SUNDAY June 13,2010
Today is Sunday and it began much like any other, except I forgot to shave. I left for work on my regular 5.3 mile commute (I'll let you metric people figure out for yourselves how far that is in Kilometers) approximately 11:45AM. With music by Basil Poledouris blasting my ears from the "Starship Troopers" soundtrack I was happily driving along and catching greenlights right regular. As I approached an intersection I took note of the green light, the silver Altima in front me, and 2 bicyclists on the center median waiting for traffic to pass so they could walk their bikes across. OK all is good we're going through.

Then one of the bicyclists starts running their bike across the 3 lanes of traffic!
I track her and take note of the Altima in front of me and realize 2 things:

1. This is really happening.
2. There is not enough time or space for the bike and the car in front of me to have two separate paths.

The Altima slams on its brakes, white smoke filling the air and that distinctive screeching sound of rubber on asphalt pierces my ears over Basil's percussions.

BAM!!!

The bicyclist had reached the starboard side of the Altima before impact and I saw the bike and the woman both do wildly erratic somersaults in the air, flying off to the right. The Altima continued skidding until it halted in the center lane just past the intersection. Ah, the smell of burnt rubber.

The whole slow-motion thing didn't happen. Nor did my heart even skip one beat. I simply concluded that I need to pull off to the side and call 911 to report the accident immediately. So I did. Other cars stopped and came to the aid of the biker. Although scraped up pretty bad on the face and knees, she was conscious and talking.

Police cars, a fire truck and ambulance showed up within about 3 minutes. I raised my hand when the officer asked for witnesses and gave him my information. I tried to make it as clear as I could that the Altima could no nothing to avoid hitting the pedestrian and pointed out the 100 feet or so of skid marks clearly left on the pavement. He said the pedestrian was lucky that the car had slowed as much as it did as typically these scenes are much worse and there's usually not much you can do other than "scrape up the pieces with a shovel". Harsh words but no doubt true as I am sure he has seen much more than I have of this type of incident.

I saw at this time that the Altima had pulled to the side of the road and the driver, a woman about 60 years old, was escorted to a bench and comforted by others. She was very upset and crying. I sat with her also and gave her my card with my contact information so if she needed anything or her insurance had questions I would be available. I doubt there's much I could do but I offered it anyways.

My civic duty done, I got back in my own car and drove cautiously to work. That was my adventure for the day. How was yours?

UPDATE:
MONDAY June 14,2010
At 10:39AM on Monday I was "officially" phone interviewed by "June" about the accident by an insurance company, who I will not name but it rhymes with State Farm.

TUESDAY June 15,2010
At 11:25AM I was interviewed very briefly by "Trooper Green" about the accident.