paul was lucky not to be injured when struck by a driver not paying attention.

My life flashed in front of my eyes when I cheated death in a single care accident on the Midlands Highway in Winter 1995 (see seperate story). It was because of that very incident that I was without a vehicle and commuting everywhere on my mountain bike two years later… when I survived another near miss.

It’s Winter 1997, and I’m working late most weeks nights as a personal trainer. As is the rhythm of the work, I assist the front desk staff to usher out the last of the patrons, we lock up the gym, and I head off on my bike. It’s just after 9pm when I put my helmet on, clip my feet into the pedals and push off down the road. It’s dark, but my bright front light, and rear flashing red light, plus the street lights, ensure I’m plenty visible to attentive road users. My biggest problem -its bitterly cold. In preparation for the 15 minute ride home I’ve stacked on four layers of clothes: a t-shirt, a work polo shirt, the work pullover, and an extra thick light coloured Rip Curl jacket. Because I’m not fond of the cold, I’m also wearing fingerless gloves. I’ve never liked riding with full gloves, I feel they take away my sense of touch and grip on the handle bars. Having said that, the temperature at zero, and sub-zero with wind chill weighed in, means I can’t feel my fingers toward the end of the trip on a bad weather night anyway.

On this evening, I’m making good time. Heading north I benefit from a stiff southerly that is throwing me along at a nice pace. I’m on Invermay Road in sight of the bottom of Mowbray Hill, only 250 metres from home when my perception of time begins to slow down. After years of commuting I am well practiced at observing what is ahead and also regularly checking what is behind me. At this moment, ahead of me, I observe a four wheel drive, lights ablaze, approaching the main road from a side street next to the Retreat Hotel. The road rule of the land is for them to give way to me. The driver slows and I proceed. But just as I’m in the driver’s headlights, he accelerates. I’m confident there is no vehicle behind me from my previous ‘over the right shoulder check’ so all I can do is steer out toward the middle of the road, but the driver continues to accelerate and I am collected on the left side of my body by the bull bar.

Like a bronco rider, I half ride the bull bar while half riding my bike. The physics of the situation catches up with me when the driver realises he has a hood ornament and brakes suddenly. I am skittled into the centre of the road. In slow motion I feel my head spearing its way toward the bitumen. I wince in anticipation of the pain. Buy upon my first contact with the road all I hear is my helmet crack. No pain. My feet unclip from the pedals, and I some how roll with the momentum of the collision to regain a standing position. I hoist the bike over my shoulder and storm back toward the stationary car to confront the driver.

“Come on man, I’m mean, what the fuck? Could you see this, and this?”, I vigorously point at the front flashing light, and swing the bike to show the red flashing rear light.

“Ah, um”, the guy, middle age, scruffy beard, with a well worn baseball cap, begins his defence and then quits. He busies himself with the gear stick and reverses the car back off the main road.

I follow the car and lean into the cab a little.  Again I request an explanation, “You could have fucking killed me! What do you have to say?”.

“Ah, um”, the guy slurs his words.

“Are you fucking drunk?”

The guy begins to roll up his window. The car lurches backward and stalls. I tap on the window, but the driver is now in full flight mode. He restarts the car and speeds off.

“Fucking asshole!!!”, I call out as I’m left in his diesel soot.

I rest my bike on the ground, and inspect. The handle bars are twisted, the rubber grip on the right hand side is shagged, the chain is off, and a brake cable hangs loose.

No witnesses, and no record of the guy’s number plate, there is nothing I can do.

I look at my right little finger and notice there is a flap of skin hanging off near my nail, and it is bleeding. I’ve squashed it or grazed it in the accident, but other than that I’m uninjured. I apply pressure to my pinkie by scrunching my right hand into a tight fist, and begin the walk home.

Once home I tell Mum and Dad a sanitised version of the incident while I attend to my own first aid. I then show them my helmet.

“Worth every cent”, I say, pointing to the cracked foam on the inside. “That could have been my skull”, I muse.

I wander into my room and reflect on what had happened. If a car was following me at 60km/h I could have been skittled, and seriously injured or killed. After contemplating my second near death experience, I sit back and do some maths: Four and half hours at work, I earn a little over $70 before tax. New decent helmet, about $80.