Well, as of tonight, my perfect driving record has been tarnished... Yup, that's right. Got in my first motorcycle accident in four years. The good news is that I think everyone walked away unscathed and it was CLEARLY not my fault.
Let me start from the beginning...
I had just had a wonderful dinner with my darling friend, Liz, and I was driving her back to her boarding house for the night. In order to do this, I have to drive on the main road through town - the only road with stoplights. We were at one such stoplight. The light had turned red shortly before we arrived at it, so our bike and one other motorbike were waiting side by side at the front of the traffic line. We were on the right and the other bike was to our left. On this other bike was a man driving with a woman riding on the back. Behind us was a yellow dump truck. When the light turned green, both of our bikes started going straight in unison. We made it a little ways into the intersection when all of a sudden, the guy to the left of us decided to turn right! So get a picture of that in your mind so you can see clearly what is going on...
Now, there are a few confusing things here. First of all, keep in mind that in this country, we drive on the left side of the road. So it's not like he was trying to hang a quick right. He had to cross a whole lane of traffic to get there. And there's definitely no way he didn't see me. We had just sat side by side at the stoplight for 60 seconds. AND by the point he started to turn, I was actually half a motorbike length in front of him. His front tire was even with my body. So it's not like he tried to turn in front of me and I T-boned him or anything. No, in fact, he turned RIGHT INTO THE MIDDLE OF MY BIKE.
I saw him start to turn towards me, and I tried to swerve out of his way, but I didn't have time to swerve fast enough or far enough. So in the middle of my swerve, the front end of his bike crashed into the left side of mine. The force of it almost knocked my bike (along with Liz and I) to the pavement. It was a bit uncertain and wobbly there for awhile, especially since he'd caught me in the middle of a frantic swerve, but I managed to keep my bike upright and get it stopped. Mr. Blind-o was not so lucky. He, his wife, and his bike all toppled over into the intersection. By the time I got my bike stopped, I was almost exactly in the middle of the intersection, and not knowing how much time I had left before cross traffic started going, I zipped to the other side where I pulled over and waited.
My very first concern was whether or not the dump truck got stopped in time. It is not an uncommon occurrence here for bikes to fall in an intersection and for someone to get run over by a bus or truck that couldn't stop in time. But praise God, it happened so soon after the light turned green that I'm not sure the dump truck had moved forward much at all. It was stopped and waiting with lots of unaware honking traffic behind in.
My next concern was for what my responsibility was in all this. I kept asking Liz, "WHAT SHOULD I DO!" The rule of the road is that the richer person in an accident pays for damages. Being white, I am automatically the richer person. However, I really did NOT want to get sucked into this situation. Because I'm white, damages would more likely than not be exaggerated and someone might even insist that they need to go to the hospital. Liz wasn't really sure what to do either since they were so obviously at fault, so I waited long enough to see that they were OK, and then I just kept going.
My third concern was Liz - when I heard the sound of the other bike falling, I actually thought that she had fallen off the back of my bike due to all the swerving and wobbling and braking. Once I realized she was still behind me, my focus shifted to the other bike. But then I realized that because of where she was sitting, her left leg had probably been hit by the other bike. Sure enough, it had been, but she reassured me that she was fine. Other than being shaken up (and apparently "one small bruise" on her leg), we made it through unscathed.
I am so, so, so thankful that we didn't fall. For all intents, we really should have. With the way we were hit, and with there being two people on the bike, there was not much chance of us staying upright. But we did. Liz kept thanking me for being a good driver and not falling, but I told her I can't take credit for that. Someone held that bike up. I am even more thankful that the dump truck was stopped. I am scared to death of SEEING a fatal accident here (and they happen ALL the time with all the motorbikes and crazy buses on the roads), I can't even imagine being involved in one!
Needless to say, I will be driving like a wary grandmother for an undetermined amount of time...
PS - We were both wearing our helmets, mom.
PPS - Liz, terima kasih kmu ud mengorbankan kakimu utk menjaga cat motorku! : D
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