Bike Safety

I dropped the kids off for a few hours yesterday morning and had a solo trip into Booming Metropolis.

I spent a bit too much money at our new Bulk Barn and had the single greatest customer service experience I have ever had while exchanging my broken satellite radio at Future Shop. Then I came home to find a message on my machine from Future Shop saying that after 3 weeks of shuffling my computer from one place to another, they'll need $650 from me before they can fix it, thereby returning the universe--and my opinion of Future Shop--to normal.

I tiptoed up to a couple of doorsteps like the tooth fairy to leave homemade baby gifts at the doors of some new parents I know, and had a blissful browse around Fabricland.

And yes, I know I just told you to stay out of the stores. I promise, I don't make a habit of this.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of my car crash. So I was thinking about this as I drove from one part of the city to another yesterday and noted that the warmer weather has brought out the cyclists. What amazed me, though, wasn't the number of people out on the roads on their bikes. It was how many of them weren't wearing helmets.

I don't want to lecture you all two posts in a row, but I'm a bit of a helmet nut. In 2001, the Captain, who at that time routinely utilised Big City's bike path system, had a very bad accident. He was on his way home from work and, for reasons we will never know, went head-first over his handlebars at a pretty good speed. He landed on the concrete on his head, knocking out one of his front teeth, ripping open his top lip and leaving him completely unconscious and bleeding on the path until a passing dog-walker found him and called 911. When I arrived at the hospital, I found him in a state of confusion, covered in blood and unable to tell anyone what had happened to him. For weeks afterwards, he was irritable and cantankerous (more than usual, I mean) and generally not himself from the head injury. To this day, he still doesn't remember anything about the accident.

The Captain, thank goodness, had been wearing his helmet. And the one thing I remember the doctor telling me as I stood over my befuddled and semi-conscious husband, was that had he not been wearing one, the force of the impact would have most certainly fractured his skull.

So I implore you all, if you're getting out on your bikes this spring, please protect your head. It's not like a kidney or a lung. You only have one! And if you don't, you could end up looking worse than this:


Yeesh!!






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