One more only, I promise, but it's very on-topic. The most violent bike accident I've seen, fortunately not mine. I was walking home after hitchhiking at the blind-spot bottom of a long, steep hill curving left toward our house 3/4-mile along near top; narrow, curving, 2-lane blacktop -- in US, width of neighborhood street -- from Town and major artery. Brit coming up fast behind me in Jag or Merc or Rover, speeding as all did -- 60 was common; he must have been doing 70 -- swung wide right on blind corner to pass a small road roller chugging along near me at 6 mph with nothing at all to warn oncomers of slow vehicle ahead -- and ran smack head on into 2 black Africans coasting downhill at 35 mph on a rodbraked roadster, passenger on rear rack (I add the race information because it is part of the story. Brit was rich white African with nice car whose criminal stupidity is part of the narrative, though criminal -- jail time in US -- driving stupidity then and there was the habit of all races and classes except perhaps South Asians). Rider and passenger went literally cartwheeling 10 feet into the air. The driver did stop and I saw him and passers by carrying rider to car, with large hole gouged out of his calf; passenger was standing, shaken, as you might expect. My father often left Sunday dinner upon hearing crash noises to take victims to hospital; Kenya had one of world's highest accident rates at the time, and the old Limuru road was one of the worst for them. Yet, yet, yet -- I rode all over the countryside and downtown on various bikes, including my first build with freewheel and no brake except foot on front tire, with no accidents, and most close calls due to my own agression (against cars and buses behaving badly). Despite the criminal driving, Kenya's vehicles and infrastructure were far more sophisticated than India's, where I also rode, and especially Pakistan's, where traffic was just truly and bizarrely ungoverned by any principle besides rule of biggest -- damned hellhole of a country; yet in no place did bike accidents seem horribly numerous, the latter 2 places being saved doubtless because crowding prevented speeding. Bismark again ...?
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