Walking across the street in front of my house, I heard a skid-pop! and saw 50 yards away or so, a cyclist hit the ground. He wasn’t getting up very quickly, and the intersection is a 6-street wonder, so I ran over to block traffic, and help him to the nearest awning, which was strangely my front door.

Another guy pulled his car up next to the cyclist to also block traffic, and another guy ran out of his work, on the corner nearby, to see if he could help. One of them must have grabbed his bike and propped it against my front gate- because I noticed later it was there. Random detail, I know.

The cyclist said he had tried to cross the cable car tracks at an angle, but his bike slipped anyways. The guy with the car said the oil rises to the surface on the first rain. The cyclist wasn’t hurt - or at least apparently, but was tender with his arm. There was no blood anywhere, just gravel-scraped hands. He admitted, “I hit my head” - what I think must have been the pop sound I heard- but he had me look and there was no blood. He seemed to remember the incident too, so no concussion at least. He was shaken up, though, and told us he had a bit to go- to bike over to the Marina, so he was going to hail a cab. Now that I think about it, the fact that he was not unconscious, and that he remembered the accident and 5 minutes prior, makes me think he didn’t have a concussion.

We waited for a bit as he got over his shock and discussed the intersection, the slick oil, the newly started rain. Both the other guys lived/worked on this intersection, too. The guy in the car ended up giving the cyclist a ride home, and we told him to take care, and went our separate ways.

Related posts:

1. Open Letters Upon Close Calls
2. Rain, Rain, Won’t Go Away!
3. Slick Streets
4. Accident on the Bay Bridge
5. Bicycle Safety: Public Service Announcement