After more than 30 years riding bicycles, I had my first collision with a pedestrian last Wednesday in a street at the UT-Austin campus. The crash was hard, and although no major injuries were reported, I am still feeling some pains in my neck, my left hip, my back, and my left shoulder. I was going down a hilly 23rd street, approximately at 15 km/h when suddenly an absent-minded female student crossed the street in purely jaywalking fashion, going from left to write. I tried to evade her, as I have done it before with jaywalkers, but this time it didn’t work out. The jaywalker instead of continuing crossing the street or running, looked at me and went to the direction that I was going. The result was that I crashed her and we both fly some meters and ended on the floor. Although the collision was kind of spectacular and could have had serious injuries, fortunately, we both stood up with the help of other students, and were able to walk without any problem. I asked several times to the pedestrian if she was OK and she said so. She was in a shock, and didn’t talk that much. The strength of the collision and the danger of the situation motivated me to think not only about different ways in which cyclists can avoid crashing jaywalkers but also to reflect upon the experience of colliding with another human body.
First, let me say that crashing into another human being with your own body is kind of intense. In the days after the accident I started to think about David Cronenberg film about car collisions and cyborgs, and the psychological connotations of hitting, literally, somebody else. I have tried to remember the face of the jaywalker pedestrian at the moment of the collision and still don’t understand why she didn’t continue crossing. Although the accident happens very fast I think that her face didn’t had any expression, she was kind of in pause, and I was trying to evade her but she perhaps thought she had to move to the middle of the street instead of to the side. Whatever were the reasons to such kind of behavior, I hope she is in good physical conditions. I wish I can see her again. Perhaps we could talk and tried to reconstruct the scene. It is strange having been that close to another human being and actually don’t know anything about the other person. I still feel the whole situation was kind of absurd. If it was just a matter of being distracted when crossing a street, at least a jaywalker needs to be ready to move fast, especially if she crosses a hilly street with a slope where wheeled vehicles can increase their velocity.
Bellow is a photograph of the 23rd street I took some minutes after the accident. The collision was next to where the third bus is parked. In the photograph the camera is standing where the actual crosswalk is marked.
How can cyclists avoid colliding with jaywalkers? that is the crucial question. There are active and passive jaywalkers that can react different to the presence of a cyclist. While passive ones would not move and freeze, the active can move fast, jump, or finish crossing the street. In general, and independently of the kind of jaywalker, a cyclist can:
-scream, yell, ring a bell;
-decrease speed and try to stop;
-go to the other side of the street;
-fall with the bike or jump out of the bicycle.
Despite the fact I decreased the speed, I didn’t scream or yell. I believed it was logical that the a jaywalker pedestrian would move fast and cross the street without stopping in the middle. Hence, I thought it was not necessary to yell or ring a bell. I also didn’t try to stop completely because I wanted to take advantage to the momentum I had gained by going downhill. My assumption was that all jaywalkers were active.
