CRASH! Almost...
Hey guys, almost had a nasty, nasty crash yesterday. And for the first time, I came within an inch of thrashing someone on the road. I was on a stretch where the outside lane is always full of parked stuff, and two autorickshaws were running parallel in both of the other lanes. At thirty kph. So far, so good. I came up on them on my Yamaha Gladiator, with my headlight running full blast. It being a overcast day, I decided it was best to keep the damn thing running. So after I flashed the chap on top lane twice and got no response, I honked and he stuck a couple of fingers out as a sort of, 'okay dude, come on past then.' He left me a two foot hole to crawl through, so I did just that. Snagging a lower gear, I accelerated through to find there was a chap crossing the road in front of both the ricks. He was, in fact, almost through the mid lane, and about to cross into my path.
I got on the brakes for everything I was worth and even slid further right until my peg was grazing the median stones gently. Honestly, I could not have done more. If we crashed, we crashed.
Meanwhile, the old man panicked and began to backpedal furiously. At which point I understood that I needed to get on the throttle and get out of here. Which I did.
On my right, the outermost auto had braked in the meantime and the middle auto jinked right so that as the man fell to the ground, he skirted around.
Even as I felt that cold snap in the chest you get from situations like these, I was boiling with rage. Why the f would the auto guy ask me to pass him if there was a chap crossing the road? I'd done nothing to provoke him. I'd flashed my headlamp and honked once. Bastard. I really, really wanted to thrash him. However, the brain kicked in and I rode on. And calmed down. Malicious bastard. If I see you again, I'll...er... stop and have a chai to calm down.
2 comments:
Take care dude. And yeah, as much as one would like to hammer 'their' teeth back into their pea sized brains, it just ain't worth the hassle. Safe riding to you!
Thanks for the wishes. As to the Gladiator. It's probably the most forgiving, most friendly of the bikes around. There was no drama on the bike's part. I had to roll off the throttle and get on the front brake in a hurry which can be troublesome. But no sweat. I'm also very impressed that it didn't slide at all, since the tyres were definitely in the dirty bit right next to the median when I swerved (on the brakes) to aviod our man. All in all: Great! Buy one, you won't regret it. Ride it first though, you might 'feel' it is underpowered...
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