Adventure Commuting

Usually I work the second shift, beginning around eleven, noon or one o'clock, until six or seven in the evening.  Last Saturday I was scheduled for 8am-5pm, and was surprised to find it was still daylight when I left work.  Dusk was just beginning when I got home to Ferndale.  That will be the last time I see light skies after work for several months - Saturday night was the end of Daylight Savings Time.

On Wednesday morning a cyclist was hit by a car pulling out of a driveway on Northwest Ave.  Apparently he wasn't badly hurt, though he did go to the hospital, and the driver has been found and charged.  The cyclist did have legal lights and reflectors on his bike, but I often see (barely) cyclists in dark clothing with no lights.  Once I almost rear-ended someone walking in the bike lane wearing jeans and a dark hoodie, and one night a young deer crossed the road close in front of me, but I only saw its silhouette in the headlights of a car coming the other direction.

I'm always careful to wear light-colored clothing and put head- and tail-lights on my bike, and wear a helmet of course.  I think reflective wheel rims, reflectors on spokes, and light-colored, reflective clothes are especially important because they are recognizable as a person on a bike.  In dark, rainy weather small bike lights can easily get lost among all the other little spots of light along the road or look like stray reflections in rain spots on a car windshield.

I also try to vary my route and the time I leave work or home.  This is an old habit left over from being a single woman in the city.  A street bad-guy who spots a commuter walking, riding a bike or catching a bus at the same place and time every day sees someone with a regular paycheck, and could become a stalker to get a piece of it.

I was always glad to get to work in the morning at my old job.  I'd arrive early to get out of my layers of rain-gear, change clothes in the bathroom, clean the grit and rain-spots off my glasses and my face, put on warm, dry socks and shoes, then fix a nice, hot Ovaltine mocha in the breakroom.  The day could go straight to hell after the first twenty minutes, but I always walked in the front door smiling.