I was in one crash back as a child. That was a mass crash in the early evening, because most people didn't kept the braking distance -- our car was hit from behind. We drove home with a bent metal cutting into one wheel...
But I was also in two crashes with a bike. In one, back when I 'cycle-commuted' to school in then West Germany, I took a turn at speed, and found a car too close to the corner at the end -- the next moment I found myself on the asphalt beside the car, with my bike just falling down from the sky on my head. But only one teeth broke. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
My worst fall was riding straight at 20 Km/h; my front wheel touched another guy's bike and that was it. I was 3 days without walking properly and 3 weeks without touching the bike. Even at those speeds one has to keep focused, just like behind the driving wheel. Vencit omnia veritas.
It was a few years after the first. I just began the climb, standing, on a steep uphill side road I took many times, when it started raining, so I looked straight down perpendicular to the asphalt... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
her embarassment wasn't reduced when she told my father and I that "It came out of the sun at me" and the pair of us dissolved into giggles after a brief, futile attempt to keep a straight face. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
