You know what's an eye-opening experience? Lane-splitting through rush-hour traffic for 30 miles a day on a tall motorcycle.

1) Everyone is stoned. EVERYONE. You smell weed the entire way.

2) Half of the people are on their phone. So that's 50% of traffic that is not only chemically inebriated, but also distracted.

3) What's going to get you is the SMIDSY.

There are studies I can't find at the moment that indicate drivers in traffic see objects that look like cars. Vertical objects like motorcycles and bicycles? Those get filtered out like the invisible gorilla.

It's her fault. 100%. She hit you with a goddamn car in a parking lot. You get the consequences, though, because you're on a bicycle. So yeah - she needs to be paying your medical expenses (because here's a fun one: if you went to the hospital and reported that you were in an accident, YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE IS NOT GOING TO COVER YOUR BILL). But you also need to understand that the cars around you aren't trying to kill you, but they're also studiously NOT trying NOT to kill you.

I haven't been hit by a car in... two years now. But I've been hit by cars three times. Four, if you include the motorcycle. In all cases, it was people paying absolutely no goddamn attention and 100% their fault. In three cases the only way I could have avoided it was to not be in their vicinity at the time.

I think my primary skillz over the past 7000 miles have been widening my vicinity.