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.
Thanks. I've used the word SMIDSY twice today explaining what happened to me. I realize I have to be even warier and more distrusting than I was. Because I want to keep commuting by bike, it's become a total joy to me to get my heart rate up, not sit in traffic, feel the sun on my face, etc. etc. But I have to ride with 600,000 cranky indifferents. Does this apply to Medicaid? Hope not.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
Medicaid is just insurance. There are dozens of companies that administer it. I got hit on a motorcycle. I went to get checked out. I was fine. When the urgent care clinic submitted it to my insurance, it got kicked back because my insurance company determined that any injury (or medical treatment) due me needed to come out of the insurance company of the guy who smacked me across I-5. Yeah. That company ruled I was at fault until I gave them a police report indicating that their driver was 100% at fault and violating three laws. But since I hadn't made the claim yet, I was out $200. Fuck insurance companies.
Fuck. I have the chick’s contact info. I told people at the hospital I was hit by a car. Am I gonna get a bill in the mail soon? Fuck.
Thank you—will do this ASAP then. Jesus I don’t know the first thing about this shit.
I told several people at the hospital, including some hospital insurance scribe, that I was hit by a car. Probably too late for that.Depending on the extent of injury and quality of insurance you have it sometimes better to say you had a bike accident and lie.