Bikes, bruises, and broken cars

A few years ago I crashed my bike. That might not seem like a very big mistake, but when I add that the crash was due to the brakes not working, and how I ended up with my face print on the side of my mom’s car the situation’s severity changes. It was a shocking situation. Most of it is a blur because of that but I still remember the important pieces. Before this I was simply going up the driveway to check the mail. My younger siblings chose to follow and I didn’t think anything of it. They decided they wanted to race me down the driveway and I accepted like most kids would. This is where I made the mistake. I start pedaling as fast as I can, one hand still holding the mail while clutching the handle bars. I was in front of everyone and as I was nearing where I should have started stopping I realized the brakes were not working. I had like 5 seconds after that before I went head on into the side of the car. Which is not very fun, for me or the car. Later on we found out that me crashing into the door broke something inside of it and made it so the door wouldn’t lock.

I remember getting up and running straight into the house with tears running down my face and screaming for my mom. She came running with a panicked look on her face asking what in the world had just happened while I just stood there without a clue in the world. My very loving and caring younger siblings come running in the house behind me laughing saying “Maisy just slammed into the side of your car with the bike!” she’s of course wondering how I could have possibly done something like that and honestly I was too. All I remember going extremely fast down the hill then bang, car, ouch. At this point the pain caught up with my brain and it hurt. I ended up with a ton of bruises even on my face from hitting the window so hard. I definitely think it could have been much worse

Later on is when I learn the most important piece of information that would have probably prevented the entire situation from happening. My siblings had known the entire time that the brakes weren’t working yet they ‘forgot’ to tell me. They still claim that it was my fault for not knowing, which I don’t completely agree with but fine. One thing that I learned from this was that it’s always nice to have an exit strategy in times like these. I have also learned that I don’t alway need to win everything because sometimes winning just isn’t worth it. I know now that it’s my fault for taking things too far and not being more careful. Although I technically could blame my siblings for not telling me, I’ve learned that blaming others isn’t a good habit to have.

“Pink bike” by echiner1 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.