Barrels and Laughs: Nothing Funny

Sue, Annie and I bike up Old San Marcos this morning.  Sweaty and huffing, we reconvene at the top to take in the view and a couple slugs of water.  Our decent is quickly interrupted by squealing tires on pavement.  Annie perks up her ears and glances back.  Again, we hear tires laying rubber. 

“They’re coming this way, pull over.”  I am grateful for Sue’s commands.  We jump off the road and witness a black Dodge Ram pick-up truck roar by.  Two black oil barrels rattle and tilt in the truck bed as they swerve around a tight corner.  We hear the wild laugh of a thrilled woman echoing from inside the cab and they are gone.

With awe I look at Annie.  The incident hits me harder than maybe it should have.  I am shaken.  I am not a stranger to an orthopedic recovery floor.  When you pass through hospital rooms holding young men who have had their faces shredded off from motorcycle accidents and are breathing with chest tubes while legs dangle from pins and rods, you do not forget and you do not assume that it cannot happen to you.

I am angry.

This past March I competed in the Kendra Payne Memorial Triathlon hosted by UCSB triathlon club honoring Kendra who died while biking up Gibraltar.  A truck had hit her.

There is nothing funny about wreckless driving.

~ by drea on June 17, 2008.