"A momentary lapse of awareness"
· Posted by Edgewalker54 on June 6, 2011 at 11:56am
Five years ago I was in my cage and heading to town to run a few errands. I live 30 miles from the closest town and I was in a bit of a hurry. It was a gray, drizzly day when I pulled up to the stop sign and that's where it happened. "A momentary lapse of awareness".
The rural road stop sign is located in such a way that you have to pull ALMOST into traffic to see to the left. So, I looked to the right and as I rolled forward, I looked left. Actually, I looked far-left, saw nothing and started to pull out.
That's when I realized there was a chopper coming. No headlight, flat black, almost to my car and doing 60. I had looked PAST him when I looked left. BEYOND him. I immediately turned right out of his path and (fortunately) there was no oncoming traffic so he had moved into the oncoming lane to avoid the assh**e that had almost caused this wreck.... ME! I felt that I richly deserved the 'tweety' that he flipped me as he roared by.
I have to admit that I was shaken by my 'lapse' and I pulled off the road to have a smoke and calm my heart rate back to something normal. As I sat there replaying the scene in my mind, I came to a few conclusions. First, I had almost caused the (possible) death of another human by my inattention and haste. To the rider, I had now entered into the "Hall of Shame" in his mind, the list of rotten bast**ds that had almost pulled out in front of him. Second, if he would have hit me in the driver’s door, I could have lost my life.
All because of "A momentary lapse of awareness". I post this here not to be vilified or smak-talked. Rather to remind everyone that drives or rides, BE AWARE! ALL THE TIME! I was within seconds of becoming a statistic... all because of "A momentary lapse of awareness". Learn from my experience. Do what I do now. When I pull up and stop, I look left, right, left again as I start to pull out and I am focusing on the entire road to the left. Near and far.
Edge "Looking" Walker
