What would you do?

[drgonzo]

I got taken out by another cyclist on the bike path here in NYC yesterday. The woman made the very bad decision to try and enter the bike path but realized at the last moment she couldn’t merge with the bike flow in her lane so she went across into oncoming traffic and crashed head on into me. Luckily we both avoided serious injury but my bike wasn’t as lucky. I’m still assessing the damage and hoping it will end up only being a bent front rotor.

I’ve been in countless close calls but this was my first collision where my bike got damaged. She admitted complete fault (kinda hard not to when she’s on the ground and facing the wrong direction of traffic!) but when I asked her if she’d be willing to give me her contact info in case the bike was seriously damaged, she refused. I decided to just let it go, told her that karma is a bitch and said goodbye.

I’ll admit that if it were a guy who ran into me, and he had the same attitude, I would have likely started a fight - but that’s just me being stupid. My question is this - besides my lame passive aggressive comment to her, what can anyone do in that situation? These bikes we ride are expensive!