The Encounter

Part of my commute involves driving down a two lane road that goes through a bunch of fields with not much else around them.  It's a little unnerving because there really isn't a shoulder or a sidewalk for me to get onto in case there is a need to,  the speed limit is 50 MPH so cars fly by me all the time, and I work at a Casino so quite a few of those drivers flying by me are probably pretty drunk!

This morning  I was running late so I was pushing it a little bit in order to get to work on time.  I was coming up to an intersection where I couldn't really see down the cross street.

That's when I heard it.

I just heard what sounded like air rushing toward me.  It was coming from my left, so I looked in that direction but there are some pretty tall bushes over there so I couldn't really see anything.  I stopped about 100 feet from the stop sign because I was pretty sure I knew what was coming.

As it got closer, I could hear the engine , I finally could see the headlights.  It was definitely a car.  The car was going at least 100 MPH.  As I described before, I could hear the wind surrounding the car before I heard the engine.  I was glad that I stopped back from the intersection because if that car lost control it wasn't too likely that it would hit me. It blew through the intersection, completely ignoring the stop sign and kept on toward it's destination.

It shook me a little because it made me think about just how exposed I was out there on these deserted backroads on my bike.

As I rode the last mile or so into work I thought to myself that I was thinking to myself that I was actually pretty lucky to be riding my bike instead of driving in to work.  If I was in my car I would never have heard the other car until it was too late.  I might have seen the headlights of the other car, but at the speed he was going it may still have been too late.

I did make it to work in one piece, on time too,  it is funny what kind of thoughts little encounters like this one mean to you.