BanditBoyDavid said:
Anyway, I was just wonderin' what your worst crash has been.
My first and worst (on a bike) was as a college freshman when I mowed down an eight-year-old girl running across the road. Late for class, I was bookin' on a slight downhill with books bungeed to the Pletcher on the back. I spotted her on my side and her mother on the opposite side with a baby stroller, yelling across the street that it was safe to cross. The girl stepped off the curb, stepped back, and then darted out in front of me.
She hit the pavement screaming but was able to scramble across to her mom. My bike flipped and books and I went sliding across the pavement. A woman driving a VW bus full of kids helped me gather my stuff and lock the bike to a post, and drove me to an emergency room. She explained that the kids belonged to faculty families who had a cooperative child care arrangement going. She gave me her phone number in case I needed a witness or any other kind of help. I was grateful and remarked to myself that she was a credit to her husband's department and faculty spouses everywhere.
A cop was waiting for me when the doctor finished patching me up. He drove me to the station where I gave a statement and my bicycle had been impounded. The mother had told them I was speeding. The limit was 35 and I estimated that I could not have been going much faster than 25. This was before I had learned how to spin. I had to call friends for a ride home, and the police wouldn't let me take the bike until I showed proof that I owned it.
The next day I read about it in the paper. The mom, also a faculty wife, had painted a pretty evil picture of me and was talking about filing a suit, but as the kid's injuries were minimal and they were on opposite sides of the street, I never heard another word of it.