motor vehicle wrecks but also in more severity of injury due to those accidents. Motorists seem to be more angry and impatient because of the slowdown of traffic and delay times.
Okay, but what if you commute by bicycle or motorcycle? Your chances of a horrific mishap are quantified due to motorists being distracted while driving and the increased density of vehicles. And when a 4-wheeler meets a 2-wheeler it’s a no-contest event: The 2- wheeler loses every time. Tragically much more so than if the motorcyclist had been in a car rather than on a bike.
We have noticed an increase in devastating injuries from both bicycles and motorcycles in the past few years: Loss of arms and/or legs and even life, paralysis, permanent blindness…the pain and suffering is hard to fathom when these severely injured folks file into our offices with friends and family in tow.
You see, I know what that’s like from personal experience. A few years ago, I was hit head-on by a road-raged driver in a SUV while I was sitting innocently at a stop light. My neck was broken and I was rushed by ambulance to a local hospital trauma unit where my life had been barely spared due to the level of my cervical fracture. I spent the next 12 weeks in a body cast while trying to recover. But if I had been on a bicycle or motorcycle, I would have been dead upon impact.
For years I have been trying to convince my wife to let me purchase a motorcycle just for cruising purposes. She has steadfastly said no to my every request for another two-wheeler, this one being motorized. After all I’ve experienced on a bicycle and seen in my office in recent years from both bicycle and motorcycle crashes, I’m thankful she has denied my request.
So, as my father used to warn me, you can be right but dead right when it comes to motor vehicles. Especially when it’s two wheels versus four wheels.
If that unfortunately happens to you, call us ASAP: You couldn’t be in better hands. Because I’ve been there and done that.
