"Think! Always wear a high visibility jacket."
--Top Gear, Episode 9.5
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| Self portrait 5-21-14 |
"The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up."
-- Marilyn Monroe
"It's no fun to be yellow.
Maybe I'm not all yellow, I don't know.
I think maybe I"m just partly yellow and partly the type that
doesn't give much of a damn ..."
-- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Some road construction has shunted a bunch of traffic onto my cycling route.
I ride the same route every day, so the cars that pass me are used to seeing me, and for the most part they are all really good about giving me plenty of room.
But these new re-routed drivers seem not to know much about how to drive around a rider on a bicycle. Plus, they're driving pissed because there's a detour, also they're on unfamiliar roads and are probably staring at their phones or GPSs instead of the road ahead, so I'm not sure most of them even see me before they swerve dramatically, or sweep past dangerously close.
Also it's been raining a lot, and while I like my usual all-black ninja-look (my friend Bob calls it my Spiderman Suit), I decided to up the safety factor and got a neon bright yellow jersey so that I can be properly seen.
I've never been a big fan of bright neon colors, in my workout gear or elsewhere. I prefer to blend in with a darker, more subtle approach. My mother often put a pair of hi-vis orange gloves or a hat in my Christmas stocking for me to wear running so I wouldn't get shot by the deer hunters. I never wore them. I also never got shot.
So anyway, I bought this bright, highlighter yellow jersey and have begun wearing it to combat this annoying new traffic situation.
Yesterday it was a good thing I was wearing it.
I was riding up behind some old fuck in a pickup truck who put on his right turn signal. He started to turn right, and then just as I entered the intersection he did a sudden U-turn and headed straight back at me. He hit the brakes. I hit the brakes. I yelled "What the fuck?" He honked -- what, to emphasize what a jackass he was?
Anyway, I escaped unscathed, and I credit my neon yellow cycling jersey for making me highly visible enough that I didn't get killed by an old fuck in a pickup truck.
Good. Fucking. Thing.
