{"id":6,"date":"2007-06-29T07:54:58","date_gmt":"2007-06-29T12:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timeoff.org\/wp-rp\/?p=6"},"modified":"2021-01-29T16:28:47","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T21:28:47","slug":"near-miss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/2007\/06\/29\/near-miss\/","title":{"rendered":"Near Miss"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It was a nice day for motorcycling. I was riding through Manville, on the main drag, just minding my own business on my way to <a title=\"Costco\" href=\"https:\/\/www.costco.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Costco<\/a> for a bottle of vitamin E. There was a bit of movement immediately to my right at the curb line, movement that shouldn&#8217;t have been occurring. It was the occupied beat-up car I had noticed a moment earlier! The dopey girl was still yacking on her mobile phone as she lurched into traffic. &#8216;Traffic&#8217;, at this particular time, meant ME.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The car behind me hit their brakes &#8211; hard, I heard the screech of rubber on pavement. The next traffic light, half a block or so ahead, had opened a nice gap in the oncoming traffic. My escape path!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I jabbed the left handlebar forward. The motorcycle obediently fell off to the left in a hard lean. Simultaneously I dropped to the next lower gear and grabbed some throttle. The sound next to her open window must have shocked the yacker, she fell back some while I surged ahead and moved back into the correct lane. Mishap averted!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two lights ahead I caught the red. She was behind me but she stopped about three car lengths back, leaving a gap. I turned and glared, shook my head, mouthed &#8220;asshole&#8221;, turned back to the business at hand. The light went green. I eased off the clutch and continued on my way. I was thankful that my wife or son wasn&#8217;t with me. The added weight may have turned success into failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please, don&#8217;t drive distracted!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was a nice day for motorcycling. I was riding through Manville, on the main drag, just minding my own business on my way to Costco for a bottle of vitamin E. There was a bit of movement immediately to my right at the curb line, movement that shouldn&#8217;t have been occurring. It was the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/2007\/06\/29\/near-miss\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Near Miss<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[103,66],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}