Normally I think I’m a pretty safe rider. I’ve easily ridden 100k miles on two wheels since I started riding in 2010, and it wasn’t until recently that I actually got hit by another vehicle on the street. (It happened in a parking lot once, but that’s not quite the same as being in traffic.) In the first crash, on August 21, 2025, I don’t think I was at fault, and in fact the company insuring the first car that hit me in that wreck accepted liability. The one that happened this past Sunday (October 26, 2025) was definitely not my fault as I got hit from behind while stopped in line at a red light.

I want to talk about these because they’re very different crashes, and not really super crazy or unusual. I think other people may encounter similar situations, and maybe knowing a bit about them in advance could be helpful.

When lane positioning helps prevent a disaster

On Sunday, October 26, 2025, I was stopped in the left turn lane highlighted below.

I wss third or fourth in line at a red light. When I stopped, I deliberately did so with the bike in LP1. I was behind a Honda Pilot that had left enough room between it and the curb that I could probably get the bike into that spot if someone looked like they were going to hit me from behind. You know, defensive riding, right? Planning ahead. I remember very clearly thinking that I could probably even get the bike into that spot without even touching the Pilot.

I even thought about that blue car coming up behind me, and how it was starting to look like it wasn’t slowing down enough when it hit me: that car’s about to hit me. I didn’t have time to react.

Being in LP1, the bike hit the back of the Pilot but didn’t get sandwiched. However, because I was to the left and got shoved into the back left of the Pilot, I wound up falling over to the left and onto the curb. Although I fell onto the curb, I appear to have only suffered some bruising. My helmet (less than a few weeks old) had a mark that looked like a scratch but turned out to be a grass stain or something. No skin lost, I didn’t hit my head, and definitely nothing broken… on me, anyway.

The bike got a bit of damage, but actually came through pretty well. The left mirror snapped off at the mounting point, because it took the weight of the bike against a curb. Mirrors aren’t really designed for that. The bike has a new windshield and side cases and, while the windshield picked up some scratches, the side cases still almost look new.

Then it got a little weird.

The driver who hit me got out and asked if I needed to see his insurance. Oh, yeah, buddy. Definitely. He went back to his car and returned with paperwork. Here he is bringing that paperwork to me. (The guy who’s blurred out is was a passenger in the Pilot, and actually turned out to be pretty cool. More on that in a moment.)

I looked at what he handed to me, and it looked like vehicle registration paperwork, not insurance. It even had the backing from the stickers you put on the plates still stapled to it. “No, I need to see insurance. This looks like registration,” I told him. He went back to his car and a moment later looked like this:

Yes, that’s him preparing to drive away. The passenger actually stepped in front of his car and yelled at him to not leave, but the driver went around him and sped off on I694 eastbound. The passenger actually apologized to me for not being able to stop him. “I wanted to keep him from leaving, but he’d already hit you and I didn’t want to get hit, too,” he told me. I really can’t say I blame him on that, and it was very cool that he at least tried.

Reward opportunity: If you know the guy who hit me or, better still, who his insurance company is, drop me a line! I’ll buy you dinner at Bullvinos if I can get repair costs covered. (Vegetarians: their salad bar is also pretty good.) Also, I kept the grille from the car, so the driver should contact me if he wants it back. UPDATE (2025-11-12): Still don’t know who the driver is, but the MN State Patrol found the owner and a valid insurance policy.

Anyway, after the driver left, I got a better photo of the bike on its side.

Looking at that, to me it looks like there’s room next to the Pilot even for my bike’s very wide hips. There’s not a lot of room, but had I been able to get there, the guy who hit me would’ve hit the Pilot instead.

Lessons (re)learned

First, this really reinforced for me the importance of defensive lane positioning. Had I been in LP2 (middle of the lane, directly behind the Pilot), there’s no question that I would’ve been sandwiched. In the past I’ve thought LP2 would be OK if I were far enough back from the car in front of me because it, in theory, gives two possible escape paths: left or right of the car in front of me. It turns out that there might not actually be time for that, though, which leads to a second lesson.

Things can happen really, really fast. I was actually paying attention and thinking specifically about being hit from behind when this happened. I wasn’t thinking about work, or talking on the phone, or listening to the radio, or anything else unrelated to riding. On the contrary, I was actually thinking about my position in the lane and the effect it might have on my safety. I even saw the car in my mirrors approaching, but didn’t realize until it was too late to move that I actually needed to move.

Third, even if you ride defensively and carefully and try to take steps to protect yourself, you’re still very exposed to people driving large metal boxes that can, under the right conditions, completely and totally ruin your bike, your body, and your life. In this case I came out OK because I was offset from the center and the car that hit me was not. It was, all things considered, a relatively low speed event (he probably was going under 15mph) which is still a lot of kinetic energy with a mass that large. Again, training will very likely help minimize the likelihood of being in a crash, but it can’t prevent all of them. (Training can help reinforce good habits and identify bad ones!

Finally, people can be jerks or also very helpful. The coward that hit me and ran away without checking to see if I actually was OK when he was clearly at fault? That guys a total jerk.  In contrast, the two guys in the Pilot were very concerned about me, kept making sure I was OK (because adrenalin wears off), and one of them even tried (arguably by putting himself at some risk) to keep the coward from driving off. They absolutely did not have to do any of that, and I’m very grateful for their help. They were also in a hurry to leave, but stayed around because it was the right thing to do.

And, yeah, I’m serious about that dinner reward thing. (Again: UPDATE: MN State Patrol found the owner.)